Fear, a very prevalent emotion in every person in this world, can either be valid or invalid. Some fears people have are very realistic, while other fears, which most people have, are unrealistic. Sean Quimby, Syracuse University librarian, discussed this idea in his lecture on American Phobia: Collecting the history of Fear.
Quimby describes fear as a phobic feeling of something that one believes to be dangerous or simply unfavorable. He then cites sociologist Barry Glassner, who said that the culture of fearing such things as road rage, teen shootings, African-American men, and teen mothers. He discusses how these fears are unrealistic and we really should not fear them. He says that the more realistic things to fear are such things as poor healthcare. He also cites Joanne Barke who says that we should fear. By pointing these examples out, Quimby is showing the unrealistic nature of fear in our country. We are a very paranoid country. Quimby talked about a fictional radio broadcast called War of the Worlds, where the hosts announced that there was an alien invasion. Approximately six million Americans, who began to call for an evacuation due to this supposed invasion, took this fictional broadcast very seriously. These people lacked the ability to distinguish between reality and fiction. This shows how paranoid and fearful our country is. In conclusion of this idea, Quimby quoted John Vassos who said “phobias fear is psychotic”.
As Quimby exemplified, America is a very fearful country. We unrealistically fear many things that will probably never happen. The example of the alien invasion truly clinches that fact that we really are unrealistically paranoid.
