Think fear. Myths, art and politics

Abstract

This work addresses fear as a cultural construction and as a strategy of power. The appearance of certain subjects linked to fear sustains part of the network of our violent societies, uncertainty, what can be perceived as tremendous or as excessive. Imaginary threats become real and real threats are exacerbated in the social imaginary. What fears do men and women of the western world have nowadays in their daily lives? They fear terrorism, climate change, immigrants,  also what is called "insecurity",  the misuse of technology,  the fragility of political and economic systems. The fragility of democracy. Each group, each country, puts the accent on any of them. Latin America is not deprived of any of these fears. Exemplifying texts from Latin American culture, we try to understand how fear works, why it is exacerbated in certain historical moments, in what mythologies and traditions it is protected, what its policies are and how it is expressed in certain types of artistic texts.