De Europa
Vol. 1, No. 1 (2018), 17-28
www.deeuropa.unito.it
Europe and its Fears in the Age of Anxiety: Historiography and
Perspectives
Gianni Silei1
1. Introduction
In 1946, Albert Camus wrote a series of contributions to Combat Magazine
titled Neither Victims nor Executioners. These articles were a profound reflection
on Europe’s war scars and the risk of a third World War: “The seventeenth century”
– he wrote – “was the century of mathematics, the eighteenth that of the physical
sciences, and the nineteenth that of biology. Our twentieth century is the century
of fear” (Camus 1946: 257).
It is a widespread public perception that the so called “Society of Fear”
started on September 11, 2001, but it was after the attacks of Madrid, in 2004,
that “American fear” also invaded Europe, tragically giving the full significance to
the expression coined by the editor of Le Monde, Jean-Marie Colombani: Nous
sommes tous Américains (Colombani 2001: 1). Therefore, concepts such as “Risk
Society” or “Uncertainty Society” have ceased to be topics for discussions
restricted to intellectual or academic circles and, amplified by the media, a debate
of global proportions has started (Rosenwein and Cristiani 2018: 110-120).
However, “Americans did not discover terrorism after September 11, 2001”.
Terrorism (and fear) “came to the forefront of American consciousness, and pop
culture, in the 1990s” (Kavadlo 2015: 2). According to David Lyon, “9/11 was
apocalyptic in the proper sense of the term”: the attacks on the Twin Towers have
simply revealed a generalised sense of uncertainty, anxiety and vulnerability that
was already present in Western collective sensibility (Lyon 2003: 17-18).
Although our age appears pervaded by a plethora of fears, this dimension is
not at all exclusive of what has been called the “postmodern condition” (Lyotard:
1979). Social fears have always existed, and they have emerged whenever human
beings and their communities have been forced to face catastrophic events, threats
or risk situations, both real and perceived. For instance, Lucien Febvre very
effectively summarised the dominant feeling in Europe in the sixteenth century:
Peur toujours, peur partout (Febvre 1942: 380). Fear is a primary emotion deeply
rooted in every aspect of human existence: it is “the original sin of life.” – wrote
Guglielmo Ferrero – “Every living creature capable of moving is frightening and
cause fright” (Ferrero 1947: 318).
1
Gianni Silei, University of Siena, gianni.silei@unisi.it
Europe and its Fears in the Age of Anxiety: Historiography and Perspectives
Is it therefore possible to study individual and collective fears with a
historiographical approach, that is to rationalise something so pervasive but at the
same time so irrational and elusive as emotions? This same question was posed by
Febvre in Sensibility and History, an essay published in 1941, where he complained
of a serious lack of historical investigation in this field: “We have no history of
Love” - he denounced – “We have no history of Death. We have no history of Pity,
or of Cruelty. We have no history of Joy” (Febvre 1973: 12-26). Febvre was
certainly not the first to raise the question of writing a history of feelings. From
Herodotus to Thucydides and Polybius, historians have always dealt with emotions.
However, it was only from the nineteenth century, with the emergence of cultural
history approach, that some of them, together with art historians or sociologists
tried to understand the role that they have played in the historical process.
The most significant contributions came in the twentieth century. In 1919,
Johan Huizinga, in The Waning of the Middle Ages, compared the mentality of the
ancients with the modern one, emphasising that during the premodern era “all the
things seemed more clearly marked than to us” and “the contrast between
suffering and joy, between adversity and happiness, appeared more striking”
(Huizinga 1924: 9-10). In the early 1930s, George Lefebvre published his works on
the Great Fear of 1789 (Lefebvre 1932, 1934), describing how France “became
gripped by an almost universal fear, shared by authorities and citizens alike” and
most of all showing that “fear bred fear” (Rudé 1973: x). In his already cited essay,
Febvre considered Huizinga’s study, and explicitly mentioned Henri Berr’s approach
based on historical psychology “of peoples and individuals”. At the same time, he
also declared that he had been influenced by the psychological theories that Henri
Wallon had included in an article published in the Encyclopédie française (Müller
1996, Neri 1996, Rosenwein 2001).
Febvre would deal with this issue few years later (Febvre 1956) in a review
dedicated to a study by Jean Halpérin focused on social security, which indirectly
confirmed that “every conception of insecurity embraces a notion of what security
is” (Vail 1999: 5). Except Ferrero and Bibó (Bibó 1997, 2015), in the following
decades, history of emotions remained matter for medieval and modern historians
that analysed this topic in biographical research, or in studies focused on collective
behaviours. This search area would have been finally expanded from the mid1970s, within studies centred on ‘private’ dimension, family or affective dynamics,
and gender relations or on history of mentality and sensibility (Ariès 1975, 1977,
1983; Delumeau 1978, 1983; Corbin 1982; Vovelle 1983).
It was in the mid-1980s that Peter and Carol Stearns presented a new
perspective based on the definition of emotionology (Stearns P.N. and C.Z. 1985:
813). This approach had been influenced by Norbert Elias (Elias 2010) as also as by
sociological and psychological studies published in the 1970s (DeMause 1975). It
was on these bases that the Stearns published their books on Anger and Jealousy
(Stearns C.Z and P.N. 1986, Stearns P.N. 1989), which were followed by a series of
individual and collective studies (Stearns P.N. 1999, 2006; Stearns P.N. and
Haggerty 1991, Stearns P.N. and Lewis 1999). The panorama was enriched with
further contributions and perspectives. Psychohistory, for example, was the
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dominant approach of Peter Gay’s inquiry into the life of bourgeoisie of Nineteenth
century Europe (Gay 1984-1996).
The definitive ‘institutionalization’ of the history of emotions would have
come in the 1990s. During this phase, in addition to English and French literature,
many other contributions were published in different languages (Placanica 1993;
Vegetti Finzi 1995; Rasini 2011; Frevert 2000, 2009, 2011, 2014; Borrero 2013). The
state of the art today is very different from that highlighted by Febvre. In fact, “In
the mid-twentieth century” – has rightly noted Plamper – “Febvre described the
‘history of feelings’ as almost ‘virgin territory’ […]. More than fifty year later, at
the beginning of the second decade of the twentieth-first century, this ‘terra
incognita’ is being measured and mapped, claims are being staked out” (Plamper
2012: 74).
2. Sources and Approach
What is fear? Is it a physiological and psychological response to external
stimuli or vice versa is it mainly a cultural product? And how can it be studied? In
his contribution previously mentioned, Febvre provided some examples of sources
that could be useful for the historian: “We have documents on moral conduct […];
artistic documents […]; and literary documents” (Febvre 1973). Another “fruitful
approach to the history of emotions” – as Max Weiss recently noted – “has been the
philological” (Weiss 2012: 1). More in general, scholars have used other diversified
sources such as diaries, wills, memoirs, personal writings, literature, artistic
production, and philosophical/theological works.
Since fear is both instinctive and cultural, it is of great importance that
historians would not be conditioned by visions or overly restrictive patterns. At the
same time, the emotional lexicon must therefore be sought wherever possible and
with an open approach towards contributions of other disciplines without however
being influenced by them (Plamper 2012: 33). Nevertheless, the historian should
not only look for the presence of sentiments but also their absence. As Barbara
Rosenwein has pointed out, historians must also be capable to read and interpret
metaphors, irony, even – especially above all – silences (Rosenwein 2010).
A major role in the creation and diffusion of collective fears, especially for
contemporary historians, has been played by media. This aspect has been widely
studied from different perspectives. In The Culture of Fear, for instance, Frank
Furedi provided a significant account of the increasing importance of the British
media (Furedi 1997). From the perspective of the historian, the relevant role of the
media in the creation of collective fears has roots that go back to the early stages
of the mass society, such as the satirical radio broadcast aired in 1926 from the
BBC’s Edinburgh studios, that described an imaginary strike degenerating and
caused disquiet and panic among many British listeners (Bourke 2005: 168-178).
Fear can be also fuelled by what has been called shock economy, that is
“corporations and politicians who exploit the fear and disorientation [...] to push
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Europe and its Fears in the Age of Anxiety: Historiography and Perspectives
through economic shock therapy” (Klein 2007: 25-26). This aspect is closely related
to the so-called “Politics of Fear”. By “political fear” Corey Robin means “a
people’s felt apprehension of some harm to their collective well-being – the fear of
terrorism, panic over crime, anxiety about moral decay – or the intimidation
wielded over men and women by governments of groups” (Robin 2004 : 2). “Politics
of Fear” also refers to another crucial aspect, that is the connection between
Power and Fear. As Guglielmo Ferrero wrote in 1942: “Power is the supreme
manifestation of the fear that man does to himself, despite the efforts to get rid of
it” (Ferrero 1942: 38). Even the relationship between Power and Fear has ancient
roots. For example, in the Palazzo Pubblico in Piazza del Campo in Siena there are
the Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s frescos named The Allegory of Good and Bad
Government. They date back to the first half of the fourteenth century and
describe the well-governed town as a prosperous and happy community. In these
frescos, the presence of an angel can be noticed. This angel, which protects from
above the city of Siena, is the embodiment of Securitas (Security) and holds in his
right hand a scroll on which one can read: Senza paura ognuom franco camini
(“without fear every man may travel freely”). The message is clear: in a wellgoverned town, there is no place for fear (Boucheron 2013) because an efficient
government provides security to its citizens.
Fear is also an extraordinary political weapon: politicians or governments can
inflate and use collective fears as a means of social control, to divert public
opinion from other issues, or to strengthen social cohesion against a real (or
imaginary) threat or an internal or external enemy. Recently, Ruth Wodak has
studied the phenomena of right-wing populism by showing the ways in which these
parties “successfully create fear and legitimise their policy proposals […] with an
appeal to the necessities of security” (Wodak 2015: 5). Moreover, as Carlo Ginzburg
has noted, the Power itself can inspire “Fear, Reverence, [and] Terror” (Ginzburg
2008 and 2017). At the same time, Power has not only this mighty aspect.
According to Ferrero, in fact, the link between Power and Fear is bidirectional:
Power inspires fear but can also experience fear (Ferrero 1942: 17) and this is
particularly true for totalitarian and authoritarian regimes.
Other questions arise: which social strata to study? Dealing with the history of
social fears in recent times in Western Europe, especially after the end of the
second World War, means, to a large extent, study the sensibility and mentality of
“that vast social universe constituted by the different strata of the middle class”
(Castronovo 2004 : 7). Middle class is traditionally sensitive to uncertainty
(Mulholland 2012), and “fear of falling” is probably the main phobia among both
the working and middle classes nowadays (Ehrenreich 1989).
All these aspects confirm that Fear is a multidimensional sentiment that
requires interrogating and confronting a variety of approaches, sources and social
actors. However, this is not enough. Each of these elements must be studied in
connection with “the world of experience and with institutions” and each
information must also be contextualised in terms of time: “Was what people in
1970s called ‘fear’ the same thing as it was in the 1870s?” – asked Joanna Bourke
echoing Huizinga’s warnings – “Probably not” (Bourke 2005: 6). Moreover, each
emotion must be also contextualised on the “geographic-cultural” level. It is
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unquestionable that large part of contributions on fears are Eurocentric, WesternEuropean centred or American-centred: even though from this point of view thing
are gradually changing, some recent studies have underlined this “unmistakable
lacuna in the history of emotions” (Weiss 2012: 8).
3. Contemporary Europe and its fears
What are the roots of contemporary fears? Secondly, can we somehow
advance a sort of periodization of them? According to many interpretations, La
Belle Époque marks the apogee of European expansion, the age of the triumph of
science and technology and it has been described as an age of great optimism.
However, it is precisely in that phase of great transformations that some ancient
collective fears grew, and the germs of new alarming apprehensions spread out.
So, even though this could be interpreted as a paradox, the roots of contemporary
fears must be sought during the so-called Belle Époque (Silei 2008).
During this phase, some fears changed, evolved and became ‘modern’. One
example is the coming of the antisemitism based on social Darwinism, racism and
conspiracy theories that emerged alongside the ‘old’ antisemitism based on
religious considerations or blood accusation. Quite often, to use Delumeau’s words,
a single fear gave rise to a “procession of fears”, triggering collective hysteria or
generating craze or ‘moral panic’ epidemics (Hillgartner and Bosk 1988).
Sometimes, fears left the impression of disappearing, but then, like a karstic river,
they re-emerged some time later.
In order to periodise fear, we should to distinguish between ‘conjunctural’
fears and ‘long-term’ fears. Many of these ‘conjunctural fears’ are linked to the
most relevant turning points of the twentieth century: the two World Wars and the
Bolshevik Revolution. After October 1917, in particular, the “spectre” that haunted
Europe since mid-nineteenth century became tangible, spreading the fear of chaos
and so generating the first and second “Red Scare”. To these events should be
added the impact of the main economic crises. In the interwar years, 1929 crisis,
together with the fear of Bolshevism would have fatal consequences for some
fragile European liberal democracies such as Italy and Germany. After 1945, other
crises acted as trigger factors of fears: firstly, the economic instability caused by
the end of the Bretton Woods as a consequence of the so-called “Nixon shock”,
then the two Oil Shocks of the 1970s, and the effects determined by 2008 crisis.
In addition to these great historical, fault lines, some ‘long-term fears’ should
also be considered. For example: fears related to the coming of the mass society,
to the effects on social stratification of the changes in the production system (from
fordism to post-fordism), the changing of dominant economic paradigms (from
keysianism to neoliberalism and flexible capitalism), the dramatic consequences of
the Information Technology revolution and the process of globalization.
Among the long-term fears, probably the most persistent one is the idea of
the decline of Western civilization. This malaise is strictly connected to the end of
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Eurocentrism and often associated with concepts as decadence and degeneration
that, even in this case, emerged during the Belle Époque. After the first post-war,
this feeling of uncertainty was so deep that seemed to pervade every area of
knowledge, as evidenced in The Decline of the West by Oswald Spengler or in
Thomas Mann’s considerations on the crisis of modernity.
Another relevant turning point was the second post-war. One year before the
end of the most terrible conflict in human history, Francis Bacon painted Three
Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion. This work, that symbolised the
human condition, but above all was a grotesque and disturbing depiction of the
horrors of the Second World War and a symbol of its legacy, shocked the public
(Miles 2010). In 1947, Wystan Hugh Auden reflected on the decline of Western
culture after the end of the war, underlying that “the anxieties exacerbated by
wartime” did not “evaporate”, but remained, along with a sense of profound
emptiness, and influenced the post-war years (Jacobs 2011: xv).
The Second World War brought as legacy a new and terrifying fear: that of a
nuclear Armageddon. Confirming what Jean Delumeau had observed for some
premodern fears, the fear of a world war fought with atomic weapons re-emerged
periodically, sometimes reaching dramatic peaks. Even though, paradoxically, just
the balance of terror would have guaranteed to Europe decades of peace, there is
no doubt that the atomic age and the climate of the Cold War multiplied the sense
of anxiety, fear and paranoia. There was not only the ‘classic’ fear of the enemy –
external or domestic – but also a deep concern that resulted in the realization that
a weapon as powerful as the atomic bomb could wipe out not only a nation, but
also the entire human race. Under the ashes, the fear of a nuclear holocaust, the
nightmare of a communist revolution or invasion and all the others fears related to
military, political, and economic confrontation between the two superpowers
would persist until the collapse of the Berlin Wall.
The extraordinary growth phase that started in the 1950s apparently
inaugurated a new season of confidence and optimism. A crucial role in reassuring
and protecting European population was played on one side by the active role of
the state in the economy and on the other side by the Welfare State. Keynesianism
and Welfare State provided full employment, social insurance, health, homes,
education and culture, social protection to the weaker sectors of societies from the
cradle to the grave (Urwin 1989: 152). More in general, these policies, at least until
the mid-1970s crisis, proved to be an excellent instrument for redistributing
wealth, and favouring social upward mobility.
During the Golden Age, Europeans seemed to forget the trauma of mass
insecurity (Judt 2008). Indeed, the second post-war years were crucial, because
during this phase, besides the ‘Americanization’ of Western European popular
culture, there was also a sort of process of ‘Americanization’ of collective fears.
Moreover, even the “Glorious Thirty Years” of Western civilization had their own
fears (Greif 2015, Immerwahr 2016). The Fear of “the Other”, in its various
declinations (ethnic, moral, political, gender) and fear of any deviant behaviour,
for instance, remained and periodically emerged. The common denominator of
many of these fears was the ‘classic’ search for a scapegoat considered a threat for
societal values (Cohen 1972, Goode and Ben Yehuda 1994). Particularly interesting
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was the fear of juvenile criminal gangs or moral panic against the first youth
countercultures (Teddy Boys, Mods, Rockers and so on) in the 1950s and 1960s.
After the watershed of the mid-1970s, other fears emerged or reappeared:
fear of crisis and social downgrading, fear of crime and of the spread of drugs, fear
of internal terrorism, then, in the 1980s the irrational fear of being infected by
AIDS, immediately labelled the “gay plague”, for instance (Alcabes 2009, Mnookin
2011). More recently, although the improvement in living conditions determined by
scientific and technological advancement, even fears and distrusts related to
modernization re-emerged, often blend with conspiracy theories or denialism of
various kinds.
4. Conclusions
According to some pessimistic interpretations, “the hundred years after 1900
were without question the bloodiest century in history” (Ferguson 2006, Conquest
1999, Todorov 2001). At the same time, the twentieth century was a century of
impressive development and extraordinary economic and social changes. After 1989
and 1991 events, the fragile balance achieved after the end of World War II has
been broken with relevant consequences on the ideological level (Stone 2014).
At the turn of the Millennium, also those views based on the triumph of the
Western civilization against the Communist threat and on Fukuyama’s “End of
History” paradigm have come to an end (Fukuyama 1989 and 1992). In this “postAmerican world” (Zakaria 2008) fear and anxiety have risen, multiplied by new
internal and international scenarios. Western society is now pervaded by a vague
sense of uncertainty. Paraphrasing Pascal’s Pensées, Nicolas Baverez attributed this
widespread malaise to the sensation of taking a road leading towards the unknown
(Baverez 2008). Furthermore, our ‘liquid society’ is increasingly obsessed with
prevention (Bauman 2006). We all aspire to zero risk, even if we all know that zero
risk is a nonsense (Sofsky 2005, Beck 2007, Curbet 2008). The paradoxical
consequence is that “in seeking to avoid fear we may have become more fearful
than necessary. Our emotional vulnerability has increased” (Stearns 2006: ix).
What solutions, then? Fear can paralyse societies but can also be a powerful
driving force for positive change (Boucheron and Robin 2015); in other words, it
can be both a factor of decline or progress. A possible antidote to the multitude of
fears that seems to surround post-modern human condition in the West comes from
History itself. In 1930, Sigmund Freud pointed out that “civilised man has
exchanged a portion of his possibilities of happiness for a portion of security”, thus
underlying the intimate (and delicate) connection between security and freedom.
This aspect is of crucial importance. During an historical phase characterised by a
prolonged state of fear and anxiety, the main risk for a community is opting for
give up liberty for security. Historicise past and present fears, can help to
understand, overcome them and maybe to avoid this risk. As Jean Delumeau has
argued, we must remember that “throughout a community’s history, fears change
[…] but Fear remains”, and that “despite these threats, at least in the West, we
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are privileged. Our ancestors were far more afraid than we are. But, by reducing
the threats they feared, we have created new ones which must not be neglected”.
The obsession with security it is not a desirable way to live: “Man’s fate is to live
in a certain concern, because the counterpart of human freedom is the risk”
(Delumeau 1993: 17 and 23).
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