The US used to pride itself on the "We can do it!" attitude. That was the attitude from colonial days through the Westward Expansion, through homesteading and cowboys through the railroads through World War II, through the economic boom afterward. Many things were invented, and when we needed something, "We can do it!"
WW2 We Can Do It
Even during the 1950s and 1960s, cold war, pervasive fear of "the bomb" and the godless Russians, we still figured we could survive with enough duck and cover drills, fallout shelters in every community, and personal bomb shelters. While people figured it would be bad, as a group, we were confident that "we'd make it through".
Somehow, all that has changed. It seemed to change sometime in the latter part of the 1980s decade. We can't do it. We need HELP. That was in everything from personal problems through international incidents.
I started really noticing the helplessness and fear on 9/11. I lived in the middle of the country, a couple thousand miles from New York, and people all around me were terrified that "they" would or could attack them in their community. They were so utterly HAPPY when they saw firetrucks in the streets that would "make them safe" from an airplane hitting something in their own city.
It's only gotten worse from there.
There's this constant drumbeat of "DANGER! DANGER!!!"
Danger! Danger!
It's everything from kids aren't safe playing in the park, from some obscure disease that somebody is selling a test, treatment, or cure for. TV commercials are filled with ads for medical devices and medications. Conversations among people have changed. It didn't used to be that you would be talking with a group of fairly-young mostly-healthy people (especially men), and the conversation would devolve into what diagnosis who had, what medical tests who was having, what medications they were taking, and what peoblems they had. In the past, that was a caricature of conversations among upscale, bored, elderly women. Now it's everywhere, and if "you" personally do not choose to participate, it's "you" who gets accused of being "reckless" with your health and other people's too, somehow. What happened to the days of talking about plans for the future, things we'd learned, entertainment we'd seen, who's thinking of taking what sorts of classes? What happened to talking of somebody having a "fine baby boy/girl", rather than going into all of the gory details of the labor and what procedures were done?
The persistant fear that some creepy guy in a raincoat will get "our kids" if we don't over-protect them, allow them to go outside, and watch or monitor them constantly remains, no matter how many surveys or studies come out saying that the child's family is most likely to abuse or murder them? At the same time, the most fearful seem to expect someone else, from expensive day cares to head start to neighbors - to watch over their kids. It doesn't make sense.
While some people fear their kids getting autism from vaccinations, a fraudulent claim which has been long-debunked, they don't seem to fear enough - or at all - the dangers of contracting those actual diseases. Instead, they fear new, novel, and emerging diseases. Drama-Queen-ism at its finest.
Every mass shooting brings up even more fear of getting shot. School shootings get people even more fearful, especially of unpopular, bullied kids. Hey! How do those "children" get guns? Parents? Other adults? Gun shows? Off the street? If they're buying them, how do those kids get the money? Guns are EXPENSIVE!
They seem to have the idea that this is something new that we must be afraid of, cower in fear, make sure that all children are homeschooled or go to the best charter schools or religious schools. They forget that school shootings have been going on since both guns and schools have existed, wherever they exist, and that the school bombing in Bath, Michigan in the 1920s was the worst and most deadly in history. But, Columbine! (Shudder)
It gets still worse. It's a fear of invasion of people who are mainly unarmed coming over the Southern border. It's fear that some of those people will be infected with diseases which only can occur in places where antibiotics are routinely over-used, or infected with diseases from half a world away. Seriously: How many poor people from Central America have been to Africa, how many of them know anyone who has ever been to Africa, and how many of them have even been on a flight? Their odds seem ludicrously low of getting, having, or carrying ebola, yet that's the fear.
Before that, it was enterovirus-68. That actually is a fear as it's occurring in the middle of the country in people who have had all of their recommended vaccinations. That was a panic, until it was overshadowed by the ebola panic.
Now, still in the middle of the country, where few people travel overseas, much less specifically to West Africa, people are utterly TERRIFIED of contracting ebola. There's concern about whether the local hospitals can care for them if they "get ebola". There's fear that this nurse in NJ will somehow spread ebola - which she doesn't have, has never been at anything more than low risk for, to everyone throughout the country.
I hear of local people who fear they have "ebola symptoms", yet most of them don't seek medical attention (now). This seems to give even more fuel to the hypochondriacs and drama queens of the world. None of these who I've encountered have returned recently from the affected countries in West Africa - or anywhere else out of the country.
People are afraid of what will happen if the wrong people win the upcoming election. They are worried about the horrors of what will happen if EITHER side wins. There are all sorts of fears from who will be rounded up, how, by whom. Somehow our way of life is going away. The FEMA camp fears abound too.
Then, there are fears of what Obama will do to us all, from the most fearful right-wingers. I hear that "Putin wouldn't let this happen." Golly gee.... they would rather be in Russia? Well, last I knew the US wasn't preventing emmigration, and Russia is seeking immigrants with certain skills, some of which a good many of the people promoting Putin have.
At the same time, they're also afraid of church attendance falling, of (fundamentalist, protestant, christian) religion not being taught to ALL CHILDREN. They're afraid that since millenials are among the largest and growing group of "none"s, religiously, that God will cease to bless America. People are very afraid.
When did the culture go from being big strong confident adults, resourceful people who could make something work, to being a nation of outright COWARDS?
People who are en masse very afraid or panicked about anything do strange, antisocial things which they might never do otherwise.
Ebola seems to be the latest "witch scare", and all people are fast to remove the civil rights of anyone accused of possibly having been anywhere near it. They don't base what they do then on anything resembling actual science, or logic, or facts - just kneejerk?
The next scare will be coming soon. If the ebola panic goes into flu season, I dread the amount of money and resources wasted on hypochondriacs and panic, overlooking people with actual deadly conditions.
It seems that the National Bird should be changed from the Bald Eagle. A proud, self-sufficient animal which is now endangered. Common sense, education, and reason also seem to be endangered.
DoDo Bird
- Dodo
- Chicken (self explanatory)
- Ostrich (put head in sand)
- Turkey (previously a serious suggestion, but 'Mericuns might be considered "turkeys" in conjunction with the "Ugly American" meme held currently throughout the world.)