Living in a Culture of Fear

One of the main topics of discussion in class today was about how we are a culture that lives in fear. There is a list of never ending products that our society uses due to a fear that they may have. Some of the items on this list are: SPF 45, Condoms, Sanitizing Gel, Amber Alerts etc. While I am a consumer of most of the products created for the fears this society has, I never thought of buying them as contributing to the continuing cycle of fear. When buying these products, I just look at it as good sense. Personally I don't want to get sunburned or to consume dirty germs when I am eating my food, hence the use of sunscreen and hand sanitizer. I wonder why purchasing these products would be considered a result of fear rather than just being smart. However, I do believe that this society lives in fear, but due to other things rather than the creation of these products. The events of 9/11 I believe are the main reason we live as a paranoid population. The fact that there are other countries who dislike us that much are the things to worry about because they are things that are out of our control. It also doesn’t help that the media in the United States is one of embellishment and tends to continually show the negative side of things rather than the positive. This tends to cause a strong reaction with the audience and can cause them to overreact to a situation or to do just the opposite; ignore it because they are sick and tired of hearing the same overblown stories, therefore sometimes not getting the information that they may need.