‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. So said Franklin D Roosevelt in his 1933 inauguration speech. He was paraphrasing the American philosopher Henry David Thoreau, author of Civil Disobedience – more on which later.
Fear is a concept – or indeed a feeling – that is ingrained in many of us these days. The so-called war on terror has waxed and waned in its threat to society since the September 11 attacks in 2001. There have been moments in the past 21 years when these threats have felt very real. Coronavirus brought with it from Wuhan a fear of death, ubiquitous on our streets and in our homes since March 2020. More recently, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has inspired a tsunami of fear that we are heading into another world war.
