American Fear: The Causes and Consequences of High Anxiety

258 Pages·2006·3.03 MB·English

by  Peter N. Stearns

AmericAn
FeAr
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AmericAn
FeAr
The Causes and
ConsequenCes
of high anxieTy
P e t e r N. S t e a r N S
New York London
Routledge is an imprint of the
Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
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Routledge Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group Taylor & Francis Group
270 Madison Avenue 2 Park Square
New York, NY 10016 Milton Park, Abingdon
Oxon OX14 4RN
© 2006 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC
Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
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International Standard Book Number-10: 0-415-95542-4 (Softcover) 0-415-95540-8 (Hardcover)
International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-415-95542-3 (Softcover) 978-0-415-95540-9 (Hardcover)
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Preface ix
Part I EstablIshIng thE CaUsE
for fEar ExCEss 1
Chapter 1 Introducing Fear 3
Chapter 2 The Distinctiveness of American Fear 21
Part II CaUsEs and ContExts 53
Chapter 3 Searching for Causes 55
Chapter 4 The Roots of American Fear: Traditions 63
Chapter 5 From Science Fiction to Real Death:
New Contexts for Fear 75
Part III thE dECIsIvE ChangEs: rEdEfInIng
fEar and rIsk In lIfE and In MEdIa 91
Chapter 6 Fearing Fear: A New Socialization 93
Chapter 7 New Approaches To Risk: Lawyers and Bicycle
Helmets 115

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i • American Fear
Chapter 8 Self-Scaring and Advertising: The Commerce Factor 141
Part Iv thE ExhaUstIon of War 161
Chapter 9 At Your Own Risk 163
Chapter 10 A Deluge of Crises: Foreign Fears in the Past
Century 169
Part v ConsEqUEnCEs and rEMEdIEs 199
Chapter 11 Conclusion: The Lessons of American Fear 201
Endnotes 225
Index 239
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ACknowledgments
Various people have provided stimulating suggestions for this book.
I thank Roy Rosenzweig, Mary Francis Forcier, Mary Hildebeidel,
Deborah Stearns, and Eryq Dorfman, among others. For research
assistance, Earnie Porta, Veronica Fletcher, James Halabuk, Patricia
Condon, and Bill Kendall have my real gratitude. Debbie Williams and
Alicia Smallbrock provided great help in preparing the manuscript. I
benefited greatly from comments by two anonymous readers. My sin-
cere thanks also to the Routledge editor, Kimberly Guinta.
ii
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PrefACe
A 2005 newspaper article wondered, though a bit jocularly, whether
the United States was suffering the social equivalent of a panic attack.
A small town in Maryland (population 1,400) had installed surveil-
lance cameras on the town hall, paid for by the Department of Home-
land Security, with the police chief arguing that terrorists might pass
through on their way to other targets. “You can’t ever tell.” The state of
Kentucky received a similar grant to protect bingo parlors from attack,
while the city of Grand Forks, North Dakota, had deployed a $145,000
bomb-dismantling robot against a backpack vagrants had left under a
pine tree, which turned out to contain bricks.
Not surprisingly, a host of businesses and agencies increasingly try
to profit by fanning the flames of fear. An arms manufacturer suggests
that, without more investments in its direction, the nation risks losing
control of the skies. University research centers routinely seek and win
federal research dollars by highlighting fears of biological or critical
infrastructure attack. A key former federal official, who once urged citi-
zens to buy duct tape to seal their homes against terrorist poisons, gains
a post on the board of Home Depot, a leading purveyor of duct tape.
Symbolism keeps pace. The Federal Emergency Management Agency
Web site for kids uses as its mascot a hermit crab dubbed Herman,
apparently because the species, when confronted by danger, imme-
diately scurries to hide in a new shell—the model, it would seem, for
national response to disaster.1
There seems little doubt that citizens of the United States are being
made to fear in ways that make them uncomfortable and that leaders
are making dubious decisions about policy and resource allocation.
ix
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