标题: [Frank Furedi]What swine flu reveals about the culture of fear [打印本页]
作者: Robot 时间: 2009-5-23 14:42 标题: [Frank Furedi]What swine flu reveals about the culture of fear
Tuesday 5 May 2009
Frank Furedi
What swine flu reveals about the culture of fear
Essay: As health officials tell us ‘all of humanity is under threat’, Frank Furedi provides a guide to today’s various species of scaremonger.
When Margaret Chan, head of the World Heath Organisation, raised the pandemic threat alert from four to five in response to the swine flu outbreak, she had no qualms about using the language of fear. ‘All of humanity is under threat’, she declared.
When, in the future, historians look back on this performance of fear, and on the swine flu panic more broadly, they will surely ask themselves: was Chan speaking as a public health official or as a moral entrepreneur? It is striking that Chan, like most fear entrepreneurs, does not perceive her behaviour as being in any way illegitimate or unduly alarmist. Indeed, she, like other fearmongers, qualified her warning with a reassuring statement: ‘Don’t panic.’
This combination of fear-promotion with the rhetoric of reassurance is a key aspect of the modern-day narrative of fear. Consider Chan’s warning that WHO is likely to raise its flu alert to the top of its six-point scale and declare a pandemic. This time she did not talk about the threat to ‘all of humanity’ and the danger of human extinction. ‘Level six does not mean, in any way, that we are facing the end of the world’, she said, before noting that ‘it is important to make this clear because [otherwise], when we announce level six, it will cause unnecessary panic’.
So Chan raised the spectre of human extinction with the elevation of the threat level from four to five, but when it came to the possibility of raising it to level six she appeared to take a more relaxed attitude towards the potential for global catastrophe. Of course, her very attempt to sound reassuring was framed in the sort of rhetoric that is likely to have the opposite effect. Informing the public that ‘we are not facing the end of the world’ implies that we might face it some time soon, and indicates that apocalyptic thinking is no longer confined to the world of religion. Chan’s secular version of apocalyptic thinking is powered by a contemporary cultural script that both exaggerates health threats and also links these threats with human malevolence more broadly. From this perspective, every virus, every disease, every new outbreak of flu, is potentially a weapon in the armoury of Evil.
The protagonists in today’s market of fear have forcefully sought to demonise flu as a threat to the world, as something that might even be turned into a weapon of mass destruction. The prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology now advertises a course on ‘Pandemics and Bioterrorism’. It claims that ‘swine flu is only the most recent of the challenges posed by threats of bioterrorism and global pandemics’. The casual manner in which the threat of bioterrorism is introduced into the discussion of swine flu, by one of the most respected scientific institutions in the world, provides disturbing evidence that fearmongering has become a respectable pastime and pursuit.
Today, fear entrepreneurs come in all shapes and sizes. Some are moral crusaders who genuinely believe that the very fabric of society is threatened by evil forces. At the other end of the spectrum are the salespeople and hustlers of the market of fear. It is useful to distinguish between the different species of scaremonger, so here is your ‘Guide To Spotting The Different Actors In The Dramatisation Of Fear’.
Religious moral entrepreneurs
Historically, religion has often warned about the dangers of moral transgression. Although the influence of religion has waned in recent years, prophets of doom who foresee an apocalypse still play an important role in society. Religious moral entrepreneurs have been in the forefront of promoting scares about satanic ritual abuse and other wicked behaviour that challenges the sanctity of family life. However, although religious moral entrepreneurs exercise significant influence on specific issues, they are no longer a dominant force in society. They are merely one group of moral entrepreneurs that is in constant competition with various other fear marketeers.
Religious moral entrepreneurs are convinced that human misfortune ultimately springs from the activities of Satan. In the age of the internet, they often appear as digital, wired-up Jeremiahs warning that God will punish sinners for their errant ways. Some have argued that AIDS is God’s way of punishing immoral sexual behaviour. Big catastrophes such as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina have been portrayed as retribution for degenerate, sinful behaviour. One Christian columnist described Katrina as ‘the fist of God’.
Unlike other types of scaremongers, religious moral entrepreneurs explicitly talk up the moral corruption of society. They have also willingly embraced current anxieties about the future of our planet. They have quite effortlessly reworked the language of environmentalism to make it fit with their views on apocalypse, Armageddon and ‘End Times’. Only in their vision, the triad of sin, evil and Satan replaces economic growth and carbon emissions as the main cause of the environmental problem.
Their favourite word: Sin.
Secular moral entrepreneurs
For some time, concern about moral corruption has taken an increasingly secular form, sometimes leaving the religious moral entrepreneurs behind. Many high-profile advocacy organisations have devoted themselves to warning the public about a variety of perilous events. In some areas – for example, child protection – advocacy groups have successfully, and fundamentally, changed the way that generations interact and the way children conduct their lives. Organisations such as the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) continually use alarmist messages about the scale of child abuse in order to raise funds and influence public opinion.
Unlike religious moral entrepreneurs, advocacy groups use ‘surveys’ and ‘research’, rather than the language of good and evil, to claim that a particular problem is getting worse and that, unless Something Is Done, it will engulf the whole of society. Secular moral entrepreneurs embrace their causes with the dogmatic fervour of the old-time religious crusaders – only theirs is a crusade that has no end. Advocacy groups promoting the cause of children or animals or the homeless can never bring themselves to concede that the situation of these groups is improving; on the contrary, they invariably claim that the problem is getting worse and worse, because that is what guarantees their hold on the public imagination.
Secular moral entrepreneurs continually seek out new opportunities to promote their cause, in a process described by sociologists as ‘domain expansion’: that is, expanding a widely recognised problem to encompass new issues. For example, widespread public concern about child abuse has encouraged secular moral entrepreneurs to use the language of abuse in relation to other issues, too: some now campaign to prevent ‘elder abuse’, ‘animal abuse’ and what they call ‘peer-to-peer abuse’. It is now even argued that people who are cruel to animals are likely to be cruel to their family members as well – in other words, one form of abuse begets another. With relentless repetition, and the support of the media, this imaginative linking together of disparate problems can become a kind of conventional wisdom. Secular moral entrepreneurs frequently flag up the gravity of a certain threat by using metaphors of invisibility: problems are hidden, concealed, unacknowledged.
Their favourite phrase: ‘This is only the tip of the iceberg.’
Experts
Experts, particularly scientific experts, play a uniquely important role in today’s culture of fear. Many of our anxieties are provoked by the statements and predictions of experts. Experts warn about the potential devastating impact of global warming, impending food and energy shortages, or of an asteroid striking Earth. They warn us of dangers far (or near) in the future that cannot be seen by ordinary human beings. And their dire predictions about an impending flu epidemic and various other ‘super bugs’ frequently capture the public’s imagination.
Expert warnings usually begin with the statement ‘research shows…’, and conclude with a demand for resources to be devoted to the task of preventing some future dreadful scenario from becoming a reality. Expert warnings are taken seriously because they are underpinned by the most influential form of twenty-first century authority: the authority of science. Consequently, the support of experts is continually sought out by other scaremongers – both religious and secular – who want to add some moral authority to their campaigns.
In recent decades, the status of experts has increased exponentially. Experts claim to have insights that ordinary people could never possess. Their views are looked upon as far more important and profound than the public’s. Expert opinion is more than just an opinion: the statement ‘an expert warns…’ now gives great force and influence to a campaigner’s claims. Expert witnesses are, in many ways, the new demonologists: numerous children have been taken away from their parents after expert witnesses claimed to have detected physical signs of abuse. Fortunately, in some cases children have been returned to parents once the courts realised that the expert’s opinion was just that: the opinion of yet another scaremonger. Yet although experts often contradict one another, society finds it difficult to ignore what they have to say.
Their favourite phrase: ‘Research shows…’
Health activists
Health activists often claim to be experts. Under the cover of the authority of science, they continually raise concerns about the public’s physical and emotional wellbeing. They constitute a distinct group of fear entrepreneurs, whose focus is people’s health. They promote messages that prey on people’s existential fears. In recent decades, they have combined their fearmongering with the demand that people adopt a ‘healthy lifestyle’. Indeed, health activists self-consciously use scare tactics – what they call ‘fear appeals’ – to achieve their objectives.
They preach the message that people’s lives are becoming more and more unhealthy, and thus we need to be ever more vigilant in order to avoid becoming diseased. Health activists target every area of our lives – the food we eat, our emotional lives and sex lives, our relationships – with scare stories. Probably of all the scaremongers, health activists have the most direct and immediate impact on how people think and behave.
And they have been extraordinarily successful in ‘diseasing’ everyday life. Bit by bit, they have expanded the meaning of health; they frequently use the term ‘wellness’: we now have ‘well men’s clinics’ and ‘well women’s clinics’. The premise is that being well is not a natural or normal state – instead it is something people need to work on, something to aspire to and achieve with the help of experts and gurus. Health activists insist that, unless you follow their prescribed patterns of behaviour, your risk of becoming ill will increase.
Their favourite expression: ‘A risk to your health.’
Environmentalists
Environmentalism is accorded an enormous amount of respect and authority today; the predictions and warnings of green groups are taken very seriously indeed. Environmentalists are in the forefront of contemporary doom-mongering. Environmentalists influence and shape the language of twenty-first-century fear more than any other group in this list.
Their message is straightforward and devastatingly simple: unless we alter the way we live, the planet will be destroyed. If anything, environmentalists have an apocalyptic vision of the future that is even more alarming than that possessed by religious moral entrepreneurs. Unlike the religious model of the Day of Reckoning, where at least some will be saved, environmentalists offer an apocalypse without redemption.
Their pessimistic visions exercise a fundamentally important influence on Western culture and behaviour today. Environmentalism provides a motif for moral regulation. It not only resembles religion in its proclivity for talking up the coming apocalypse – it also shares religion’s intolerance of heresy. Those who fail to accept its wisdom are denounced as ‘climate change deniers’ and accused of being driven by a malevolent hidden agenda. Anyone who refuses to accept the need to alter their behaviour and ‘go green’ is depicted as greedy and irresponsible. The growth of survivalism and green lifestyles in general is testament to the influence of this group of alarmists.
Environmentalists have made a major contribution to the general language of fearmongering. They don’t just have one or two favourite words to incite fear amongst the public; they have a virtual dictionary of scaremongering. ‘Extinction’, ‘ecological catastrophe’, ‘pollution’, ‘depletion’: these are just some of the terms that are now familiar even to pre-school children.
Their favourite words: There are too many to mention, but they particularly enjoy using the word ‘toxic’ to describe anything they don’t like.
Relationship professionalsThe arena of human relationships has become an important site for promoting fear and anxiety. Our relationships have been transformed into a territory that is fraught with danger, and a veritable army of relationship professionals – therapists, counsellors, life coaches, parenting gurus – continually warn us about the perils we face in our private lives.
Relationship professionals tend to frighten people about their connection with members of their community, their neighbours, their lovers or their family members. It is striking that in the twenty-first century, many of the most high-profile, dreaded crimes are associated with inter-personal relationships. Rape, date rape, child abuse, elder abuse, bullying and stalking (both online and offline): these crimes remind us to beware those who are closest to us.
Privacy was once looked upon as a haven in a heartless world. These days, intimacy and family life are often presented as sites of violence, danger and emotional trauma. Warnings about ‘toxic relationships’ and ‘toxic families’ (the T-word is borrowed from environmentalists) promote a sense of fear that is as intense as the fear of terrorism or planetary destruction. Their effect is to distance us from other people. Health warnings about relationships can have a devastating impact on the quality of our personal lives.
Relationship professionals continually remind us not to trust ourselves or those closest to us. They have even tried to turn the desire for affection and love into a form of addiction, coining the term ‘love sickness’ and warning that the intensity of love can be damaging to people’s wellbeing. Books with titles such as Women Who Love Too Much seek to distance people from one another. The idea is that relationships are far too dangerous to be left to amateurs – they need to be negotiated with the help of professionals.
Their favourite diagnosis: ‘You have self-esteem issues.’
Law-and-order moral entrepreneurs
Anxieties about crime and terrorism are widespread in Western societies. Alarmist warnings about personal and community security are regularly made by the media and figures of authority. There are also various advocacy groups that are devoted to raising concern about threats to law and order, such as illegal immigration, paedophilia, rape or gun crime.
Historically, governments and officials have been in the forefront of this kind of scaremongering. Many governments sought to gain the public’s acquiescence by claiming to provide security from various threats, practising what is today called the ‘politics of fear’. Now, raising concerns about law and order is no longer confined to politicians. There are numerous campaigning groups that raise the alarm about issues such as school violence, gun crime, terrorism, immigration, ‘epidemics’ of homophobia, hate crimes. Indeed, law-and-order scaremongers constantly compete with each other, trying to out-scare other fearmongering camps in their attempt to win public support.
Like others in this list, law-and-order scaremongers are always looking for new opportunities, even inventing new crimes. For example, they have systematically recycled offline crimes into online crimes: the construction of ‘cyber-crime’ – such as internet bullying, internet paedophilia, identity theft, fraud, and general internet abuse – is testimony to this group’s success in criminalising the virtual world as well as the real one.
Their favourite incantation: ‘There is an epidemic of crime.’
Fear-market entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurs regularly harness the prevailing culture of fear in order to promote their businesses and sell their products. They habitually warn that we face all sorts of dangers to our health, security and wellbeing. In some cases, hazards are fabricated – for example, the idea that tap water is unsafe – leading to a transformation in how people live and behave.
The health and pharmaceutical industry – one of the most profitable sectors of the economy – has been well-served by today’s neverending panics. Food scares have significantly influenced our eating habits. Concerns about global warming have given rise to a new cadre of green entrepreneurs who argue that, unless the entire economy is reorganised around green issues, we will all be doomed. One of the consequences of this flourishing fear market is the growth of competitive claims about what we should be most scared about today.
Fear entrepreneurs are very inventive when it comes to turning minor problems into threats, for which they can helpfully provide a treatment or a product. For example, they can turn a normal personal problem like shyness into a disease, relabelling it ‘social phobia’, warning about its dangerous consequences, and then selling you a drug that can treat it. Worried parents are one of the favourite targets of fear entrepreneurs: they frequently warn parents that unless they purchase one of their safety products, they will bear some of the responsibility for harms that afflict their children.
Their favourite claim: ‘Your safety is our main concern.’
We should note that, although these eight groups are conceptually distinct from one another, their activities and interests often overlap. Health activists are sometimes associated with fear entrepreneurs who sell various products on the market; religious moral entrepreneurs have formed alliances with both environmentalists or therapists working as ‘relationship professionals’. Indeed, despite their diverse interests, the work of these different groups tends to reinforce scaremongering as a whole, as they all contribute to the construction of a climate where promoting fear and anxiety comes to be seen as a legitimate pursuit. And as the performance of fear around the current drama titled ‘Swine Flu Pandemic’ shows, all of these groups are competing for a role in today’s dramatisation of doom.
Frank Furedi is author of Culture of Fear (buy this book from Amazon(UK)) and Invitation To Terror: The Expanding Empire of The Unknown (buy this book from Amazon(UK)), both published by Continuum Press. Visit Furedi’s website here.
[ 本帖最后由 Robot 于 2009-5-23 14:44 编辑 ]
作者: Robot 时间: 2009-5-23 14:45
[光明译丛]猪流感与恐惧文化
作者：弗兰克·菲雷迪 著 吴万伟 译
光明网-光明观察 刊发时间：2009-05-21 11:12:00
卫生官员告诉我们说“全人类都受到威胁”，弗兰克·菲雷迪刻画了当今时代形形色色危言耸听者的嘴脸。
面对猪流感爆发，世界卫生组织总干事陈冯富珍（Margaret Chan）的回应是将全球流感大流行警告级
别从第四级升高到第五级，她宣称“全人类都受到威胁”，在使用恐惧语言时似乎没有良心上的不安。
未来，当历史学家回顾这种恐惧表演和更笼统的猪流感恐惧时，肯定自问这样的问题：陈究竟是作为公共卫生官员还是作为道德企业家在讲话呢？像大多数道德企业家一样，陈一点儿也没有把自己的行为看作非法的或者耸人听闻的，这让人印象深刻。实际上，她像其他危言耸听者一样用安慰性的“不要恐慌”来缓和她的警告。
这种引发恐惧和安慰性言论结合的手法是当今恐惧叙述的重要特征。想象一下陈的警告世界卫生组织可能把流感警告提高到六个等级中的最高级别，宣布全球流感大流行。这次她没有谈论对“全人类”的威胁和人类毁灭的危险。她说“第六级决不意味着我们将面对世界末日，”然后指出“把这一点说清楚是重要的，因为否则的话，当我们宣布达到六级时可能引起不必要的恐慌”。
所以，陈用把警告等级从四级提升到五级的方式提出了人类灭绝的幅度，但在谈到提高至第六级的可能性时，她似乎采取了对全球灾难前景更放松的态度。当然，她听起来安慰人的尝试本身是在可能产生相反影响的言论背景下形成的。告诉公众“我们还没有面对世界末日”暗示我们在将来某个时候可能面对这样的情况。这显示末日思维已不再局限于宗教世界。陈的世俗版本的末日论是受到既夸大健康威胁又把这些威胁和更笼统的人类恶意行为结合起来的当代文化的滋养的。从这个角度看，任何一个病毒、任何一种疾病、任何一种流感的爆发都是魔鬼军械库中潜在的武器。
今天的恐惧市场上的企业家已经强有力地把流感妖魔化为全世界的威胁，作为甚至被当作大规模杀伤性武器一样的东西。著名学府麻省理工学院现在宣传一门课程“流行病和生物恐怖主义”。其广告宣称“猪流感只是生物恐怖主义和全球流行病威胁提出的最新挑战而已”。作为全世界最受尊重的科学研究机构之一的麻省理工在生物恐怖主义威胁被引进猪流感讨论时的随意态度是一个让人担忧的证据，说明危言耸听已经成为值得尊敬的消遣和追求。
今天，恐惧企业家以各种形式和规模出现。恐惧企业家中有些是道德圣战者，真诚地相信社会机体本身受到邪恶力量的威胁。在这光谱的另一头是恐惧市场的推销员和积极分子。区分不同类别的危言耸听者是非常有用的，本文试图提供一份“辨别恐惧戏剧舞台上各色演员的指南”。
宗教道德企业家
从历史上看，宗教常常警告道德堕落的危险。虽然最近一些年宗教的影响力已经衰弱，预测世界末日来临的预言家在社会上仍然扮演很重要的角色。宗教道德企业家一直处于推销对撒旦式宗教仪式滥用和其他挑战家庭生活的神圣性的邪恶行为的恐惧的前沿。但是，虽然宗教道德企业家在具体议题上发挥比较大的影响，但是他们不再是社会的主导力量。他们不过是和恐惧市场众多其他商人不断竞争的一群道德鼓吹者而已。
宗教道德企业家相信人类的不幸最终是来自撒旦的行为。在网络时代，它们常常表现为数字的、兴奋的悲观预言家耶利米（Jeremiahs）（译者注：圣经人物，公元前7和6世纪时希伯来先知），他警告说上帝将要惩罚那些走上歧途的罪人。有些人认为艾滋病就是上帝对那些进行不道德性行为者的惩罚。像9-11袭击和卡特琳娜飓风等大灾难也都被描述为堕落和犯罪行为的报应。一个基督教专栏作家曾把卡特琳娜描述为“上帝的拳头”。
和其他危言耸听者不同，宗教道德企业家明确谈论社会的道德堕落。他们也愿意拥抱当今对我们地球未来的焦虑。他们常常轻松自然地重新包装环保主义者的语言，让它们适用于自己的世界末日论、电影《世界末日》（Armageddon）和（译者注：通过抢走棒棒糖让孩子提前认识世界的残酷的画展）《终结时代》（End Times）等观点。只是在他们的视野中，罪过、邪恶、撒旦的三位一体代替了经济发展、二氧化碳排放成为环境问题的主要根源。
他们最喜欢的词：罪过
世俗道德企业家
一段时间来，关于道德堕落的担忧越来越多地呈现出世俗的形式，有时候甚至把宗教道德企业家甩在后面。许多高调宣传的倡议组织忙于警告大众形形色色可怕的事。比如在有些地方，儿童保护团体已经成功地从根本上改变了儿童的行为方式。英国全国防止虐待儿童协会(NSPCC)之类组织连续使用儿童受虐待的耸人听闻言论就是为了筹集资金和影响公众舆论。
和宗教道德企业家不同，这些团体使用“调查”或者“研究”而不是善良与邪恶等语言来宣称某个问题变得越来越严重，除非采取某些行动，否则将让整个社会遭殃。世俗道德企业家用过去宗教圣战者的教条般热情拥抱他们的事业，只不过他们的圣战是没有终结的。保护儿童、动物、无家可归者权利的鼓吹者团体从来不会自己承认这些群体的状况在改善，相反，他们毫无例外地宣称问题变得越来越糟糕，因为这是确保他们抓住公众想象力的诀窍。
世俗道德企业家持续寻找新的机会来推动他们的事业，这个过程被社会学家描述为“领域扩张”（domain expansion）:也就是说，把被广泛承认的问题扩张到包容其他新议题。如公众对儿童虐待问题越来越多的担心鼓励了世俗道德企业家在谈论其他问题时使用虐待语言，如“老人虐待”“动物虐待”以及“同伴虐待”。现在甚至有人指出虐待动物的人很可能对家人也会非常残忍，换句话说，一种形式的虐待招致另一种虐待。因为连篇累牍地轰炸，媒体的支持，这些不相干问题的想象中的联系成为普遍的常识。世俗道德企业家常常通过使用看不见的比喻来夸大某种威胁的严重性：问题被隐藏起来、被掩盖、还没有被承认等。
他们最喜欢的词：“这只是冰山一角。”
专家
专家，尤其是理科专家在当今恐惧文化中扮演着独特重要性的角色。我们的许多焦虑都是由专家言论或者预测引发的。专家警告全球变暖的毁灭性影响、即将到来的食物和能源短缺、或小行星撞击地球。他们警告我们普通人看不到的遥远未来（最近的未来）的危险。他们关于即将出现的流行病或者其他“超级病毒”传播的可怕预言往往能抓住大众的想象力。
专家的警告往往以这样的句子开头“研究显示”，结尾则是要求投入资源来防止未来的可怕场面变为现实。专家的警告往往被人们认真对待，因为他们得到21世纪具有最大影响力的权威的支持：科学的权威。因此，其他危言耸听者，不管是宗教道德企业家还是世俗道德企业家如果想给他们的事业增添道德权威的话，往往都要借助专家的支持。
最近几十年，专家的声望呈指数级增长。专家宣称他们拥有普通人永远也不可能具有的洞察力，他们的观点被看作比公众观点更重要，更深刻。专家的观点不仅仅是观点，“专家警告说”的命题现在给予运动鼓吹者巨大的影响和力量。在很多方式上，专家证人成为新魔法师：在专家证人宣称发现孩子受到虐待的身体特征后，很多孩子被从父母身边带走。幸运的是，在有些情况下，孩子被送回到父母身边来了，当法庭认识到专家的意见不过是另外一种危言耸听者的观点。不过，虽然专家往往相互矛盾，社会仍然很难忽略他们的观点。
他们最喜欢的词：“研究显示……”
健康积极分子
健康积极分子常常自称专家。在科学权威的幌子下，他们连续不断地向公众警告身体和感情方面存在的问题。他们构成恐惧企业家的一个独特群体，关心的焦点集中在人的健康上。他们推销折磨人的存在恐惧言论。最近几十年，他们把提出的人们采取“健康生活方式”的要求和他们的危言耸听结合起来。实际上，健康积极分子自我认识到使用了恐惧策略，他们所说的“恐惧吸引人”来达到自己的目标。
他们口口声声说人的生活变得越来越不健康，因此我们需要更加警惕以免得病。健康积极分子用吓人的故事把目标对准我们生活的各个方面：吃的食物、感情生活、性生活、人际关系等。在所有危言耸听者中，健康积极分子可能是对我们的思想和行为产生最直接和即刻影响的人。
他们在把日常生活“疾病化”过程中取得了惊人的成功。他们一点一点地扩张了健康的意义，他们常常使用“健康性”（wellness）这个词，现在已经有了“健康男人诊所”“健康女人诊所”。隐含的意思是健康不是自然的或者正常的状态，相反，它是需要治疗的，是需要在专家帮助下才能实现的目标。健康积极分子坚持，除非你听从他们开出的行为模式处方，否则你患病的几率就大大增加。’
他们最喜欢的说法：“对你的健康是个威胁。”
环保主义者
环保主义在当今得到最大的尊重和权威。绿色和平组织的警告和预测往往得到非常认真地对待。环保主义者处于当今宣扬末日论的前沿。环保主义者比本文清单中的其他任何团体对21世纪的恐惧语言的产生和影响都更大。
他们的信息开门见山，非常简单：除非我们改变生活方式，否则地球就将被毁灭。如果有什么的话，环保主义者对未来有比宗教道德企业家拥有的世界末日观更吓人。和宗教上的至少有些人还能得救的最后审判日不同，环保主义者提出的末日是没有救赎可能的。
他们的悲观论调对当今西方文化和行为产生了非常重要的影响。环保主义者提供了道德管理的主题。他们不仅谈论即将到来的末日时的癖性类似于宗教，而且还和宗教一样完全不能容忍异端邪说。那些不接受其智慧的人被谴责为“气候变化否认者”，被指控为受到邪恶意图的驱使。任何拒绝接受改变自身行为的需要，拒绝参加绿色环保活动的人都被描述为贪婪和不负责任的人。活命主义者和笼统的绿色生活方式的兴起就是这群危言耸听者巨大影响的见证。
环保主义者对危言耸听式言语做出了重要贡献。他们不仅在公众中灌输了几个最流行的词语，而且事实上有一个耸人听闻言论的词典。“灭绝、生态灾难、污染、枯竭”等已经成为学前班儿童都熟悉的词汇。
他们最喜欢的词：可以提到的有很多，但是，他们特别喜欢使用“有毒的”来描述任何他们不喜欢的东西。
人际关系专业人士
人际关系领域成为推销恐惧和焦虑的重要场所。我们与他人的关系已经变成充满了危险的区域，名副其实的人际关系专业人士大军---治疗师、顾问、生活教练、家长导师---不断警告我们在私生活中面临的种种危险。
人际关系专业人士倾向于使用与社区成员、邻居、情人、家庭成员的联系恐吓人。让人印象深刻的是，在21世纪，大部分大肆宣扬的、恐怖的犯罪往往和人际关系有关。强奸、约会强奸、虐待儿童、虐待老人、欺侮他人、追踪他人（不管网上还是网下）：这些犯罪提醒我们当心和我们关系最近的人。
隐私权曾经被看作无情世界里的避难所，近来亲密无间和家庭生活却常常被呈现出暴力、危险和感情痛苦的场所。有关“有毒的关系”和“有毒的家庭”(以T开头的词（toxic）是从环保主义者那里借来的)的警告引起一种恐惧意识，就像恐怖主义和星球爆炸引起的恐惧一样强烈。它们的影响是让我们和他人的关系疏远。关于人际关系的健康警告对于我们的个人生活质量产生破坏性很大的影响。
人际关系专业人士连续提醒我们不要相信我们自己或者我们身边的人。他们甚至试图把爱情和亲情变成一种毒瘾，创造出一个词“相思病”警告说爱情过于强烈可能破坏人的幸福。诸如《爱得太多的女人》之类的书试图让人和他人保持距离。他们宣扬的观点是人际关系太复杂和危险，让业余爱好者来处理是不行的，他们需要得到专业人士的帮助。
他们最喜欢的诊断是：‘你有自尊方面的问题。’
法律和秩序道德鼓吹者
关于犯罪和恐怖主义的焦虑在西方社会是非常普遍的。有关个人和社会安全的耸人听闻的警告常常由媒体和当局者发布出来。还有形形色色鼓吹者群体专门提升人们对于法律和秩序遭到威胁的关注，如非法移民、恋童癖、强奸、持枪犯罪等。
从历史上说，政府和官员一直处在这种危言耸听者的最前沿。许多政府通过宣称提供免受种种威胁的安全感，推销现在所说的“恐惧政治”寻求获得公众的默许。现在升高人们对法律和秩序的关注已经不再局限于政客了。众多积极分子群体发出种种警告，如校园暴力、持枪犯罪、恐怖主义、非法移民、同性恋恐惧症的‘传播’、散播仇恨言论等。实际上，法律和秩序危言耸听者往往和其他危言耸听者竞争，相互加码看谁能赢得大众的支持。
和本文清单中的其他危言耸听者一样，法律和秩序危言耸听者总是寻找新的机会，甚至创造新的罪行。比如，他们系统地把网络下的犯罪翻新成为网络上的犯罪---“网络犯罪”，比如网络欺侮、网络恋童癖、身份盗窃、欺骗、网络虐待等是这个群体把虚拟世界像现实世界一样成功地犯罪化的证据。
他们最喜欢的魔法是：‘犯罪在蔓延。’
恐惧市场企业家
企业家常常利用流行的恐惧文化推销其企业兜售其产品。他们总是警告我们的健康、安全和幸福面对的各种危险。在有些情况下，危害是被凭空捏造出来的，如自来水不安全导致人们生活方式发生改变。
健康和医药产业---经济领域中利润最丰厚的行业---是当今没完没了的恐慌的最大受益者。食品恐慌极大地影响到我们的饮食习惯。关于全球气候变暖的担心引发了绿色企业家的出现，他们宣称除非整个经济围绕绿色议题进行重新组织，否则我们都要完蛋。这种欣欣向荣的恐惧市场的后果之一是越来越激烈地相互竞争我们今天到底应该最害怕什么。
恐惧企业家非常具有创造性，他们可以把小问题变成大威胁，而且能提供治疗或者产品来帮助人们克服这个困难。他们把正常的个人问题如害羞变成疾病，重新把它贴上“社会恐惧症”的标签，警告它可能产生的危险后果，然后向你推销治疗这种疾病的药品。忐忑不安的家长是恐惧企业家最喜欢的目标：他们常常警告家长除非购买了他们的安全商品，否则将要承担伤害自己孩子的责任。
他们最喜欢的口号是：‘你的安全是我们最大的关心。’
我们应该注意到尽管这八个群体在概念上是相互区别开来的，但他们的活动和兴趣常常相互重叠。健康积极分子有时候和兜售种种商品的恐惧企业家沆瀣一气，宗教道德鼓吹者和环保主义者或者治疗师结成同盟成为人际关系专业人士。实际上，虽然这些群体的兴趣不同，他们的工作倾向于相互强化危言耸听的力度，因为都对形成推销恐惧和焦虑被看作合理追求的大气候尽了力。正如现在上演的题目为“猪流感蔓延”的恐惧戏剧显示的那样，所有这些群体都争先恐后要在当今的末日剧本中扮演一个角色。
译自：What Swine flu reveals about the culture of fear? By Frank Furedi
作者简介：弗兰克·菲雷迪（Frank Furedi）著有《恐惧文化》和《招致恐怖：神秘帝国的扩张》。
译自：http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/6633/
| 欢迎光临 民俗学论坛-中国民俗学网 (http://chinafolklore.org/forum/) |
Powered by Discuz! 6.0.0 |