America 's Culture Of Fear

The Red Scare, also known as McCarthyism, took place during the 1950’s when Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy was elected during a time of fear as the Cold War’s lasting effects wore on the people of America. McCarthy could twist the anger and fear of the American citizens to produce a new social phenomenon, Communism invading our politics. McCarthy was elected as the Senator in 1946 and became a household name four years later in 1950 when he claimed 205 communists infiltrated the State Department. McCarthy’s vigorous investigation for communists in the political society made him an incredibly influential political figure. Two years later in 1952, he obtained the chairmanship for the Government Operations Party while also being reelected. McCarthy began questioning

Propaganda is a tool for manipulating and changing the opinions people. The bases of propaganda have come forth form the modes of persuasion, Ethos, Pathos and Logos.

The Cracked Podcast titled A Genealogy of Modern Fear was taken from the comedian Friedrich Nietzsche’s book titled A Genealogy of Morals. This Podcast is hosted by Jack O’Brien alongside Kristi Harrison and Michael Swaim as he shines light on the modern day issues of fear. O’Brien stresses the fact that our fears are out of proportion to the realities of our day to day lives. The entire podcast ultimately focused on three major factors in relation to fear, which include media, society, and culture. He begins by putting our common fears into perspective and addresses the likeliness for those events to occur. We often fail to think about the logical aspect of our fears which burdens us with the fears we have. For example, when you look at the statistics of getting struck by lightning or being in a plane crash it is nearly impossible.

Americans are addicted to many things. For instance, the populace is addicted to such things as violent spectacle and imagery. Another example is sensationalism. But one of the paradoxical ones is the addiction to fear. The populace is under constant fear of something bad happening or being projected to happen soon. These are crime rates, financial collapse, terrorist attacks, epidemics of diseases, and many more. But it is a paradox that Americans fear the wrong things. As Barry Glassner states in his book Culture of Fear, "one of the paradoxes of a culture of ear is that serious problems remain widely ignored even though they give rise to precisely the dangers that the populace most abhors" (p. xxvi). The problem is that Americans not only fear the wrong things but the true fearful and dangerous things are ignored although these dangers are the ones they truly abhor.

Propaganda means to spread information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.

​Throughout the history of the United States, the American government has employed many propaganda techniques, usually during times of war and hardships, to evoke an intended reaction from Americans. "Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist.” To control the public during difficult times, the government heavily utilized propaganda. The wars that propaganda was most prominently employed in were World War I and World War II. Propaganda, specifically in World War I and World War II, has had far more negative effects on American society than positive effects.

I would have to agree with Diane L. Eck that we Americans are afraid of ourselves.

The United States of America; the strongest nation in the world. This phrase gives fear to others in the world. The United States feels fear as well. In the atmosphere of prosperity and peace, a cruel and inhumane torture the solution to the fear living in their hearts. The horrendous attack on the World Trade Center planted a sense of fear and worry in everyone’s minds. To avoid losing control of the nation, the United States conduct tortuous acts to get into the minds of terrorists and others suspects. Some may disagree about the new “enhanced interrogation techniques” these criminals experienced but it is not the only solution to America’s hidden fear.

As we go about our day we see and hear many things that instill fear into us, ads the daily news, crime, and even gossip among others, but just how much of it is true? What do we really have to fear? Barry Glassner's book: The Culture of Fear elaborates on the fears of common man and shows us what we really should fear, the fear of being tricked, uninformed, and oblivious to the matters that are truly the problem. This book is mostly about fear tactics and the rise of over condescending people. Summary

He explores such questions as: Why do we have so many fears these days? Are we living in exceptionally dangerous times? What he uncovers is that it is our perception of danger than has increased, not our actual level of risk. There are people and organizations in America that actually profit from these fears and so they create them, but there are prices we pay for social panics, including money that is wasted on unnecessary programs and products as well as time and energy spent worrying about these

When more people fear crime, it actually leads to more crime (Beam 2011, pg.3). Beam also says “Part of the reason is that most people cant measure the crime rate accurately based on their own experience,” (pg.1). Contrastingly in the article, “U.S. Crime Is Up, but Americans Don’t Seem to Have Noticed”

First, one must define propaganda and since many have done so already, I shall use the Sheryl Ross model. Her model defines propaganda as “an epistemically defective message designed with the intention to persuade a socially significant group of people on behalf of a political institution, organization, or cause.”

When people hear the word ‘propaganda’, a negative image automatically seems to pop up in their heads. Propaganda generally revolves around hiding the whole story with information often being provided in a biased or misleading fashion.

The Science of Fear explains how numerous organizations have played on citizens’ fears because of the effects it yields (11). If citizens are fearful of someone breaking in their house, it is substantially easier to market home security systems. Media uses fear to boost their ratings by dramatizing events to keep viewers hooked (11). The “bad guys” in The Road did the same thing. They lured people in using fear and then killed or ate them (McCarthy 64, 110).

Understanding the politics of fear we first would have to think about what fear means to us as individuals. To me fear is worrying about what may happen tomorrow, even though the day just started. We are taught not to live with fear, but we ought to live with the idea that tomorrow will bring more sunshine that it does rain. Although within our thoughts we still think of that storm. It’s not in our intention to do so, but it happens. Often times we don’t fear something until it hits home. For instance the presidential election when many joked about Donald Trump actually becoming the president of this country. Many never knew that it would now be our reality, but for others they campaigned and did everything they could because they fear