Journal on Chapter One of Al Gore’s “The Assault on Reason” Essay

In the first chapter titled Politics of Fear of Al thrusts Book, The Assault on Reason, the writer basically dealt with one of the most prominent human emotions hero-worship. According to Gore, reverence is the prime enemy of reason. When a person experiences fear of something or someone, his or her reasoning ability is shut down. In addition, Gore claims that fear also clouds a persons judgment as it drives him or her to act recklessly or irrationally without considering all options available. Furthermore, Gore also pointed out in his book that fear does not and affect a single individual, but an entire people as well.According to him, a population crippled by fear is unable to act towards development and progress because it does not do anything to have the best that fear. On the other hand, based on Gores book, when a person views fear as a form of motivation for him or her, he or she would eventually act to overcome that fear and accomplish his or her goal. Generally, I agr ee with most of the arguments that Gore pointed out in the first chapter of his book, specially on the areas where he related fear to politics. I commit that Gore was right in tell that there are times when people fail to distinguish between the illusionary fears and the legitimate or real ones. When this happens, people may find it extremely difficult to gestate rationally and plan their adjacent move because their judgment is clouded and they are unable to listen to reason. Furthermore, I also hope that Gore was correct when he claimed that the present administration in the United States as used the peoples fear, which spawned after the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, to manipulate various political processes and made people believe that all Iraqis were the ones responsible for the attacks. For me, I believe that it is wrong to think all Iraqis or Muslims are terrorists simply because their fellowmen may have committed heinous crimes. I believe this is the best examp le of the fear that has been plaguing US citizens since the 9/11 attacks. I also believe that the nation should first identify which fear is legitimate and which is not before exercising judgment.