Do we fear the right things

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Introduction

Fear has become a fundamental thing in the current American society. There are always fears about wars, terrorism, other people, as well as food-borne diseases among other things. There are varied opinions as to the basis of fear in the contemporary American society, with some insinuating that people’s fears are founded on the things that others have taught them to fear and not based on fact or critical thought.

In the article, “Do we fear the right things”, David G. Myers holds the opinion that people do not fear the right things. His main claim is that people fear what they have been sensationalized about and not what is likely. In essence, David argues that peoples’ fears are founded on the wrong things. He cautions that people should be careful as to the basis of their fears, and check their fears against facts. While, David’s claim falls under judgment or value claims since it involves attitudes, opinions, as well as a subjective evaluation of issues, he takes his time to present verifiable data.

As grounds for supporting his argument, David draws the example of the effect of 9/11 terrorism attack. After the attack, the number of people who signed up for flights reduced by about 20 percent. Instead, they chose to drive as much as they could and limit their flights to only the necessary. Ironically, more people die in road accidents than in the ill-fated flights. David draws from the report by the National Safety Council which insinuates that from the year 1995 to 2000, Americans were 37 times more likely to perish in car accidents than on commercial flights. Even in an imaginable instance where terrorists had taken down fifty planes each of which carried 60 passengers, Americans would still have been safer flying than driving in 2001. On the same note, David argues that people are less worried about food poisoning than terrorism, yet the former killed more people than the latter in 2001. In addition, most smokers are more worried about flying, which shortens an individual’s life by a single day, than their smoking habit, which reduces their lifespan by more than five years.

Any claim made must incorporate a warrant, which is essentially an inferential leap connecting the claim made and the grounds supporting it (David & Bart 2006). In this article, David Myers establishes a connection between his claim and the grounds that the claim is based on by drawing from psychological science. He explains that an individual’s intuition pertaining to risk is based on four influences. Psychological science explains that an individual is prepared by his ancestral history on what he or she should fear. Most of the emotions that human beings have today were tested during the Stone Age. In essence, yesterday’s risks prepare an individual to fear certain things even when those things have not been a danger to anyone in the contemporary times (David 2001). It is noteworthy that, an individual’s biological past predisposes him to fear something even when it does not pose any risk to him in the current times.

In addition, people fear the things for which they do not have any control. This could be explained by the fact that, while downhill skiing poses a thousand times more risk to an individual’s health than the risk posed by food preservatives, most people have cannot touch preservatives but will gladly ski downhill. This is because they controls skiing but are not in full control of preservatives, and explains why people fear flying and not driving. In essence, people would never allow others to do to them what they gladly do to themselves (David 2001).

Moreover, David outlines the fact that people fear things that are immediate. This explains why teens are, more often than not, indifferent to the toxicity of smoking because they are more concerned about the present than their future. While the threat of a plane accident is concentrated on the moment of landing or takeoff, the dangers pertaining to driving are spread across numerous moments, each of which is minutely dangerous (David 2001).

Lastly, people are more adept at fearing things that are more readily available to their memories than those that are not. The 9/11 World Trade Center terrorist attacks produced gruesome images, which left indelible and available memories in the brains of many people. These memories are used as measuring rods with which people intuitively judge risks. When individuals have had numerous safe car trips, their anxieties pertaining to driving are extinguished. Vivid events cause individuals to overestimate odds, as well as have a distorted comprehension of the potential risks and their probable outcomes (David 2001). Individuals will remember the 266 passengers, who perished in the 9/11 flights, but not comprehend the numerous accident-free flights totaling 16 million accident-free landings and takeoffs in one stretch that took place in the 90s. In essence, individuals do not grasp possibilities but have their attention captured by dramatic outcomes. Since people fear the things that claim lives in an undramatic manner, they have misplaced priorities on where to channel resources to save most lives.

Conclusion

David Myers makes a claim that is essentially based on fact as well as personal opinion and attitude about fear. He makes a claim that the fears that people have are based on what they have been sensationalized about by the media, not what truly poses the highest risk to them. He makes the claim on the grounds that people fear flights more than driving yet, the later has claimed more lives than the former (David 2001). People tend to be more attentive to the drama that accompanies incidences and end up channeling resources to issues that are way too low on the ladder of priority. These grounds and warrants enable him to take a persuasive stand on his claim by expounding more on it (David & Bart 2006).