For the sake of clarity. My "culture of fear" observation was only to include the wide area of our culture today, both in USA and Europe, where I have lived and observed, not anyone's personal parenting style.
It is my observation that we have embraced as a strong component of present civilization a two component pattern of fear. I will try to express my observations in simple terms with the recognition it is a complex pattern with many personal variables. 1. First Element: An act by party or parties which is outside both the law and or safety. 2. Second Element: Response. First by affected party, Second by First Responders, Third by "News Media". The news media responds by making the event/events their "darling child" 24/7 until it can not be milked any further or is replaced with a new tragedy. [Part of the culture is to be glued to every detail, true of not, that is sent over the airwaves, for days or months, Example, the words O.J. Simpson, feel it?] 3. Third Element: The well established principle of human response is "Fight or Flight" when confronted with conflict. The "civilized" culture today does not allow "Fight" response, however, in each person watching the endless replays of the chosen tragedy, inner stress rises, each time, because humans are hard wired for survival. 4. Third Element, Second component: With each viewing of the tragedy, persons viewing also experience the "Flight" response. [Intensity of both 3 & 4 are very individual]. However, the need to flee from such acts is real, valid and intense, whether recognized or internalized as is the need to "Fight". 5. Fourth Element: The cumulative effect, on culture, over the several decades this pattern has been repeated [for now, lets pick video of Vietnam war day by day going forward] has been that this set of individual responses have become part of our overall culture. Those responses make up a very unsatisfied response to the hard wired "Fight or Flight" hard wire result of eons of selective breeding and survival. [Women pick brave men to father children and survive, fact not fiction, borne out by many sources]. 6. Fifth Element: The long term and cultural effect of this constant daily exposure to repeated display and focus on every violent act, through media display, has produced an effect very much like PTSD. The strong sense held by many is they need to Fight, but are not capable of it and can't identify just what or who to fight. Concurrent with that is the strong sense they need to Flight, but can not identify clearly were the threat is, or where they would be safe. 7. Sixth Element: Both responses are hard wired into humans and with good reason. They are both healthy responses to a threat. However, in our current culture, neither are possible or acceptable. Yet, the "assault media" continues, every hour of every day to present these high threat levels, and civilized humans respond in the only ways left for them to respond, by making themselves numb and or curling into the fetal position [some literally, some figuratively] . The observations I've made indicate as a culture, we now elect to neither Fight or Flight, but suffer daily because internally we need to in order to survive. The cultural response is to delegate the "Fight" to First Responders and Prosecutors, Lawyers, Mental Health Professionals, ad nausium, which only protracts the inner need to "Fight" with no resolution. The "Flight" response has no real social equivalent [well, perhaps the local bar] so that is simply internalized into the accumulated culture of stress which we pass on to our young. By both example and by direct action we "teach them to be fearful" because we are fearful as part of our culture of unresolved "Fight or Flight". Well, I see our 50 minutes are up. Schedule you next appointment with the receptionist. Will you be paying with card or check today? BTW, how is that nice 300SD of yours running? Grant... On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 2:16 AM, Fmiser <fmi...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > Randy Bennell wrote: > > > > > > > > My wife was talking with a young woman [whose son] is 5 > > > > or 6 (I cannot recall which) [and] is having nightmares > > > > because, every day at school, they are having drills on > > > > what to do if someone comes to the school with a gun. > > > > G Mann wrote: > > > > > > Without going to any discussion about guns, period, let us > > > look at the true source of this young mans fear, how it was > > > installed, who taught it to him, where it came from. > > > > > > We have in our society today a culture that teaches children > > > to be fearful. > > > > Now? Please draw your own conclusions. > > > Andrew Strasfogel wrote: > > > > What culture? I taught my son to be careful, but fearful? > > No. Are you talking about the culture in your home town or is > > this yet another "straw man"? > > Err, did you perchance just suffer from "top-post-itis"? And > didn't notice or read the post Grant was replying to? > > When put in order, it looks to me like Grant is commenting on > the schools. Or maybe I'm mis-reading it too. > > -- Philip > > _______________________________________ > http://www.okiebenz.com > For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com > To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ > > To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: > http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com > _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
