Fear is one of the most common and widespread human experiences. We live in a world that is dangerous, even treacherous, and our own perceptions are finite and fallible. That’s why we may not know about some dangers, or we may fail to notice some dangers, and some dangers in the world may not even look like dangers.

Given these truths about the nature of the world and the nature of our perception, educating each other—especially the well-informed educating the less informed or the ill-informed—about dangers is an important, essential part of human society. For example, whether experts such as meteorologists inform about an impending tornado or storm, thereby helping people prepare by stocking up or retreating into shelters or evacuating as is feasible or essential, this type of warning serves a valuable role.

Sometimes, however, such delivery of warnings about danger can degenerate into fear-mongering, where dubious or fictitious messages are shared on social media about aggressions committed by a particular group, thereby sparking frenzy and triggering violence. Such fear-mongering needs to be prevented.

How can we know whether a particular activity is a warning or whether it is fear-mongering? We can consider three factors to differentiate between the two: the content of what is spoken, the intent with which it is spoken, and the consequence of that speech.

The fundamental difference between warning and fear-mongering is whether what is spoken is actually true to the extent that it is reasonably possible to ascertain the truth. When someone speaks or shares a message about some danger that is untrue, and especially when they themselves know that it is untrue, then it certainly falls in the category of fear-mongering. In contrast, when they share a message that is true, and they themselves know that it is true, then it is a warning.

What about times when somebody believes something to be true when it is actually untrue, or when someone wants us to believe that it is true when they know that it is untrue? In the first case, it is important for those who are sending or sharing a message likely to create fear in people—the recipients of that message—to be responsible and verify as thoroughly as possible the veracity of the message. Honest mistakes can sometimes happen because we all are finite and fallible human beings. However, if such mistakes lead to untrue statements about imminent danger being transmitted as if they were true, this will lead to not only people becoming unnecessarily fearful but also the senders of such messages eventually losing credibility. They will become like the traditional story of the boy who cried wolf too often and was eventually not believed when an actual wolf came by.

To consider the case when somebody knows something to be untrue and yet wants others to believe that it is true, we need to consider the second criterion: intent. The Bhagavad Gita (18.35) declares that fearfulness is one of the typical thought patterns of an intelligence infected by the mode of ignorance. What this generally means is that a person with such an intelligence is prone to habitual and unnecessary fear. But what can also be inferred from this is that some cynical people may exploit this human weakness and deliberately stoke fear in others, often with an overt or covert agenda to secure compliance and control over others. When the intent is to force people through fear into making choices that align with the speaker’s wishes, this constitutes fear-mongering. However, when the intent is to help people have the necessary information so that they can make more informed and healthy choices, then words spoken with such an intention comprise warning, not fear-mongering.

Fear can often be used by religious organizations to compel and constrain believers into adherence to particular behavioral patterns. This fear may be about hell in the next life or even about the hellish nature of mundane reality in this life. While it is true that we all need to be warned about the dangers of indiscriminate indulgence, especially in an age and culture where such indulgences are incessantly glamorized and rationalized, such education about the hazards of indiscriminate indulgence can be considered educational warnings. However, when the dangers are exaggerated, and when the education provided centers only or primarily on fear and fearsome truths without providing a holistic worldview that kindles faith, hope, and divine purpose, then such one-sided education may be provided with less-than-best intentions and can border on fear-mongering.

The Bhagavad Gita itself offers a model of such holistic education. Though there are warnings about the nature of indiscriminate intelligence and the nature of the world, the overall emphasis is on providing a broad and inclusive worldview that outlines a variety of choices for people at various levels so that they can choose judiciously from their place and at their pace.

This brings us to the last parameter for differentiating between warning and fear-mongering: the consequence of what is spoken. If the consequence is that what is spoken about danger disempowers people, inducing within them a fog of fear by which they feel they have no option except to make a particular choice—lest they be doomed—then such disempowering transformation of information is likely to be fear-mongering.

But when the result is that people feel empowered with greater clarity of vision, by which they can more vividly see which choice will lead to which consequence and why, they become empowered to make better choices. Such transmission of information is an educational warning and certainly not fear-mongering.

Summary:

  • Given that the world is dangerous, even treacherous, and given that our perceptions are finite and fallible, we all need warnings about possible dangers so that we can stay safe.
  • Fear-mongering is also an inevitable danger in human communication, wherein the receivers of the message live in unnecessary and unhealthy fear, and over time, the transmitters of such messages lose credibility.
  • To differentiate between educational warnings and fear-mongering, consider three criteria: the content of what is spoken (whether it is true or untrue), the intent with which it is spoken (whether to help people with information to make good choices or to gain compliance and control over those people), and the consequence (whether people feel empowered with clarity of vision about which choice will lead where or disempowered by a fog of fear).

Think it over:

  • Recollect an incident where an educational warning protected you from danger.
  • Recollect an incident where you were targeted by fear-mongering, and focus especially on how you came to realize that it was a false alarm.
  • Explain the three criteria that can be used to differentiate between educational warnings and fear-mongering.

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18.35 And that determination which cannot go beyond dreaming, fearfulness, lamentation, moroseness and illusion – such unintelligent determination, O son of Pṛthā, is in the mode of darkness.