Our Obsession With Fear

The recent Ebola outbreak has really gotten me thinking lately. Not about the Ebola virus, or anything health related in general, but rather about how our society reacts to this type of thing. I’m not trying to make light of the situation, as I do understand that it’s a very serious topic. What I am saying is that I think our society as a whole has this problem where it feels the need to fear something.

Whenever there is any type of outbreak, we tend to obsess over it. We automatically assume that every new disease is going to completely destroy the human race, so we freak out. I think that we as a people think that we always have to have something to fear. We like being scared. I mean, why do you think the horror industry is so big? We go see scary movies, we go to haunted houses, we read horror novels - we like fear. It’s almost as if it’s uncomfortable or unsettling if there isn’t anything to fear. We live in this fear-obsessed culture where everyone has a list of phobias, and if you don’t, you’re considered weird or completely emotionless.

We like to jump on the band-wagon and freak out about everything the media tells us to be afraid of, before we even really know what it is. And the weird part is, we’re okay with it. We’re completely accepting of being told we have to fear something, and that, I think, is the real thing we need to be afraid of.