Day 231: Fear

I usually listen to the BBC in the morning while doing my exercises and taking my cold shower (thank you waterproof earphones).  Today Frank Furedi was talking about his latest book How Fear Works: Culture of Fear in the Twenty-First Century.  We probably live in the safest and most comfortable era the world has ever seen (apart from the environmental destruction aspect) and yet  anxiety and fear are still drivers of the public mood and often of our political system.  The more our world becomes exempt of real danger the more we seem to need to fill it with manufactured threats.  The worst thing is that this is then passed on to children.  I remember going to school on my bicycle when I was 7 or 8 in York now it seems that many parents can't imagine letting their children go out alone before the age of 11 or 12. I'm not sure that over protecting our children from non existent danger is the best way to build up their resilience.