Compelled by fear

In a milieu ruled by unelected authority who wield either a carrot or a stick, few learn from both stimuli simultaneously employed, especially where one method is easier in terms of behavior management.

For those who symbolically carry billy clubs, night sticks or bludgeoning batons, typically the proverbial stick trumps the carrot.

We are talking here about officials who would rather employ police powers, force, intimidation, threats and fear rather than the more complex combination of behavioral stimuli from education, incentives, rewards and basic rationality.

The choice of one over the other does not only involve an outward attitude towards those subject of motivation, but, in an inward reflective sense, it also involves the capacity of the person so authorized to understand one’s own exercise of power.

The choice to use intimidation and fear spans the whole spectrum from security guards who man gates and doorways, to the police empowered to maintain law and order, to the very top of the totem pole where commanders-in-chief, generals and ex-military preen and perch.

Note a case in point.

At the village gate of an upscale community, guards don masks only when cars approach. Never mind the rationale that underlies wearing one at this time of COVID-19. Their justification: they stupidly claim no one is around anyway. No one to fear.

Their uniforms imply that they had at least gone through some training on the value of discipline. While it was not expected that their education should include existential philosophy, all that was expected was that they would at least have learned elementary discipline the necessity for an imposition of fear.

That they learned nothing reveals the kind of education that molds security officers. Such lack of discipline in practicing two of the three simple steps to avoid infecting others and their families is not uncommon.

Simply climb the ladder from these guards all the way to the regional head of the police in these parts, to legislators and Cabinet men who violate safety rules, confident no one will hold them accountable. In each we see not simply the lack of discipline and a deliberate flaunting of basic rules, but also aberrant and negating attitudes towards the law.

Despite their training on self-discipline and disciplining others, apparently they’ve learned zilch. Where the options between carrots and sticks or Theories X and Y in motivation psychology are available, unfortunately their inherent predisposition compels employing primitive fear and brute intimidation as their default stimuli of choice.

Hence, a quick glance at our emerging society shows where health policies are drafted and implemented, not by scientists and medical professionals, but by “rebel killers” and leathernecks. Tanks, deadly assault rifles and combat fatigues are brandished to enforce health protocols. Medical quarantines are employed using threats.

Discern now a sick society where fear rules and civility is sidelined.

“In each we see not simply the lack of discipline and a deliberate flaunting of basic rules, but also aberrant and negating attitudes towards the law.

“We are talking here about officials who would rather employ police powers, force, intimidation, threats and fear rather than the more complex combination of behavioral stimuli.