I remember that ignorance is not a permanent condition, or rather it doesn’t have to be. I remind myself that knowledge is power and with power comes responsibility. While bubbles of ignorance rob people their power, no doubt, those bubbles are escapable. False prophets often arrogantly try to manipulate people who have not yet escaped the shackles of ignorance.
I have to remind myself to make sure I know who is merely ignorant and who is a fool or a power monger in search of fools to manipulate; who is wise and who is a false prophet. Misplaced fear spread by false prophets can be debilitating and harm us all, both as individuals and as a community.
More and more it seems fear is weaponized by false prophets who seek to spark violence. Those the false prophets incite to violence don’t even need to hate the people they are attacking. They just need to be afraid of the invented consequences of not attacking.
Good judgment is often needed to differentiate between real fears and false fear spread by manipulators. How to guard against being manipulated by fear? The first steps are to identify it and to recognize it as the cynical tactic that it is. Fighting fear is not easy at the community level, but personally I find it quite easy. Laugh and poke fun at the cynical efforts to stereotype and manipulate. Clowns in the circus are entertaining. Turing life into a circus is at best dumb and at worst down right mean.
