state of fear
State of Fear by Michael Crichton
I don't know if I was too crazy about this book. It had some good moments, but also some very heavy handed ones in terms of preaching either side of the global warming issue. His notes at the end about where he stands are fairly interesting and I could hang with most of them.
p. 453
"There was a major shift in the fall of 1989. Before that time the media did not make excessive use of terms such as crisis, catastrophe, cataclysm, plague, or disaster. For example, during the 80s. the word crisis appeared in news reports about as often as the word budget. In addition, prior to 1989, adjectives such as dire, unprecedented, dreaded were not common i television reports or newspaper headlines. But then it all changed."
"These terms started to become more and more common. The word catastrophe was used five times more often in 1995 than it was in 1985. Its use doubled again by the year 2000. And the stories changed too. there was a heightened emphasis on fear, worry, danger, uncertainty, panic."
"Why should it have changed in 1989?"
"Ah, good question. Critical question. In most respects 1989 seemed like a normal year: (description of the year follows). The rise in the use of the term crisis can be located with some precision in the autumn of 1989. And it seemed suspicious that it should coincide so closely with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Which happened on November ninth of that year."
gap here for conversation
"I am leading to the notion of social control, Peter. To the requirement of every sovereign state to exert control over the behavior of its citizens, to keep them orderly and reasonably docile. To keep them driving on the right side of the road - or the left as the case may be. To keep them paying taxes. And of course we know that social control is best managed through fear."
NOTE: I would add that I certainly see this taking place in our current adminiastration and situation in the "war on terror", but I see it just as much in the media trying to make us NEED to watch them to get the latest information on what may kill us or our children and how we can maintain safety in our "dangerous" world thanks to their help and guidance.
p457 (In the midst of a discussion about government money spent on ridiculous fear-driven claims - like the whole overhead power lines give you cancer thing)
"At the very least we are talking about a moral outrage. Thus we can expect from our religious leaders and our great humanitarian figures to cry out against the waste and the needless deaths around the world that result. But do the religious leaders speak out? No. Quite the contrary, they join the chorus. The promote, 'What Would Jesus Drive?' As if what they have forgotten that what Jesus would drive is the false prophets and fearmongers out of the temple."
I don't know if I was too crazy about this book. It had some good moments, but also some very heavy handed ones in terms of preaching either side of the global warming issue. His notes at the end about where he stands are fairly interesting and I could hang with most of them.
p. 453
"There was a major shift in the fall of 1989. Before that time the media did not make excessive use of terms such as crisis, catastrophe, cataclysm, plague, or disaster. For example, during the 80s. the word crisis appeared in news reports about as often as the word budget. In addition, prior to 1989, adjectives such as dire, unprecedented, dreaded were not common i television reports or newspaper headlines. But then it all changed."
"These terms started to become more and more common. The word catastrophe was used five times more often in 1995 than it was in 1985. Its use doubled again by the year 2000. And the stories changed too. there was a heightened emphasis on fear, worry, danger, uncertainty, panic."
"Why should it have changed in 1989?"
"Ah, good question. Critical question. In most respects 1989 seemed like a normal year: (description of the year follows). The rise in the use of the term crisis can be located with some precision in the autumn of 1989. And it seemed suspicious that it should coincide so closely with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Which happened on November ninth of that year."
gap here for conversation
"I am leading to the notion of social control, Peter. To the requirement of every sovereign state to exert control over the behavior of its citizens, to keep them orderly and reasonably docile. To keep them driving on the right side of the road - or the left as the case may be. To keep them paying taxes. And of course we know that social control is best managed through fear."
NOTE: I would add that I certainly see this taking place in our current adminiastration and situation in the "war on terror", but I see it just as much in the media trying to make us NEED to watch them to get the latest information on what may kill us or our children and how we can maintain safety in our "dangerous" world thanks to their help and guidance.
p457 (In the midst of a discussion about government money spent on ridiculous fear-driven claims - like the whole overhead power lines give you cancer thing)
"At the very least we are talking about a moral outrage. Thus we can expect from our religious leaders and our great humanitarian figures to cry out against the waste and the needless deaths around the world that result. But do the religious leaders speak out? No. Quite the contrary, they join the chorus. The promote, 'What Would Jesus Drive?' As if what they have forgotten that what Jesus would drive is the false prophets and fearmongers out of the temple."
posted by J at 9:33 AM
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