Fear is a
highly effective motivator. When threatened, people can be manipulated to do
nearly anything in order to save themselves. Often, fear is used by people who
are in authority, or people of a higher power; they use it to their advantage
and often gain more power using it. Fear instills a sense of urgency in the
people it is being used against; they feel as though the person officially
means business. In “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” they explain how you
live on tiny thread that is so easy for God to break, “The God that holds you
over the pits of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect
over a fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns
like fire, he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else” (154) This description places
a very real fear in the puritans, because it makes them realize how good they
needed to be in order not to be condemned to hell. Everyone has a fear of the
unknown, life after death goes along the same lines; the puritans scared everyone
straight by bringing in a higher power that warns about what happens to bad
people when they die. People also fear accusation, because innocent people are
found guilty all the time. Being falsely accused in medieval times often meant
death and that terrified people. In The Crucible, girls were being accused left
and right, so the use of scapegoats was really high. This is the same in many
other situations cause hysteria; in our little social experiment Maddi quickly
gave up one of her friends in order to save herself, she used scapegoats such
as “I’m not the only one in here that does it.” And “she was with me when I did
it” these let her avoid the blame and took the spotlight off her. Fear has many
different effects on people, but in the eyes of the person using it, it is a
very useful tool. When fear is used, it can make people fess up, or stand down
depending on the situation; if it is being used to call people out like our
experiment, or if it is used to eliminate rebellions, such as the KKK did during
The Civil Rights Movement. Fear is a motivator that is highly effective because,
depending on the situation, it can threaten your grades, the way people see
you, or even your life.
