Why worry?

As a distributor of The Light newspaper, one of the ironies of the heckling I sometimes hear is the accusation of fascism by people who behave like fascists. Similarly ironic is the criticism that colleagues and I are spreading doom and gloom. This would be fair if The Light only covered the adversities we face, but it also has plenty of positive messages.

The critic, meanwhile, is typically someone who watches ‘the news’ on television, with the daily dose of crime and catastrophe.

A few years ago I saw an Extinction Rebellion march in London. Among the gathering was a woman bearing a placard imploring: ‘you need to be scared’. I asked her about this, and she told me that as a schoolteacher she regarded children as more amenable to fear of the future, hoping that their sense of a climate emergency would lead them to take the drastic actions necessary to save the planet.

There are certainly causes for concern for society, young and old alike. As a parent I try not to think too much about the prospects for my children in a looming totalitarian technocracy. But this peril is never mentioned in schools, where the emphasis is on compliance and stifling of debate. Instead, younger generations are given official narratives on what to fear: global boiling, war, terrorism, misogyny, racism, a resurgence of 1930s-style fascism and deadly pandemics.

Such phenomena are exaggerated, if not fabricated. But they ate pushed for a reason: climate crisis for the ‘net zero’ carbon purge; risk of war for conscription; terrorism for digital identity; racism to undermine the host community; contagious disease to get everyone injected with ‘vaccines’.

A broader purpose of these scares is to maintain citizens in a perpetual state of alertness, and subconscious fear. This makes peoples easier to control, because they are likely to support authoritarian action. Air passengers accepted the need for stricter gate security after the 9/11 event. The irritating ‘see it, say, sorted’ mantra on train journeys conveys a message that lurking strangers could harm you at any time, and that we depend on the police for our safety.

The Left and Right of the political divide are manipulated to gain consent for heavy-handed state intervention. Immigration, a prominent concern of patriots, is being used by the establishment to overcome resistance to a national digital identity system.

People opposed to dinghies crossing the English Channel, bringing illegal immigrants who are accommodated in four-star hotels at public expense, while being perceived as a hazard to women and children, want the government to act.

Thus they will agree with the proposed means of determining whether someone is here legally or not – and that entails digital identity for all.

The Left, with its puritanical ideology, is also lured into a digital matrix. Perceived propagation of ‘hate’ on the internet justifies cancelling and criminalising of dissenting opinion. Nobody should be allowed to post online without identifying themselves, so that punitive action may be taken if they cause offence. Thus the Left supports the Online Safety Act and its giant stride towards imposition of digital identity for all internet users.

Draconian laws and policies are enabled by an atmosphere of fear. Official scares are instrumental, but they have a more significant use for the authorities, by distracting people from the truth. The real danger is from the government itself, and its global overlords. The Great Reset is not a wild conspiracy theory but an actual conspiracy.

Yet we should not worry. While fear is an emotion rather than a cognitive stance, it can be alleviated by a positive outlook, which is always possible whatever the adversities. The powers-that-be want you to waste nervous energy on hyperbolic threats to your health and safety, because that reduces your resilience and ability for rational thinking.

It’s not an easy doctrine to follow, and we should not ignore injustice and tyranny, but as Bobby McFerrin sang:

Don’t worry, be happy.

Niall McCrae is a social commentator and an officer iof the Workers of England trade union. He was previously a senior lecturer in mental health at King’s College London. His books include The Moon and Madness (2012), Echoes from the Corridors (with Peter Nolan, 2016), Moralitis: a Cultural Virus (with Robert Oulds, 2020) and Green in Tooth and Claw: the Misanthropic Mission of Climate Alarm (2024).  He writes regularly for The Light newspaper.

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