Culture of Fear: Risk-taking and the Morality of Low Expectation - Tapa dura

'an excellent book' [quotes from title in article] Press & Journal (Aberdeen), Ron Ferguson 'Frank Furedi's books 'are well researched, properly referenced and make an erudite use of old and new sociological theories and concepts...even fairly scholarly style cannot completely conceal the passion he feels for the subject....It was...intellectually fairly challenging..and i thought that the arguments Furedi is making is an important one and worth considering....'Culture of Fear' is wholeheartedly recommended as a provocative read for those interested in analysis of social phenomena.' Magda Healey, The Bookbag, September 2006

Fear has become an ever-expanding part of life in the West in the twenty-first century. We live in terror of disease, abuse, stranger danger, environmental devastation and terrorist onslaught. We are bombarded with reports of new concerns for our safety and that of our children, and urged to take greater precautions and seek more protection. But compared to the past, or to the developing world, people in contemporary Western societies have much less familiarity with pain, suffering, debilitating disease and death. We actually enjoy an unprecedented level of personal safety. When confronted with events like the destruction of the World Trade Center, fear for the future is inevitable. But what happened on September 11th, 2001 was in many ways an old fashioned act of terror, representing the destructive side of human passions. Frank Furedi argues that the greater danger in our culture is the tendency to fear achievements that represent a more constructive side of humanity. We panic about genetically engineered food, about genetic research, about the health dangers of mobile phones. The facts, however, often fail to support the scare stories about new or growing risks to our health and safety. Instead, it is our obsession with theoretical risks that is in danger of distracting us from dealing with the old-fashioned dangers that have always threatened our lives.