Terror - The Politics Of Oppression, The Culture Of Terror, Gods Of Terror, NiccolÒ Machiavelli, The Amygdala
An apprehension of danger or impending violence, terror is akin to fear in an accentuated or distilled form and is often accompanied by trembling. It underpins many aspects of existence, especially the cut-and-thrust of the evolutionary drive and the predatory nature of the food chain. Lacking the "blood and sawdust" element associated with "horror," it has nevertheless become allied with atrocities and outrages, from the emperors of Rome down to the massacring armies of Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, and the later purges of dictators such as Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot.
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In Europe, terror was employed as a tool by the church and state, often to suppress dissent and maintain the status quo. Campaigns like the Albigensian Crusade, in which the soldiers of Pope Innocent tortured, burned, and butchered the heretical sect of the Cathars, are examples of the extremes to which a religious body was prepared to go in order to maintain its authority, and the same might be s…
But terror need not imply persecution or a life-threatening situation. It has another strand, a religious, aesthetic aspect that implies awe or reverence before a universe whose many mysteries—including those of religion—have never been fully grasped. William Wordsworth (1770–1850), in his poem The Prelude (published 1850), spoke of the "ministry of fear" and evo…
Since the 1990s, terror has been localized in tiny pathways between nerve cells in a small, almond-shaped clump of tissue called the amygdala. Joseph LeDoux—an authority on
the emotional brain—observed, "We have shown that the amygdala is like the hub in the centre of a wheel of fear. If we understand the pathways of fear, it will ultimately lead to better control." Pa…
Burke, Edmund. Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Edited by David P. Womersley. New York: Penguin, 1999. Primary source dealing with "terror" as an incarnation of what is sublime in nature. Carter, Rita. Mapping the Mind. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1998. Cogent, popular study of how the brain works, with sections on the amygdala or …
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