Rumination No. 4 - On Fear

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  Varna, Bulgaria
Thursday, May 18, 2006

We are a world thriving on fear. Every guidebook and many people I meet are doing their best to instill fear in me. I don't know if it is cultural bias or what, but Slovakians told me to be careful in Romania. Romanians warned me about Bulgaria. I'm sure Bulgarians will bad-mouth the Serbs, and I have no doubt the Serbs will caution me about Bosnians.

Iv'e been told to wear money belts. I've been told to carry minimal money here. I was told that if a few sketchy individuals started lurking about me, to jump in the nearest cab. I've been warned about ATM machines that steal your code. I was warned about Romanian taxi schemes, pickpockets, wild dogs, and I have read about unexploded landmines in Serbia and Bosnia (this one I take seriously).

I am not saying that one shouldn't be careful and aware of their surroundings, particularly at night, but I have been more concerned walking around parts of San Francisco than anywhere here. Tthe biggest threat to me so far, other than myself, was being given some outdated coins and a pack of four wild dogs that looked at me, but appeared more interested in nosing in the grass for other dog shit or candy wrappers or whatever than me. Otherwise, everybody has been nothing but helpful and friendly. Sure, there are rip-off scams anywhere, but common sense avoids most of them; the prey is the out-of-it tourist.

Michael Crichton writes about how we are being manipulated into a state of fear in his recent book "State of Fear." His premise is that the proof of global warming is not in the pudding yet (I don't necessarily share his conclusion, but he a lot of interesting science, statistics about temperatures, and arguments, including that a warmer climate would probably cause less severe, not worse, climatic events), but that the government, media, and scientists themselves all benefit from fear-mongering.

This is certainly true when it comes to media. 24-hour news media needs sensationalist stories. Stories about girls disappearing (although it mostly turns out they ran away or lied about being raped), drive-bys, serial killers and rapists, honor students in Berkeley being shot in a confrontation with football players (when it turns out she called her friend to bring his gun and her friend shot her). The fact, though, is that violent crime in the Untied States is at its lowest level since 1970 according to FBI statistics, but that doesn't get reported because that doesn't sell commercials or keep reporters employed covering stories that were once derided as "local news." That CNN and Fox spent so much blanket coverage on one girl disappearing in Aruba should be an indication in and of itself that they have realized that fear sells more than knowledge - say about the hundreds of thousands killed in Darfur. The result is that parents live in fear about their kids to the point that I suspect some have implanted chips in their kids, like we do with cats and dogs, so that they can be traced and located via Lo-jack and identified.

While there are criminal elements and terrorists to be battled in a global sense, I rarely see the individual threat to me and I worry that people are being increasingly isolationistic at a time when their opportunity to travel, meet, communicate and experience has never been greater. I may be blown-up tomorrow or robbed, but the odds are slim, and I am not going to cower in fear at that raather infintesimal (in a global statistical sense) chance.

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