Culture of Fear

[Blotan Hunka]

http://www.reason.com/rb/rb021706.shtml

Furedi argued that many of us now assume that every negative experience has some inner meaning. For example, when a teenager dies in a car crash, grieving parents regularly tell television reporters, "There is lesson to be learned from Johnny's death." The lesson usually is not that bad things randomly happen to good people, but that our roads don't have enough guard rails, or that we should enact laws to prevent teenagers from driving with friends and so forth.

Furedi sees this kind of thinking as a return to pre-modern days of higher superstition, where every event has a deeper meaning. In the medieval era, the hand of God or the malevolent influence of Satan explained why people suffered misfortunes. Today the malevolent hand of government or corporate America is to blame for every catastrophe.

Two out of three Americans polled in recent years believe that their grandchildren will not live as well as they do, i.e., they tend to believe the vision of the future that is taught in our school system. Almost every child is told that we are running out of resources; that we are robbing future generations when we use these scarce, irreplaceable, or nonrenewable resources in silly, frivolous and wasteful ways; that we are callously polluting the environment beyond control; that we are recklessly destroying the ecology beyond repair; that we are knowingly distributing foods which give people cancer and other ailments but continue to do so in order to make a profit. It would be hard to describe a more unhealthy, immoral, and disastrous educational context, every element of which is either largely incorrect, misleading, overstated, or just plain wrong. What the school system describes, and what so many Americans believe, is a prescription for low morale, higher prices and greater (and unnecessary) regulations.
Kahn turned out to be right about the boom, but most of the intellectual class is still burdened with an anti-progress ideology that remains a significant drag on scientific, technological and policy innovation. As Furedi and Kahn point out, overcoming the pervasive pessimism of the intellectual class is the major piece of work left for us to do in the 21st century. ?

I see this a lot out there. And quite a bit of it in here too. A good article. What can we do about it?

 

[evenflow1121]

Article sort of reminded me of that old dreaded saying "everything happens for a reason". I dont believe it, I think in a lot of instances we cause things based on our choices. We need to accept that we are error prone, and that when we take every single precaution with something, still there are outside forces beyond our control where something can go wrong and affect us. The part about whether something has risk, how most feel is best to remain inactive, I think he hit the nail right on the head. A lot of new research treatment carries risk, but if you dont have the risk then you may never reach the cure.

 

[Eternal Beginner]

I sometimes think that some people buy into a "culture of fear" because it absolves them of personal responsibility.

You have the people who like to believe that governments, big corporations, school systems and any other institution are involved with conspiracies because then they can blame "the man" for their own inadquacies and failures.

I'm not saying we can control every aspect of our lives, but consistently looking for plots, dangers, and blame makes it okay (in their own heads) for them to spend more time complaining rather than accomplishing.

 

[Rich Parsons]

Gee, for those in the late 40' through the McCarthy 50's and the 60's all believed the world would be destroyed by now because of the Nuclear bombs.

They taught them Duck and Cover. Like if you survive the blast, you go home to radiated water and food. Nice future painted there.

There are always doom speakers.

While I agree we should look to the future, and plan, one should not assume the worse nor the best.