Red Scare And Contrast Essay

The fundamental contrast between an eighth grader in 1953 and an eighth grader in 2016 is the sinister threat of the nuclear arms race. The United States and the Soviet Union were creating weapons of mass destruction, and they were competing to see which country could produce the most weapons. In 1953, the children were constantly living with the threat of nuclear warfare and they constantly had to perform “duck and cover” drills because the atomic bomb’s dropping was unpredictable. As an eighth grader in 1953, you were living in fear of communism and nuclear warfare. The students were much more afraid of the destruction that an atomic bomb would cause the obliteration of cities. In the modern era, the students aren’t exposed to the fear of

However, this fear is nominal compared to the terror experienced in the Cold War and that is an immense difference. In the Cold War, people were trained to act in a certain manner because the dropping of an atomic bomb on their city was likely. In 1953, the people were also frightened by the surrounding of communists because they believed that their independence and freedom could be infringed. The eighth grade students of 1953 experienced a Red Scare as the thought of the expansion of communism was malignant, but as the Cold War diminished, this fear of communism was minimal. After the Cold War, a new type of fear emerged as terrorism started to become intimidating and this is what students experience in 2016. The 9/11 attack separates the shift from communist fear to the fear of terrorism, and that is a major difference between eighth grade students in 1953 and 2016. In 1953, the kids knew that missiles could be pointed at their city at any time and could cause the mass destruction of their city. The Cuban Missile Crisis sparked more fear in the hearts of the children during the Cold War, and while certain people tried to assuage the fear of communism, others just threw wood into the