Just Finished Reading: Culture of Fear Revisited by Frank Furedi

I always find it difficult writing a synopsis of a Furedi book. My experience of three of his books so far seems to point that way. His writing style just doesn’t lead itself to snappy one-liners or quick précis. I will, however, try to give you something even if it’s my own impressions of what I think he’s getting at.

I think that we can all agree that our present age is characterised by fear – fear of the other, fear of the future and fear of our neighbours. Furedi attempts, successfully I think, to see where this fear comes from and asks what we can do about it. Unlike some other commentators he quickly dismisses the idea that our fear is the result of manipulative governments manufacturing threats in order to control their populations. Although there is something (or quite a lot) in that Furedi sees this as another symptom rather than the cause itself. As far as I can see he points the finger clearly at post-modernity and the rise of the autonomous individual – in other words at the fracturing, the atomisation, of society. The questioning of authority has resulted in the collapse of authority. Now all we have is opinion. We no longer have faith in our leaders, our elders or our great thinkers. We do not trust anyone to provide us with answers and we do not trust ourselves to know the answers if they are presented to us. Because we cannot trust anyone, including ourselves, we are paradoxically prey to agencies, organisations and individuals who offer us safe havens, who will take the burden of thought and action from our shoulders – until we realise that they too cannot be trusted.

In this climate the only reasonable sensible response is fear. We fear the side-effects of the drugs we take, we fear our next door neighbour because we do not know them, we fear for our children so keep them close, we fear the stranger on the bus or sitting next to us on the plane, we fear the dark and we fear for the future. We are encouraged in our fears by those in whose interests it is to have us in a constant state of uncertainty. Yet they themselves fear many of the things they teach us to fear. They even fear us. The language of risk has permeated everything we do. We often do a quick risk analysis when crossing the road, eating a chocolate bar or speaking to a stranger. The idea that life is inherently risky is not far behind. Yet the odd thing is, whenever we actually investigate the risks we usually find that they have changed very little from decades ago. Child murder statistics (to take a particularly emotive topic) have remained static for the last 50 years – yet the reality of the situation has little effect on parents fear for children even momentarily out of their sight. Every child, they are told repeatedly, is at risk of attack.

We live in an age of counselling. Whenever people are exposed to trauma, or even exposed to the news of trauma they are inevitably offered counselling to help them cope with the experience. People damaged in this way are it seems damaged for the rest of their lives. Self-help or self-reliance is seen as self-delusional and resistance to counselling is seen as a sign of deep unresolved trauma. Oddly 60 years ago at the height of the London Blitz no counselling was offered or asked for. People got on with their lives despite the death and destruction all around them. Few it would seem remained traumatised for the rest of their lives. Such an attitude, often satirised as the ‘stiff upper lip’, was seen as the natural and reasonable reaction to tragedy. You pick yourself up, dust yourself off and carry on. Such an attitude today would be seen as clearly inadequate at best and probably dangerous to the survivors and everyone around them. Today it is assumed that people will not be able to cope – with anything. This treatment of adults as if they were infants removes any kind of power that could be used to transform lives after tragedy. The counselled many are seen as helpless victims inherently unable to cope.

The only way out of this vicious cycle of fear and dependency according to Furedi is a renewal of trust and a moderation of the pervasive cynicism all too readily used as a default position. As you might expect this is far from easy. When we swim in an ocean of fear it is difficult not to swallow mouthfuls of anxiety with every breath we take. The building block we must use to build the foundations of a new way – or indeed an old way – is to start to trust ourselves. We need to trust our ability to make decisions knowing, in an adult fashion, that sometimes we’ll make bad ones. We need to recognise that knowledge is power and that we can actually have valid knowledge to work with. We need to take control of our lives by asking why we are expected to be so fearful so much of the time. When we are told to fear something or someone ask yourself why we are being told this, who is telling us and what advantage they will take from us buying into that fear. Those in ages past built global empires, faced war, plague and all manners of difficulties without giving up or rushing into the arms of a counsellor. They were no different from you and me. It is just that they had faith in each other and faith in their collective future – something it seems we have lost. It is something we need to find again if we are not to drift into an unknown future drenched in the stink of fear.