"Has it ever occurred to you how astonishing the culture of Western society really is? Industrialized nations provide their citizens with unprecedented safety, health, and comfort. Average life spans increased fifty percent in the last century. Yet modern people live in abject fear. They are afraid of strangers, of disease, of crime, of the environment. They are afraid of the homes they live in, the food they eat, the technology that surrounds them. They are in a particular panic over things they can't even see--germs, chemicals, additives, pollutants. They are timid, nervous, fretful, and depressed. And even more amazingly, they are convinced that the environment of the entire planet is being destroyed around them. Remarkable! Like the belief in witchcraft, it's an extraordinary delusion--a global fantasy worthy of the Middle Ages. Everything is going to hell, and we must all live in fear. Amazing.
"How has this world view been instilled in everybody? Because although we imagine we live in different nations--France, Germany, Japan, the US--in fact, we inhabit exactly the same state, the State of Fear. How has that been accomplished?"
Evans said nothing. He knew it wasn't necessary.
"Well, I shall tell you how," he said. "In the old days--before your time, Peter--citizens of the West believed their nation-states were dominated by something called the military-industrial complex. Eisenhower warned Americans against it in the 1960s, and after two world wars Europeans knew very well what it meant in their own countries. But the military-industrial complex is no longer the primary driver of society. In reality, for the last fifteen years we have been under the control of an entirely new complex, far more powerful and far more pervasive. I call it the politico-legal-media complex. The PLM. And it is dedicated to promoting fear in the population--under the guise of promoting safety."
"Safety is important."
"Please. Western nations are fabulously safe. Yet people do not feel they are, because of the PLM. And the PLM is powerful and stable, precisely because it unites so many institutions of society. Politicians need fears to control the population. Lawyers need dangers to litigate, and make money. The media need scare stories to capture an audience. Together, these three estates are so compelling that they can go about their business even if the scare is totally groundless. If it has no basis in fact at all. For instance, consider silicon breast implants."
Evans sighed, shaking his head. "Breast implants?"
"Yes. You will recall that breast implants were claimed to cause cancer and autoimmune diseases. Despite statistical evidence that this was not true, we saw high-profile news stories, high-profile lawsuits, high-profile political hearings. The manufacturer, Dow Corning, was hounded out of the business after paying $3.2 billion, and juries awarded huge cash payments to plaintiffs and their lawyers.
"Four years later, definitive epidemiological studies showed beyond a doubt that breast implants did not cause disease. But by then the crisis had already served its purpose, and the PLM had moved on, a ravenous machine seeking new fears, new terrors. I'm telling you,this is the way modern society works --by the constant creation of fear. And there is no countervailing force. There is no system of checks and balances, no restraint on the perpetual promotion of fear after fear after fear...."
"Because we have freedom of speech, freedom of the press."
"That is the classic PLM answer. That's how they stay in business," Hoffman said. "But think. If it is not all right to falsely shout 'Fire!' in a crowded theater, why is it all right to shout 'Cancer!' in the pages ofThe New Yorker? When that statement is not true? We've spent more than twenty-five billion dollars to clear up the phony power-line cancer claim.*'So what?' you say. I can see it in your face. You're thinking, we're rich, we can afford it. It's only twenty-five billion dollars. But the fact is that twenty-five billion dollars is more than the total GDP of the poorest fifty nations of the worldcombined. Half the world's population lives on two dollars a day. So that twenty-five billion would be enough to support thirty-four million people for a year. Or we could have helped all the people dying of AIDS in Africa. Instead, we piss it away on a fantasy published by a magazine whose readers take it very seriously. Trust it. It is astupendous waste of money. In another world, it would be a criminal waste. One could easily imagine another Nuremberg trial--this time for the relentless squandering of Western wealth on trivialities--and complete with pictures of the dead babies in Africa and Asia that result."
He hardly paused for breath. "At the very least, we are talking about a moral outrage. Thus we can expect our religious leaders and our great humanitarian figures to cry out against this waste and the needless deaths around the world that result. But do any religious leaders speak out? No. Quite the contrary,they join the chorus. They promote 'What Would Jesus Drive?' As if they have forgotten that what Jesus would drive is the false prophets and fearmongers out of the temple."
He was getting quite heated now.
"We are talking about a situation that isprofoundly immoral. It isdisgusting, if truth be told. The PLM callously ignores the plight of the poorest and most desperate human beings on our planet in order to keep fat politicians in office, rich news anchors on the air, and conniving lawyers in Mercedes-Benz convertibles. Oh, and university professors in Volvos. Let's not forgetthem. "
"How's that?" Evans said. "What does this have to do with university professors?"
"Well, that's another discussion."