Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) is a common anti-clarity tactic. FUD ramps up emotional storms to obfuscate facts and stall rational discussions. Without these, we descend to emotionally charged mob mentality.
Generally we still seem fearful of emotions in the workplace. We pretend that business is a-emotional. FUD feeds on this reluctance to work with the reality of being human. It goes one step beyond mere misinformation. It actively polarises and stirs.
FUD is a very effective tactic to kill real discussions. Some current examples are: "debates" around climate change, abstinence-only sex education, vaccination against childhood diseases and marriage equality.
FUD is characterised by the hysterical (and sometimes violent) adherence to hyper-simplistic black-and-white, with-us-or-against us, opinions.
