lisab said:
When I was a kid, the fear of being blown up by nuclear weapons was a real fear. About that same time a movie that came out called The Day After - it was about the aftermath of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. I don't remember much about the movie but I do remember how it played on everyone's fears. Where I lived, the fear in people was absolutely real.
Hmm...I remember that movie and don't remember anyone being particularly afraid of anything. I remember lots of people talking about it, because for a TV movie, it was pretty good (was it one of the first mini-series? I can't recall if that was a mini-series.) I don't know where you were living at the time, but it seems like the people were seriously over-reacting to a movie.
So I wonder how growing up with so much fear affects people. To me - and this is based only on my limited travels - it seems we have more fear of people here in the US, compared to places like England or Mexico.
I don't know. I think there's a rather vocal, quite nutty, but minority subset of the population who is afraid of everything, but I don't think that's much of the norm, and I'm sure you find nuts like that everywhere if you look for them.
For example, my neighborhood is FULL of kids. On a typical beautiful day none are outside playing, unless a parent is there to watch over them. People are afraid "something" might happen...it's now normal to always have vague, non-specific, fear.
Oh, now that I've heard of...it seems to be an odd phenomenon among the upper-middle class suburban families that they are paranoid someone is going to steal their child if they let them play outside. I keep yelling at one of my friends about this, because his kids don't get to play outside much with the neighborhood children either. I keep telling him send the kids out in sunshine, and let them run around like we used to. I don't think this is a rational fear, but probably one inspired by the creation of these sex offender registries. I mean, there were always "creepy" people in the neighborhoods when we were growing up, and that's why you were taught not to talk to strangers, but it's no reason to deprive a kid of going outside to play.
Our home alarms are armed, our doors are locked, our jails are full. Am I just getting crotchety and nostalgic, or do people seem more on a hair-trigger these days?
I don't know. Not something I worry about a lot. I have never had an alarm on a home, and don't plan to. I lock the doors when I'm not home, but am not paranoid about locking them all if I am home (did have one friend stay with me who went all around checking the doors before going to sleep at night...apparently it bothered him that I didn't, but if someone wanted to break in at night, they'd just come in through a window anyway, so why should I get paranoid about locking the doors?).
I don't see how any of that would have anything to do with how many criminals are in jail, though.
