What is this article about?
1. He wants us to stop spending our lives scared of things
that are unlikely to harm us while appreciating and taking more seriously the
real dangers we face daily.
Our fears are easily manipulated to have an inflated idea of
certain dangers around us while we completely ignore real threats.
2./3. a. flying (my mom, even me)
b. terrorism (how Islamophobia has gripped America and is detrimental to its citizens, has removed many freedoms)
c. the lottery (the recent huge jackpot and how many people bought tickets)
b. terrorism (how Islamophobia has gripped America and is detrimental to its citizens, has removed many freedoms)
c. the lottery (the recent huge jackpot and how many people bought tickets)
4. Political cartoon about Ebola, the way presidential
candidates play on these fears to get us to vote, how we don’t take our health
seriously in this country even though the lack of healthfulness is our biggest
killer, perhaps people can’t even
comprehend such big numbers and it’s impossible, maybe better education and
demonstration is key…
What
are you afraid of? According to David Myers, it’s probably not what you should
be. In his article “Do we fear the Right Things?” Myers explains how we tend to
be afraid of relatively unlikely things such as airline crashes, shark attacks,
or terrorism, rather than things that actually kill large numbers of people,
such as car accidents, the flu, and obesity. He goes on to say that we simply
do not comprehend the thousands of safe experiences people have in the oceans
or in the skies, for instance, and instead focus on the very small number (but
heavily reported) of dangerous ones. Myers believes we as a nation are bad at
probabilities and overestimate false danger while underestimating those things
that really threaten us. I have seen this happen to the American people time
and time again, and I believe we are actually hurting ourselves by letting
ourselves fall victim to this false understanding of the dangers in our lives
and we need to educate ourselves better to stop being so easily manipulated.
One big
way I’ve seen the American people overestimate danger is when it comes to
terrorism. There’s a word for the fear of people who follow Islam:
Islamophobia. This phobia has gripped the American people and it’s a huge
problem. We treat many of our fellow citizens terribly simply for being Muslim,
as if they are responsible for the actions of terrorists who also happen to be
Muslim. When Americans hear the word “terrorism,” they tend to also think of
Islam and become very scared. Myers tells us, however, that being afraid of
terrorism is generally a waste of time. He mentions that car accidents kill
more Americans in one week than terrorism has killed people in all of the
1990s. Additionally, Myers adds that “even with the horrific scale of 9/11,
more Americans in 2001 died of food poisoning (which scares few) than terrorism
(which scares many).” Though terrorism will affect very, very few Americans
directly, we have since become a nation of people scared of the followers of
the second largest religion in the entire world (and fellow citizens of our
very own country) because of, as the article puts it, “probabilities we hardly
grasp.”
I
believe this fear is particularly damaging to the American people. Because of
our fear, we have begun to treat certain Americans as second-class citizens. We
are making many, many people here and around the world pay for the bad actions
of a very small percentage of people. That
being said, this doesn’t negatively affect only Muslims. Because of Americans’
fear of terrorism, the government has taken away many of our rights and privacy
that we used to enjoy. The government now can listen to our personal phone
conversations and read our personal emails, justifying these actions with
telling us they are protecting us from something the article shows is hardly even
a threat. The best way I can think of to stop this problem is to better educate
ourselves about the reality surrounding our fears. Though the news may cover
plane crashes or shark attacks heavily, we need to learn how likely they
actually are (that is: not very). Similarly, though the news or politicians may
focus on the bad actions of some Muslims, we need to realize that there are
millions upon millions of Muslims in the world and we are only hearing about a
very few. Only through accurate knowledge and better education can we stop
falling victim to things such as “[overvaluing] lottery tickets,
[overestimating] flight risk, and [underestimating] the dangers of driving,” as
Myers puts it. We will all benefit from learning more about the real dangers in
life and worrying less about those things we’re unlikely to ever experience.
In the
end, education is the only way to change the way Americans think. From fearing
our fellow humans to allowing the government to scare us into giving up our
basic rights, believing these false probabilities is damaging and must stop.
Let’s all agree to better educate ourselves before letting false fears take
over our minds.
