In defence of fear: COVID-19, crises and democracy

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 crisis has served not just to instil fear in the populace but to highlight the importance of fear as a motivating dynamic in politics. The gradual emergence of political-philosophical approaches calling for concern for ‘positive’ emotions may have made sense under non-pandemic conditions. Now, however, describing fear in the face of a deadly pandemic as ‘irrational’ or born of ‘ignorance’ seems ‘irrational’ and ‘ignorant’. In this article, we draw upon the work of John Gray and behavioural science to present a defence of fear. We show how the pandemic has highlighted deficits in the work of four thinkers highly critical of fear: Martha Nussbaum, Zygmunt Bauman, Hannah Arendt and Sara Ahmed. We argue that, if such approaches are to be of value in anything other than optimal conditions, then they have to acknowledge the fundamental role of fear in helping human beings to pursue fundamental interests.

KEYWORDS:

• Fear
• emotions
• irrationality
• politics
• public health

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the editor and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflicts of interest were reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Dan Degerman’s work on this was supported by the Leverhulme Trust [grant reference: ECF-2020-583].

Notes on contributors

Dan Degerman

Dan Degerman is a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Bristol, and currently working on a project exploring the emotional and political consequences of self-stigma among individuals with mental disorder. His recent work has been published in Global Discourse, Theory & Event and Citizenship Studies.

Matthew Flinders

Matthew Flinders is Professor of Politics at the University of Sheffield and Vice-President of the Political Studies Association of the United Kingdom. He was a member of the ESRC Council from 2018 to 2020 and now sits on the Higher Education Policy Committee of the British Academy. He has published widely in the areas of governance, public policy and political disaffection.

Matthew Thomas Johnson

Matthew Johnson is a Senior Lecturer in Politics, Lancaster University, Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and Editor of Global Discourse. He has published widely on issues in political thought and on public policy with regard to economic insecurity and the health case for Universal Basic Income.