The Impact of Fear on Human's Behavior

Fear can make humans do irrational things which can only help escalate the problem. In Phil Baker’s essay, “Fear”, he talks about how fear isn’t the only motivating factor behind violence but it’s always there. He also speaks on when people with shared values, religion, tradition, language, etc, are threatened, the group will do anything for survival. This leads to the group trying to get rid of the threat through violence. What Phil Baker speaks of is completely true. This is shown in the article McCarthyism, and the book, The Crucible.

First of all, in the article McCarthyism, people had fear of the communists invading the U.S. For example, because of this fear, Senator Joseph McCarthy rose to power by accusing others of communism. In the article it stated, “There were fears of a nuclear holocaust based on the knowledge that the Soviet Union exploded it’s first A-bomb in 1949.” This meant McCarthy was able to use the people’s fear of accusing other of communism to keep the safety of the people. Another example is when The House Comittee on Un-American Activists created a blacklist. In the article it says, “Actors, writers, and producers alike were summoned to appear the committee and provide names of colleagues who may have been members of the Communist Party. Those who repented and named names of suspected communists were allowed to return to business as usual. Those who refused… were cited for contempt.” This means that paranoia about communism spread and that if you were to refuse to give names of “suspected” communists then you would get in trouble.

In The Crucible, the people of Salem were easily tricked into believing witchcraft which led to huge conflicts to spread. For example, Abigail and other girls did things that were considered witchcraft in the forest and threatened the other girls saying, “Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shutter you.” This means that Abigail will kill them if any of the other girls told the truth about what happened in the forest, because of this the girls feared for their lives and accused other of witchcraft which did nothing but make matters worse. Another example is that everyone in Salem practiced christianity to reach their goal of a “city upon a hill”. In the book, Reverend Hale is one of the people who is very serious about catching witches, he states, “The jails are packed- our greatest judges sit in Salem now- and hangin’s promised”. This quote means that the jails in Salem are full of accused witches and that most will hang, this shows how much they are willing to do to clean the town of the ‘devil’ so they can reach their dream of a “city upon a hill”.

In the end, fear is one of the many emotions that can change our behavior and how we think. In Phil Baker’s essay, “Fear”, I agree that fear could lead to violent tendencies. This can be shown in the article and book McCarthyism and The Crucible.