Posted: February 1st, 2023

WPE Portfolio Set Essay

October 2019 WPE Portfolio Set
Context: In each of these essays, the author uses theories to explain events.
● Franz Neumann, explaining the rise of fascism in Nazi Germany, argues that anxiety plays a role in people’s decisions to elect particular authoritarian leaders, which Neumann calls “Ceasars” (3). He also claims that conspiracy theories play a role: “just as the masses hope for their deliverance from distress through absolute oneness with a person, so they ascribe their distress to certain persons, who have brought this distress into the world through a conspiracy” (3).
● Tom Pyszczynski uses his “Terror Management Theory” to explain American’s reactions to the 9/11 attacks. He says that human culture generates values and world views that counteract anxiety about death by allowing us to believe in immortality, whether literal or symbolic. However, these beliefs makes us vulnerable to manipulation and cause us to be hostile towards individuals or groups that disagree with us.
● Neil Strauss explains why a contemporary person, identified as Jen Senko’s father, changed under the influence of political commentary on TV and radio. Strauss reports that, for psychological and neurological reasons, people can be manipulated into “a state of alarm” (13) because we are “prone to cognitive distortions and overreactions” (14) in response to “inflammatory rhetoric and imagery” (14).
Question: Why, how, and under what conditions do fear and anxiety become a significant force in politics?
In your analysis, discuss the theories and the examples in all three essays, and test the theories by applying them to other authors’ examples. (This is similar to how Strauss applies Pyszcynski’s ideas to Jen Senko’s father.) For example, can Terror Management Theory and psychology and neurology be used to explain the rise of Nazism before World War II? And, can Neumann’s ideas or the neurology and psychology reported on by Strauss help to reveal something about the American reaction to the 9/11 attacks? Your essay must explicitly use and refer to all three essays in the reading set. In developing your argument, incorporate ideas that support your position as well as ideas that disagree with your position. Your essay must quote and/or paraphrase and work directly with material from all the readings in this reading set. In addition, define and employ key terms that seem to be central to the arguments of your sources and, therefore, to your argument as well. Primary among these key terms are fear and anxiety. For additional key terms, see the glossary of terms at the end of the reading set. You must attribute any material that you summarize, quote, or paraphrase to its source (using the page numbers of the reading set for quotations and paraphrases). Your own ideas and thinking are necessary and important. However, you should base your essay on the information contained in the set of readings, not on your own life experience, on outside readings (including the internet), or on courses you have taken. Your portfolio must contain an essay that is at least five full pages (double spaced in 10 or 12 point type) that answers

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