It All Began with Fear, by Gabrielle Bauer

The scariest thing about Covid was the fear it caused, the nonstop fear that was drilled into people. From Gabrielle Bauer at brownstone.org:

Ask people how they felt in March 2020 and they’ll probably tell you they were scared. My husband was scared. My Zoom shrink was scared. My writer friend from the wind-blown plains of Manitoba was scared. My New York cousin with the infectious laugh and big hair was scared. “I thought we were all going to die,” she told me later.

[This is an excerpt from the author’s new book Blindsight Is 2020, published by Brownstone.]

A few oddballs, like Laura Dodsworth, were not scared.  A UK journalist, photographer and filmmaker, Dodsworth had previously distinguished herself through her books about men, women, and body parts. One of her books inspired a documentary, 100 Vaginas, which a reviewer described as “an extraordinary and empowering spread of the legs.”

When Covid-19 came along, Dodsworth grew alarmed—not at the virus, but at the fear swirling around it. She watched the fear grow legs and wings and wrap itself around her country. What troubled her most was that her government, historically charged with keeping people calm during times of crisis, seemed to be amplifying the fear. The media, which she had expected to push back against government edicts, gave the fear train an extra shove. Whatever had happened to “keep calm and carry on?”

Dodsworth understood why a government might want to keep people afraid at this time: a scared populace would happily comply with the Covid restrictions, which presumably would keep everyone safer. It was for the public’s own good. But was it ethical to use fear in this way? 

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