Friday, February 07, 2014

Fifty States of Fear - NYTimes.com

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/fifty-states-of-fear/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

The British philosopher Bertrand Russell, writing as World War II was drawing to a close in Europe, observed that "neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear." Russell's point was that irrational fear can propel us into counterproductive activities, ranging from unjust wars and the inhumane treatment of others to more mundane cases like our failure to seize opportunities to improve our everyday lives.

---Steve

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