The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things Book

The book itself hasn't dated as much as I expected. While the discussion is still sketchy and simplistic it's true these same topics are still being fearmongered: child abduction, the medicalisation of life, race, youth.

However what I really wanted to read was the new chapter on the post 9/11 world. Sadly this is as shallow as the original book. There's a great quote from Dan Rather on page 234, regarding how, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, to question government became tantamount to treason:

"One finds oneself saying, 'I know the right questions [to ask the Bush administration], but you know what? This is not exactly the right time to ask it.'"

Glassner doesn't discuss this any further, and yet the defining characteristic of the 2000s was how consumers being parted from their dollars by media-highlighted fears segued into citizens being parted from their rights by government-highlighted fears.

Our Prime Minister just pulled this exact crap on Kiwis this week. He's trying to get a bill passed to allow greater surveillance over NZ citizens, and now claims that New Zealanders are being trained by al-Quaeda in Yemen. To which Kiwis universally say, "Hahahahahahahaha," while we still sit and watch this legislation get passed.

So, I think the book (as always) raises interesting ideas,but doesn't take them anywhere. An introduction to the topic, rather than a discussion on it.