Why are so many fears in the air, and so many of them unfounded?

We have a virus called fear that is rapidly infecting Australian society, we are afraid of a threat yet to happen on our soil, a threat costing our government millions of dollars and a threat that will never kill as many Australians as smoking or obesity.

There seems to be no shortage of things that people are fearful of these days.

We fear for global warming. We are afraid of avian flu. We were petrified of SARS.

Many thought the world would end upon the new millennium.

We are fearful of the Equine influenza (Horse flu) and what will happen to Melbourne Cup Day 2007.

We dread future terrorist attacks. We are terrified about airline safety.

This topic of a ‘culture of fear’ interests me greatly and some key points I plan to focus on for my 2nd blog include:

Who fears what—and to what degree?

Is our culture becoming increasingly fearful, risk-averse, suspicious, even paranoid?

To what extent do these fears vary across various social groups?

How do fears shape identities, behaviours, morals, willingness to sacrifice freedoms, and other emotions?

What are the current trends by social groups such as the government, media etc that bring attention to specific fears in order to gain greater social control?

One reason I chose this topic was due to the fact that I have had numerous people from numerous countries tell me how paranoid they think the Australian government is. Upon hearing the first suggestion of this, I casually shrugged it off. However, the comments were becoming more and more frequent, so when a British friend of mine came around to my house to say hello and ask about travel advice for Thailand, he was absolutely gobsmacked when I showed him our governments travel advice website <http://www.smarttraveller.gov.au/>

He said to his knowledge the British government had nothing of the sort, and he was stunned at how comprehensive and detailed the information was. For every single country, there is a rating of precaution, ranging from ‘Be alert to own security’ right up to ‘Do not travel’

He also made a few interesting points such as ‘doesn’t this discourage you from travelling all together?’ and ‘if you completely abided by this website, where could you actually travel to?’
Each month up to half a million Australians travel overseas and this website, although it was made to protect and help travelling Australians, could have possibly done more harm than good for some.

On top of this, we also have a National Security Hotline:
National Security Hotline 1800 123 400, National Security Australia

This is a TV ad for the National Security Hotline http://youtube.com/watch?v=0x9vXEaGsL8

This 1 800 number attracted 500 calls in its first day - an early warning sign of how paranoid and suspicious we already are????

We also have a National Security Website http://www.nationalsecurity.gov.au/

We have new laws to stop ‘home grown terrorism’:

http://www.afp.gov.au/national/fighting_terrorism/home_grown_terrorism.html

Did you know we even have an Australian Ambassador for Counter-Terrorism?????

Is this all a bit much?? Where is the line between very cautious and paranoid??