Fear and a False Dilemma

A small girl stands in a field and picks away at a daisy. She counts cheerfully consecutive numbers for each consecutive petal she pulls off the flower. One by one, they are carried into the wind and fall slowly to the ground. She is just about to reach the ninth petal when a booming voice coming out of a speakerphone shouts over her. The voice counts down, and the camera zooms in on the small girl’s eye, which has now shifted to something in the distance. As the camera zooms closer, the voice reaches zero, and all of a sudden footage of a nuclear explosion covers the screen. As the mushroom cloud expands, the screen slowly fades to black to reveal white, bold letters, reading "Vote for President Johnson On Nov. 3rd. The stakes are too high for you to stay home."Lyndon B. Johnson won the 1964 presidential election. Whether or not the infamous "Daisy Girl" campaign ad described above was integral to his landslide victory over his republican opponent Barry Goldwater is questionable. The ad was only played once and immediately pulled, but the point had been made by Johnson. Without a doubt, this ad marked a change in political campaigning and advertising history as one of the first outright examples of fear mongering.The appeal to fear is based off of an appeal to emotion, and the appeal itself is very simple. Logically, there are two things to consider. Either X or Y is true. But due to the appeal to fear, X is scary, and therefore Y must be true. As silly as this seems, we hear phrases and sayings encompassing this appeal more often than we think we do. Ones that we, as students, might have heard before include "If you do not graduate from college, you will die in poverty" or "If you smoke weed, you will get kicked out of this school and ruin your life." Graduating from college is neither good nor bad. Smoking marijuana is neither good nor bad. But we mentally apply both of these situations to their latter, more negative traits because of the appeal to fear that is brought upon us by outside influences, in this case, our parents and the school administration.Logically, both results exist as fallacies.The appeal to emotion is used in exploiting existing fears. More importantly, the false dilemma fallacy is often involved.The appeal to fear suggests that only the latter, less scary choice, is an option. In reality, other alternatives exist. For example, dropping out of college does not ensure a life laden in poverty.But there is a distinct difference between the appeal to fear in Johnson’s campaign and in politics in general, and in addressing teenage issues such as sexting and alcohol use. In Johnson’s day, in a nation slapped crimson by the Red Scare and deep in the guts of the Cold War, a nuclear war was very close to happening. The portrayal of a nuclear war incited fear in a person and garnered support for the person opposing the war. When it comes to sexting, however, exaggerated examples, although real, do not appeal to teenagers who may have contrary experience. The purveyor of these facts does not garner support. At least from my experience, Julia C. Fay–Tuesday’s Assembly speaker, received more laughs of ridicule and shaking, disapproving heads than serious, attentive faces.There’s no doubt that many of us who sat in Tuesday’s assembly experienced fear, a fear of the possible punishments that could result from the possible actions listed by the speaker.But this kind of fear, when drilled in the form of repeating slides, over and over, becomes repetitive and slightly ridiculous. First, several screenshots and examples of cyberbullying. Then, a screenshot of a snapchat from an anonymous boy uniquely named John that we were expected to believe was real. To top it all off, a story of a child who became liable for a grand total of a 80,000 due to a blunder on social media. The flashy examples and position as a lawyer created a false dilemma.There is never an excuse for cyber bullying, and sexting can certainly lead to unintended consequences. But bringing a speaker to Exeter to instill a culture of fear certainly isn’t the proper way to address it. Yet again, we must promote conversation, not intimidation.