# Have there been any effective societies or governments run through fear **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 3, 2005, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-effective-societies-or-governments-run-through-fear/302179 "2005-05-03T04:06:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2005, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-effective-societies-or-governments-run-through-fear/302179/21 "2005-05-04T14:44:11Z")
**Sam** has a point. Societies are “law-abiding”, or follow a code of moral taboos, or whatever, because the alternative is perceived to be disorder and misery. But can we really call that a society _held together by “fear”_? Am I being _ruled_ by “fear” if my social conditioning is such that I feel it’s a good idea to buy quality tires for my car and buckle my seatbelt (fear of a crash?); to buy insurance, fix my roof and clear my storm drains (of my house getting flooded?); to educate my children (of causing them misery?); to punish thieves (of them coming after my goods if allowed to run free?); to be repulsed by the idea of marrying my sister (of freak babies?)? People would argue that’s just rational self-interest, codified into social mores and made enforceable because there are some members of the tribe that don’t quite get it. Once we focus the idea of rule-by-fear into the usual limited sense of rule-by-direct-threat-of-harm, yes, a society under that kind of rule can sustain for a while, but only as long as that threat is credible and the people respond to it. It can crumble pretty darn fast. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2005, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-effective-societies-or-governments-run-through-fear/302179/22 "2005-05-04T14:49:18Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > America is most certainly a culture ruled by fear, a heavy amount of it, no less than North Korea or the USSR, it’s just that we aren’t afraid of imminent bodily harm, but there are many forces compounded that can diminish our quality of life that are used to control us on an every day basis. Just because we don’t have an old style dictatorial regime that’s an easy target to point a finger at doesn’t mean we are any less ruled by fear. I’m really not afraid of any of the things you listed above, and honestly, I don’t know of many people who are. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2005, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-effective-societies-or-governments-run-through-fear/302179/23 "2005-05-05T05:30:44Z")
> [@Captain Amazing](#): > > I’m really not afraid of any of the things you listed above, and honestly, I don’t know of many people who are. Well you live in a completely different strata of society than I do apparently. I’m not terribly afraid of a lot of things I mentioned, but because there are certain properties I possess either inherently or through actions I have taken that protect me from things. For instance, I am probably not going to be charged for possession if I get caught with Marijuana, because I am white and am on a track toward material success. I know quite a few people who are terrified of the government, and appalled by the behavior associated with it in their name. Sam Stone: There is no such thing as a free society, that is patriotic propaganda that has no basis in reality. There are only degrees of tyranny. The United States has never been free in all of it’s history. We started out with slavery, the war that ended slavery introduced conscription. We live under a tyranny of the majority based upon legal precedents brought about by a litigious society. I understand that many people have decided just to accept that which they are not supposed to do as a matter of course, but for the people not willing to accept those strictures, the society can be rather hostile. The hostility can be simple derision, and in the case of ingesting or selling narcotics, can result in torture and permanent confinement. Many people in this country are willing to say “Of course it’s a free country, because I’m not interested in doing the things that are illegal.”, but a person’s lack of will to perform certain actions does not make it a free country. The United States in it’s ideal form would be a more or less free society, but that has never existed. If drugs, prostitution, public nudity and gambling were universally legal, then I’d be more willing to believe that this country is free. As it is, it has violated the first amendment by placing judeo-christian morality as it’s highest pinnacle. Even the non-fundamentalists that think it is ‘gross’ for someone to walk by naked, are tacitly accepting judeo-christian morality. Why should I be subject to someone else’s prudish morality? Why do I need to walk out of the house clothed when it’s 90 degrees out? If they don’t like it, they should not walk out of the house, I shouldn’t have a certain behavior forced upon me. And don’t give me health reasons, because walking around naked isn’t a health risk to anyone. So I have to call BS, on your differentiation between a free-society and a tyranny. There have been many societies that were ruled by the rule-by-direct-threat-of-harm. Feudal Japan, the Roman Empire, any Feudal society really. Then again, in the US, if I am suspected of selling drugs, the police can break into my home and if I try to stop them it will be ME breaking the law, and not them for violating my private property. So that’s pretty direct threat of harm in my book. Erek ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2005, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-effective-societies-or-governments-run-through-fear/302179/24 "2005-05-05T05:32:50Z")
Oh yeah, and let’s not forget the manufactured terrorist threat. I say it’s manufactured even if we take the stance that 9/11 was wholly and completely external. No conspiracy theorist BS. The war on “terror” reminds us all teh time that we need to ‘be afraid’. Erek ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2005, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-effective-societies-or-governments-run-through-fear/302179/25 "2005-05-05T05:59:01Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > How about society at all. Society is about fear. It is a fear that the familial structure is not enough to bind us to the rest of our species, that some codified and rigid system had to be created in order to protect us from that which we feared. > > I think a better question is, “Would society exist at all without the rule of fear?” > > Erek No probalby not, I made a post about that once. However there are values which the public internalize and those which they do not. And there are governments the people consider legitimate and those which they do not. A government that is at odds with the internal values of the people who live there (France under Nazi Germany, Muslim fundamentalists living in america friendly countries like Egypt, etc) and a government that is considered illigitimate would have alot of terrorism and internal strife and would probably deal with these problems through the use of widespread fear via torture, killings and kidnappings. Have any governments that resorted to this activity survived or did they all fall apart? ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2005, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-effective-societies-or-governments-run-through-fear/302179/26 "2005-05-05T10:12:56Z")
> [@Wesley Clark](#): > > No probalby not, I made a post about that once. However there are values which the public internalize and those which they do not. And there are governments the people consider legitimate and those which they do not. A government that is at odds with the internal values of the people who live there (France under Nazi Germany, Muslim fundamentalists living in america friendly countries like Egypt, etc) and a government that is considered illigitimate would have alot of terrorism and internal strife and would probably deal with these problems through the use of widespread fear via torture, killings and kidnappings. Have any governments that resorted to this activity survived or did they all fall apart? The Roman empire lasted for quite a while. I think every government has engaged in what you are talking about. I think there is kind of a naive view of governments as anything other than very large mafias. The British Empire was known for it’s brutal tactics. In a Democratic country, the government is always in flux, so what is your definition of government? The government America has now is decidedly different from the government we had in the 90s. Feudal governments often had little to do with the values of their citizens. European nobility were all interrelated and hung out together, ruling different areas of the continent. The average citizenry had little to say about what their government was. They regularly threw dissidents in jail on a whim. Those governments lasted for long periods of time. I think your question is too vague. Erek ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2005, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-effective-societies-or-governments-run-through-fear/302179/27 "2005-05-05T17:54:54Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > The Roman empire lasted for quite a while. I think every government has engaged in what you are talking about. I think there is kind of a naive view of governments as anything other than very large mafias. The British Empire was known for it’s brutal tactics. In a Democratic country, the government is always in flux, so what is your definition of government? The government America has now is decidedly different from the government we had in the 90s. > > Feudal governments often had little to do with the values of their citizens. European nobility were all interrelated and hung out together, ruling different areas of the continent. The average citizenry had little to say about what their government was. They regularly threw dissidents in jail on a whim. Those governments lasted for long periods of time. > > I think your question is too vague. > > Erek But those feudal governments were probably considered legitimate by the population, and probably were not diametrically opposed to what the people felt and stood for (the same way radical muslims in Egypt feel diametrically opposed or that people like McVeigh in the US felt diametrically opposed to the values of the government). Illigitimate governments that are diametrically opposed to the values of the citizens are like the ones established right after a military invasion between two very different cultures. I do not know if there are any long term governments that are considered illigitimiate because people will probably come to see the new government as legitimiate sooner or later. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2005, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-effective-societies-or-governments-run-through-fear/302179/28 "2005-05-05T18:31:19Z")
> [@Wesley Clark](#): > > But those feudal governments were probably considered legitimate by the population, and probably were not diametrically opposed to what the people felt and stood for (the same way radical muslims in Egypt feel diametrically opposed or that people like McVeigh in the US felt diametrically opposed to the values of the government). Illigitimate governments that are diametrically opposed to the values of the citizens are like the ones established right after a military invasion between two very different cultures. I do not know if there are any long term governments that are considered illigitimiate because people will probably come to see the new government as legitimiate sooner or later. Well, I think the idea of identifying with an ideologically oriented nation-state is rather new on the whole. The values of people generally have been feeding their families and just being able to live their lives on their land. Governments violate this all the time, they conscript people, overtax them etc… and survive for long periods of time. I doubt your average medieval peasant disagreed with a ruler on ideological terms unless perhaps some priest told them the Duke that ruled them was worshipping the devil. Erek [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-there-been-any-effective-societies-or-governments-run-through-fear/302179.md?page=1)