Fear played an important role in the development of human civilisation. From fear of the unknown to fear of the known, humanity has struggled to overcome different variants of fears. In this process, humanity overcame all the tremendous challenges once thought impossible. Thousands of years ago humans conquered the fear of fire, wild animals and harsh climates. Imagine once humans were fearful of the deadly waves of water in oceans, and then they discovered primitive rafts or canoes to cross open oceans while migrating from Asia to Australia around 50,00060,000 years ago.
It was the fear that stopped humans for millions of years from going near water and then they built naval powers, bridges, oceanic routes and sea residences. Once humans learned how to overcome fear, they became invincible creatures and crossed cultural and civilisational barriers to advance their potential. The 21st century is the battleground of overcoming new fears and advancing humanity in different spheres.
In the 21st century, great powers are competing with each other through trade, technology and innovation. Fear of competition and uncertainty pushes China and America to develop different tangible and intangible solutions to human dignity, rights and sustainability. This fear of domination by the other is causing quick discoveries like Artificial Intelligence, transformative technologies and scientific inventions in different fields from space to day-to-day market accessible commodities. For example, fear of domination in the consumer markets led China and America to produce efficient, high-end and low-price products which eventually helped humans afford and access more products and services.
Social media is a productive tool where fears of violence, conflicts and hegemonic agendas of others can easily be expressed by people to confront their traumas and phobias. Social media was the product of fear – fear of human isolation. It was created to connect and collaborate among societies. The outcome of this fear-driven product helped humanity to advance in unprecedented ways where millions of people can deal with their fears and feelings.
The recent summit and mega show of the SCO at Tianjin was a power show of East against West which arose from the fears of Western civilisation. The middle emerging states and Eastern states are developing new routes of diplomacy and cooperation through regional comprehensive measures to overcome the prolonged fear of Western hegemony. Whenever humans have determined to overcome fears in history, they have developed new strategies to advance humanity with more inclusive solutions.
At the individual level, globalisation has provided an opportunity for humans to overcome the fears related to emotions by exploring different streams of emotions through openness and the discovery of multiple streams of emotional experience. Nowadays, humans have increased the circles of empathy because they have overcome the fears of being violent and powerful. The cultural production of media and the globalisation of emotions help humans to understand that powerful and creative emotions can exist in harmony and cooperation.
In the future, fear will play a monumental role in shaping civilisation. Fear will push new alliances and security pacts. For instance, the recent security and defence pact between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan opens new doors of cooperation and convergence which is also an outcome of the fear of Israel in the Middle East and the economic insecurity of Pakistan.
The future of diplomacy and peace will hinge on fears of the unknown and society will become entangled in complex interdependence which will eventually avoid conflicts and mass-scale security dilemmas. Basically, fear is responsible for all the actions and courses of human history, and it will shape the future of peace, conflict, cooperation, competition and prosperity in the world.
