Summary of the speech

Nothing to fear, except fear. The words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933, at a time when the financial system collapsed, when the world faced the paralysing fear of the Great Depression. This phrase does not respond to today's fears, but it does give them a name and draw attention to fear itself. The fear of American society has moved to the terrain of the psyche. Fears like anxiety, worry, terror, panic, and timidity. Where is fear born? The etymology of the word comes from the Greek myth of Phobos, from which we get 'phobia'. What is the value for the soul? What role does fear have in the cosmos, if indeed it has any? Darwin examined the legitimisation from the cosmic point of view. Fear is a "response to a stimulus". The response can be one of two things, as in the case of an attack: flight or flight.

Going back to Roosevelt, fear is important for living, and this is an extremely important legitimisation. Without fear we would stand in rainstorms without fearing lightning, without fear we would touch dogs with bared teeth. It is fear that makes us aware that there are dangers. Because self-preservation is a law of nature, well known even before Darwinists used it to explain economic tyranny, it is the first legitimisation of fear. The most significant idea that I worked on is true fear accompanied by belief. Because conscience experiences the world through fear and is blocked by our own beliefs. To cite an example, if I fear something or someone which I associate with a horrible quality, such as being a suicide bomber, this horrible quality enters the thing, in its very core and becomes an integral part and accompanies us with feelings. And likewise desire makes something desirable; disgust makes something hateful and horrible. The world turns into the evil that fear has bestowed on the object. This is a life-experience that all of us have had. And thus we end up living in a world of magic premonitions and suppositions about the future.

Fear projects possible consequences and imaginary beings. Citing Russell on the analysis of belief, the contents that we believe lead us to act, to put our beliefs into action, behaving in ways we believe in. The more motivated we are, the surer and more justified our way of seeing things becomes. If we were able to shake this belief system, our fears would not be so solid.

Social unity exists when there is a positive influence in reciprocal support. But this influence can also be negative, as Hobbes says, making each one of us an isolated and suspicious individual. With regard to the role of fear in politics, the state cannot count on fear to promote social unity. Often the State manages to reinforce beliefs with propaganda about imaginary objects that create fear, and then legitimates itself as the body that can protect citizens from fear. It can be useful to paraphrase Roosevelt again: nothing to fear except what you believe. Because one should not be blocked by our expectations of evil or that the world will turn into the evil that comes from our thoughts.

And finally, some questions: what is the importance of fear? Why does it exist? What legitimises it? Fear is innate not only in man, but in all that exists: birds, the sun and the moon. The Buddhists call this the world full of fear and terror.

Society has put security platforms in place, made appeals to moral courage, the ability to fight and keep fear at bay. Fear can paralyse even the smallest movement when we have a nightmare, and this instant of paralysis is the first freedom: we are linked to nothing except death, or the unknown and unknowable.

According to Aristotle, fear is the expectation of evil. Giving a name to evil forces us to act in a hostile way, increasing the energy and losing sight of the objective.