“Intimidation is the act of making others do what one wants through fear. Intimidation is a maladaptive outgrowth of normal competitive urge for interrelational dominance generally seen in animals, but which is more completely modulated by social forces in humans.Like all behavioral traits it exists in greater or lesser manifestation in each individual person over time, but may be a more significant compensatory behavior for some as opposed to others. Behavioral theorists often see intimidation in children as a consequence of being intimidated by others, including parents, playmates and siblings.
“Intimidation may be manifested in such manner as physical threat, glowering countenance, emotional manipulation, verbal abuse, purposeful embarrassment and/or actual physical assault.
““Various means of intimidating include: Physical abuse, torture, severe corporal punishment, psychological abuse, humiliation. bullying, hate speech, manipulation, stalking, coercive persuasion, sexual abuse, sexual assault, rape, and sexual harassment. 
“I imagine specific scenarios of intimidation filled your mind as you read this article. Important aspects of intimidation incorporate a certain authority, such as a physician. Intimidation may also be employed consciously or unconsciously, and a percentage of people who employ it consciously may do so as the result of rationalized notions of its appropriateness, utility or self-empowerment.” ~~ Source: Wikipedia
So why are there so many forms of intimidation? I believe modern society created numerous layers of authority in order to control burgeoning numbers of people. In the “olden days,” human beings had parents, tribal elders, and a supreme being. Other than those authority figures, there were of course threats in the form of aggressive people and animals, and weather conditions. A desire for protection from those threats coupled with the advent of agriculture and the need for collaborative societies created societal structure. 
Today endless threats in the form of intimidation (medical, governmental, sexual, and generic bullying in numerous forms) exist. Indulge me as I expand on a form of intimidation that is particularly frightening to me personally:
Vivisection And Other "Medical Research"
Vivisection was practiced in the Roman era on gladiators and slaves. The famous chemist, E.E. Slosson wrote on Dec. 12th, 1895, in the New York Independent, "A human life is nothing compared with a new fact in science....the aim of science is the advancement of human knowledge at any sacrifice of human life....We do not know of any higher use we can put a man to." Professor Starling of University College, London, openly declared in 1906 to Britain's Parliament at its investigation into vivisection practices, "The last experiment must be on man."
Beginning in 1942, mustard gas experiments were conducted on 4,000 United States service men in order to study the effects on the human nervous system. These tests concluded in 1945.
From 1937-45 Unit 731 of the Imperial Japanese Army performed human experimentation without the use of anesthetics because it was believed that it might affect the results. A short list includes:- Vivisections (The act or practice of cutting into or otherwise injuring living animals, especially for the purpose of scientific research)
- Prisoners were amputated limb by limb to study blood loss.
- Arms were cut off and reattached to opposite sides.
- Limbs were frozen and sawed off.
- Parts of the brain, lungs, liver, et cetera were taken out.
- Vivisection of a pregnant woman (impregnated by one of the doctors) and the fetus.
In August 2002, the Tokyo District Court acknowledged the existence of Unit 731 and its biological warfare activities, but ruled that all compensation issues were settled by the Joint Communique of the Government of Japan and the Government of the People's Republic of China of September 29, 1972. [Note: In return for data gleaned during these horrors, the U.S. government did not prosecute the Japanese doctors, many of whom became prominent members of both Japanese and American society. ~~CC]
“Our moral horror at the Nazi medical experiments was dissipated by our government's decision not to prosecute the Japanese for almost identical experiments on an almost identical number of victims, three thousand (many of whom were American prisoners), in exchange for the information from those experiments. As Raoul Hillburg wrote in The Destruction of the European Jews, ‘If the world was so shocked at what it discovered to be the extremes to which experimental medicine would go, it has yet to condemn the method or find the means to control it.’” ~~http://www.micahbooks.com/readingroom/humanexperimentation.html
Doctors can be intimidating...
Big Brother & Nuclear Testing On The Public
“After 15 years of investigating, I have concluded that the United States government’s atomic weapons industry knowingly and recklessly exposed millions of people to dangerous levels of radiation.
“Nothing in our past compared to the official deceit and lying that took place in order to protect the nuclear industry. In the name of national security, politicians and bureaucrats ran roughshod over democracy and morality. Ultimately, the Cold Warriors were willing to sacrifice their own people in their zeal to beat the Russians.” —Former Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall from the foreword to Atomic Harvest: Hanford and the Lethal Toll of America’s Nuclear Arsenal By Michael D’Antonio
In 1949, as part of the Green Run experiment, over 5000 curies of radioactive iodine-131 and xenon-133 were released without warning into the atmosphere. By comparison, the notorious Three Mile Island accident of 1978 released a mere 15 curies into the environment.The story of the uranium miners is as tragic as any. During the 1940s and 1950s, thousands of poor, uneducated men, most of whom were American Indians, labored in mines in the Four Corners region to produce uranium needed to manufacture plutonium for bombs and atomic tests.
Forced to work without even the most basic ventilation system, the miners breathed uranium-laced air, drank uranium-contaminated water and carried the deadly dust home to their families. Thousands have since died of lung cancer and other radiation-related diseases. Thus far, Congress has approved no compensation for them.
The deadly rain of fallout stopped in 1963 but only momentarily. Even after the United States and the Soviet Union’s limited test-ban treaty, many of the next 700 underground tests “vented,” the government’s euphemism for explosions that drifted radiation across the country.
Our government can be intimidating…
Okay, enough creepy quotes. Here are my own ideas: When I boiled down the main forms of intimidation, I came to a surprising conclusion. Intimidation seems to fall within three main areas: Physical (corporal punishment and other physical abuse, bullying, and medical); sexual; and psychological intimidation (the use of fear tactics to control behavior by a government, school, parent, or other figure of authority, including filmmakers and writers).
Phobias As Tools of Intimidation
Scary stories frequently utilize our phobias to intimidate us. "Arachnia" (fear of spiders) is a good example of a widespread phobia being used as a vehicle for a commercial film. "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" was a television series that featured a group of children (The Midnight Society) who gathered in the woods and exchanged ghost stories. Women's Fantasies
Many women entertain what is mistakenly referred to as a rape fantasy. In my conversations with other women over the past 30+ years, rather than desiring an actual rape scenario most agree what they really dream of is an adept, masculine, desirable partner who knows when to take control in a responsible, non-painful manner and go on to bring the woman to a mind-numbing climax. That’s not a bit intimidating!Maybe People Enjoy Intimidation?
Who reading this doesn't like to feel intimidated while reading a scary story or watching a scary movie? Isn't the biggest letdown finding that the movie or story doesn't intimidate us? It's a safe form of intimidation -- one we can lay down or close our eyes and it ends. Intimidation we can control and enjoy
Go Get Intimidated
Read Boyd E. Harris' County Road 2246. Be sure and drop Mr. Harris a note and tell 'im Clara sent you.
© 2006 Clara Chandler - All Rights Reserved
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