OF CRITICISM: Just how man acquired this basic fear it would be hard, if not impossible, definitely to determine, but one thing is certain, he has it in well developed form.
Some believe that this fear made its appearance in the mind of man about the time that politics came into existence. Others believe its source can be traced no further than the first meeting of an organization of females known as a “Woman’s Club.” Still another school of humorists charges the origin to the contents of the Holy Bible, whose pages abound with some very vitriolic and violent forms of criticism. If the latter claim is correct, and those who believe literally all they find in the Bible are not mistaken, then God is responsible for man’s inherent fear of Criticism, because God caused the Bible to be written.
This author, being neither a humorist nor a “prophet,” but just an ordinary workaday type of person, is inclined to attribute the basic fear of Criticism to that part of man’s inherited nature which prompts him not only to take away his fellow man’s goods and wares, but to justify his action by CRITICISM of his fellow man’s character.
The fear of Criticism takes on many different forms, the majority of which are petty and trivial in nature, even to the extent of being childish in the extreme.
Bald-headed men, for example, are bald for no other reason than their fear of Criticism. Heads become bald because of the protection of hats with tight fitting bands which cut off the circulation at the roots of the hair. Men wear hats, not because they actually need them for the sake of comfort, but mainly because “everybody’s doing it,” and the individual falls in line and does it also, lest some other individual CRITICIZE him.
Women seldom have bald heads, or even thin hair, because they wear hats that are loose, the only purpose of which is to make an appearance.
But it must not be imagined that women are free from the fear of Criticism associated with hats. If any woman claims to be superior to man with reference to this fear, ask her to walk down the street wearing a hat that is one or two seasons out of style!
The makers of all manner of clothing have not been slow to capitalize this basic fear of Criticism with which all mankind is cursed. Every season, it will be observed, the “styles” in many articles of wearing apparel change. Who establishes the “styles”? Certainly not the purchaser of clothes, but the manufacturer of clothes. Why does he change the styles so often? Obviously this change is made so that the manufacturer can sell more clothes.
For the same reason the manufacturers of automobiles (with a few rare and very sensible exceptions) change styles every season.
The manufacturer of clothing knows how the man-animal fears to wear a garment which is one season out of step with “that which they are all wearing now.”
Is this not true? Does not your own experience back it up?
We have been describing the manner in which people behave under the influence of the fear of Criticism as applied to the small and petty things of life. Let us now examine human behavior under this fear when it affects people in connection with the more important matters connected with human intercourse. Take, for example, practically any person who has reached the age of “mental maturity” (from thirty-five to forty-five years of age, as a general average), and if you could read his or her mind you would find in that mind a very decided disbelief of and rebellion against most of the fables taught by the majority of the religionists.
Powerful and mighty is the fear of CRITICISM!
The time was, and not so very long ago at that, when the word “infidel” meant ruin to whomsoever it was applied. It is seen, therefore, that man’s fear of CRITICISM is not without ample cause for its existence.
The fourth basic fear is that of:
THE FEAR OF LOSS OF LOVE OF SOMEONE: The source from which this fear originated needs but little description, for it is obvious that it grew out of man’s nature to steal his fellow man’s mate; or at least to take liberties with her, unknown to her rightful “lord” and master. By nature all men are polygamous, the statement of a truth which will, of course, bring denials from those who are either too old to function in a normal way sexually, or have, from some other cause, lost the contents of certain glands which are responsible for man’s tendency toward the plurality of the opposite sex.
There can be but little doubt that jealousy and all other similar forms of more or less mild dementia praecox (insanity) grew out of man’s inherited fear of the Loss of Love of Someone.
Of all the “sane fools” studied by this author, that represented by a man who has become jealous of some woman, or that of a woman who has become jealous of some man, is the oddest and strangest. The author, fortunately, never had but one case of personal experience with this form of insanity, but from that experience he learned enough to justify him in stating that the fear of the Loss of Love of Someone is one of the most painful, if not in fact the most painful, of all the six basic fears. And it seems reasonable to add that this fear plays more havoc with the human mind than do any of the other six basic fears, often leading to the more violent forms of permanent insanity.
The fifth basic fear is that of:
THE FEAR OF ILL HEALTH: This fear has its origin, to considerable extent also, in the same sources from which the fears of Poverty and Old Age are derived.
The fear of Ill Health must needs be closely associated with both Poverty and Old Age, because it also leads toward the border line of “terrible worlds” of which man knows not, but of which he has heard some discomforting stories.
The author strongly suspects that those engaged in the business of selling good health methods have had considerable to do with keeping the fear of Ill Health alive in the human mind.
For longer than the record of the human race can be relied upon, the world has known of various and sundry forms of therapy and health purveyors. If a man gains his living from keeping people in good health it seems but natural that he would use every means at his command for persuading people that they needed his services. Thus, in time, it might be that people would inherit a fear of Ill Health.
The sixth and last of the six basic fears is that of:
THE FEAR OF DEATH: To many this is the worst of all the six basic fears, and the reason why it is so regarded becomes obvious to even the casual student of psychology.
The terrible pangs of fear associated with DEATH may be charged directly to religious fanaticism, the source which is more responsible for it than are all other sources combined.
So-called “heathen” are not as much afraid of DEATH as are the “civilized,” especially that portion of the civilized population which has come under the influence of theology.
For hundreds of millions of years man has been asking the still unanswered (and, it may be, the unanswerable) questions, “WHENCE?” and “WHITHER?” “Where did I come from and where am I going after death?”
The more cunning and crafty, as well as the honest but credulous, of the race have not been slow to offer the answer to these questions. In fact the answering of these questions has become one of the so-called “learned” professions, despite the fact that but little learning is required to enter this profession.
Witness, now, the major source of origin of the fear of DEATH!
“Come into my tent, embrace my faith, accept my dogmas (and pay my salary) and I will give you a ticket that will admit you straightway into heaven when you die,” says the leader of one form of sectarianism. “Remain out of my tent,” says this same leader, “and you will go direct to hell, where you will burn throughout eternity.”
While, in fad, the self-appointed leader may not be able to provide safe-conduct into heaven nor, by lack of such provision, allow the unfortunate seeker after truth to descend into hell, the possibility of the latter seems so terrible that it lays hold of the mind and creates that fear of fears, the fear of DEATH!
In truth no man knows, and no man has ever known, what heaven or hell is like, or if such places exist,