The term “monger” is a wonderful word that has largely fallen out of regular use in modern American English. It means “one who peddles or sells something.” The words “fishmonger” or “cheesemonger” may be somewhat familiar as they are used occasionally to refer to someone who either sells fish or cheese. Then there are terms like “warmonger” which is someone who sells the idea of war. What all mongers have in common is that they have something to sell. Mongers do not exist for the good of society, they exist to profit from selling their goods. This is not always a bad thing, as in the case of fishmongers and cheesemongers and others who sell us the necessities of daily life, but even with such tangible items there has always been the warning of “buyer beware.” Things are not always as they seem. In the middle ages, mongers or peddlers were generally regarded with a great deal of suspicion because they were known to mask the defects in their products in order to make them sell. Even to this day salespeople do not have the best reputation for being trustworthy, but of all the mongers out there selling questionable goods the most prevalent by far these days seems to be the fear monger.
Fear mongering is a very lucrative profession, since it takes very little investment of one’s own resources in order to profit from the fears of others. Fear mongers, like all other mongers, are in business for profit. But unlike other mongers, fear mongers profit by making things look worse than they really are. Preachers and politicians have long had the reputation of selling fear, but they certainly aren’t the only ones. Do this and all your worst fears will come true, or don’t do this and all your worst fears will come true; either way the fear monger uses fear to get what he or she wants. We have had a heavy dose of fear mongering in our country lately; some of it has been around the issue of healthcare reform; some of it has been around the issue of racism. The dynamics are much the same: convince people that they should be afraid of something or someone and you can get them to do almost anything. People who use fear to get what they want live in a perpetual Halloween: always trying to make things that aren’t all that scary, look terrifying.
What separates Halloween revelry from fear mongering though, is that we know Halloween is a joke. Fear mongers would have us believe that the creatures in our homes and streets on October the 31st are actually ghouls and goblins; they would have us see the mask and not the child beneath it. Fear mongers are there to sell us the idea that the boogey man is real and lurking around the corner. These peddlers of paranoia want us to believe that they are the only ones who can keep us safe and therefore we should entrust all our faith (not to mention our resources) to them.
The simplest way to fight fear mongers is to remember that they, like all mongers, are there to sell us something. They operate on the same principle of supply and demand as any other vendor. How do you put someone out of business? Don’t buy their goods. Ideas, like any other product, deserve a good inspection before they are purchased outright. Check to see if this fear is a legitimate concern, or just a mask on an innocent child. Invest your faith and your resources in something greater than fear and hope that maybe, just maybe, if we stop buying fear then the mongers will stop selling it.
Fear mongering is a very lucrative profession, since it takes very little investment of one’s own resources in order to profit from the fears of others. Fear mongers, like all other mongers, are in business for profit. But unlike other mongers, fear mongers profit by making things look worse than they really are. Preachers and politicians have long had the reputation of selling fear, but they certainly aren’t the only ones. Do this and all your worst fears will come true, or don’t do this and all your worst fears will come true; either way the fear monger uses fear to get what he or she wants. We have had a heavy dose of fear mongering in our country lately; some of it has been around the issue of healthcare reform; some of it has been around the issue of racism. The dynamics are much the same: convince people that they should be afraid of something or someone and you can get them to do almost anything. People who use fear to get what they want live in a perpetual Halloween: always trying to make things that aren’t all that scary, look terrifying.
What separates Halloween revelry from fear mongering though, is that we know Halloween is a joke. Fear mongers would have us believe that the creatures in our homes and streets on October the 31st are actually ghouls and goblins; they would have us see the mask and not the child beneath it. Fear mongers are there to sell us the idea that the boogey man is real and lurking around the corner. These peddlers of paranoia want us to believe that they are the only ones who can keep us safe and therefore we should entrust all our faith (not to mention our resources) to them.
The simplest way to fight fear mongers is to remember that they, like all mongers, are there to sell us something. They operate on the same principle of supply and demand as any other vendor. How do you put someone out of business? Don’t buy their goods. Ideas, like any other product, deserve a good inspection before they are purchased outright. Check to see if this fear is a legitimate concern, or just a mask on an innocent child. Invest your faith and your resources in something greater than fear and hope that maybe, just maybe, if we stop buying fear then the mongers will stop selling it.
Blessings,
Fr. Kevin+
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