Kuhiro Class Reading Circle

“The thing I am most afraid of is fear.” — Michel de Montaigne

In Fear: A Genealogy of Morals, Corey Robin explores how fear is more than an individual emotion. It is also shaped by political power, social institutions, and the cultural values we grow up accepting.

Drawing on the ideas of thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes, Montesquieu, and Alexis de Tocqueville, Robin examines how fear can reinforce authority, encourage obedience, and discourage people from questioning established systems. Fear can operate not only through direct threats but also through social expectations, collective anxieties, and the consequences people anticipate when they challenge the status quo.

The article invites us to look beyond fear as a natural response to danger and consider how it is cultivated, directed, and used to shape society. What we fear, and how we respond to that fear can reveal a great deal about the power structures around us.

Kindly head over to the Kuhiro Class Reading Circle Google Classroom to access the text. Looking forward to hearing different perspectives on the text here in Chautara.