Culture of Fear

Culture of Fear

Culture of Fear, by Frank Furedi, is a book that looks at how widespread fear impacts Western cultures like the United States and Great Britain. Frank Furedi believed that society tends to panic too much, as we actually enjoy "an unprecedented level of safety." I admit that Frank Furedi's novel is based upon a novel concept, and an interesting one at that. However, Frank Furedi comes off to me as little more than a fear monger and an intellectual elitist. His book, to me, seems redundant more often than not. But sometimes part of college is learning about points of view that you may not agree with, so I tried to maintain that perspective when I read the book.

Our assignment for class was to read the book, and every week or so we would write a reading log about a particular chapter. This was beyond a doubt a very difficult assignment for me. It involved reading a book I neither liked nor understood completely, and the writing logs seemed to never end. It was kind of a drag writing every week, and I usually procrastinated until the day it was due.

The saving grace of the assignment was that the reading logs were informal, and for that I am grateful to my professor. I suspect that a major point in having regular logs was for all of us in class to have practice in regularly writing. The other point was to help us understand the concepts behind analyzing texts. We were given the liberty to write any random thought that we could conceive. Spelling and grammar did not count, and I believe that as long as we used thought and effort, then the teacher was satisfied. As a result, my logs are indeed far from professional. There may be occasional spelling errors, some swearing, and some pretty damn bizarre thoughts. ...

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...n't paranoid of HIV, then this could happen, just one of the many cases of HIV infected people infecting many other people:

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1111/is_n1778_v297/ai_20952867

Political correctness was also mentioned. I think many people, especially in white America, are sick of PC. While America is a big melting pot, it would be nice if there was a lot more conformity. At least make English the official language. In post-9/11 America, racial profiling in under the gun. People say we can't use it because it isn't PC. I say fuck PC. If you take all emotion out of the situation, and focus on statistical fact and scientific information, then if racial profiling works, why take away a successful tool from law enforcement? Most middle-easterners are not terrorists, but most terrorists are middle-easterners. What's wrong with acknowledging that?