The HBS hosts wonder whether the call is coming from inside the house.

Fear is a one of the most complex of human affects. It is both physical and psychological. It can be intensely private or shared by entire communities. It is sometimes paralyzing and other times exciting. Fear often seizes us without warning, but we can also “think ourselves into” being afraid. 

What, if anything, distinguishes fear from dread or anxiety? How are fears managed or overcome? Why do so many people share similar phobias? Is there a logic to fear?

This week, we dig into the deepest, darkest corners of our own fears, and try to make some sense of why we never want to be there when something goes bump in the night.

Here are links to some of the ideas/texts/issues that we discuss in this episode:

• “5 Things You Never Knew About Fear” (Northwestern Medicine)

• Jean Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness

• 10 most common phobias

• “Why We Physically Feel Fear”

• Baruch Spinoza on affects

• Fear “paralysis”

• Deliverance (film, 1972)

• “Cold War Hysteria” (PBS)

• Chris Erickson, The Poetics of Fear: A Human Response to Human Security (2012)

• Homer, The Iliad

• War Games (film, 1983)

• Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) policy

• “Dread” versus “Fear”

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