A Strategy of Fear
Some commentators have observed that people in the UK seem more afraid of things than they used to be. Even in the long years of the Cold War, with the ever-present latent threat of thermonuclear war, most people got on with their daily lives without thinking about it all that much, with the possible exception of the 13 October days of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.
Polling commission by the ASI has revealed widespread pessimism and uncertainly about their futures in the Anxious Generation of 18-30-year-old people. But there is something wider that affects most age groups: it is fear, fear for themselves, the future, the environment, and for humanity itself.
Part of this can undoubtedly be attributed to the deliberate use of fear to make people comply with Covid lockdown rules, whether they made sense of not. But it is wider than Covid, and is fuelled by NGOs which fan fear to raise donations. They sell fear to encourage private citizens and public bodies to allocate funds to them. Some of the directors of leading charities are paid six-figure sums, even while urging the public to consume less.
They also use fear to push people into doing things they would not otherwise choose to do, and to push governments to do things that go beyond any electoral mandate.
The campaign against genetically modified organisms provides a good example. Greenpeace has taken a strong anti‑GMO stance, particularly on issues like Golden Rice. They’ve questioned its effectiveness and safety, urging that resources be shifted to ecological agriculture instead. Products that could save lives are boycotted out of a deliberately-created fear.
Critics argue that Greenpeace and similar groups may use alarmist language, describing the introduction of GMOs as potentially “playing with the lives of people,” which can amplify public fear. A public critique came from 107 Nobel Laureates, who demanded Greenpeace abandon its opposition, calling it based on "emotion and dogma contradicted by data." Regulatory bodies have used extensive studies to affirm the safety of GM foods.
GM opponents have been accused of introducing ‘artfully true’ statements that undermine clear scientific conclusions, coining terms such as ‘Frankenfoods’ to generate public alarm. This approach can sow doubt and concern, and may indirectly benefit fundraising by maintaining a sense of unresolved risk that encourages people to support them.
Smaller NGOs face competitive funding landscapes and sometimes are incentivized to present issues as urgent or dire to attract donor attention. Some analysts critique NGOs for acting to sustain their own relevance, "sustaining themselves” and planting perceptions of crisis accordingly. Oxfam long ago became more about being anti-business than about providing famine relief.
Fear of environmental degradation, of resource depletion, of pollution, plastics, or of ultra-processed foods all contribute to a pervading sense of helplessness that NGOs are only too ready to exploit.
The ‘Ultimate Resource’ of human ingenuity and resolve has solved problems in the past and can do so again. But it doesn’t need to do so against a background of people screaming in panic.
Madsen Pirie