Where I think provoking fear in many people by the authorities may fail, due to an almost tangible depreciation of their credibility. It's harder to be afraid of someone or something you don't take seriously. Perhaps in the way a comedian can take a serious subject, and portray it as ridiculous, our mind can drop the defensive perspective, and view the situation in a context that is far less rigid, and can be freer to consider qualifications, loopholes, and viable alternatives.
One example One of the reasons people in '1984' by George Orwell 'feared Big Brother was that they believed he 'knew' everything about everybody, and his power was absolute.
People who are subjected to fear by an auth...

Where I think provoking fear in many people by the authorities may fail, due to an almost tangible depreciation of their credibility. It's harder to be afraid of someone or something you don't take seriously. Perhaps in the way a comedian can take a serious subject, and portray it as ridiculous, our mind can drop the defensive perspective, and view the situation in a context that is far less rigid, and can be freer to consider qualifications, loopholes, and viable alternatives.
One example One of the reasons people in '1984' by George Orwell 'feared Big Brother was that they believed he 'knew' everything about everybody, and his power was absolute.
People who are subjected to fear by an authority that is both dangerously wrong, and patently incompetent, often have their fear replaced by anger. Fear can rest on a threat or possibility, but the more valid the threat, the more likely the personal sense of self preservation is going to step in. Such can be the case when a crowd riots. There is the real fear that in a hypothetical riot, that the authorities could eliminate the rioters with the Military, and there is no means for them to be held to account.
Authorities make the mistake of believing that they cannot be prosecuted officially, but they can never avoid the consequences.
They hold themselves, and their own lives in such High esteem, they cannot understand the people that prefer death to humiliation.
Authorities can try and bind us with fear but the ties never hold.
It may be possible to induce fear physically, or chemically, but to Human productivity efficiency, and progress it is a spanner. A kind of socialogical sabotage. A society they administer where they reap from what they sow.
As history shows despite what they all have people believe, Authorities come and go. Their corruption makes them unstable.
But People just keep adapting to the changes.
The worst thing humanity can do is stagnate. Horror movies are 'feared' but the fear is assuredly fictional