louise wood. we are back live here on our site outside of speed hall with dr. barry glassman who is a sociologist the southern california in the los angeles area and one of his books is called the culture of fear. dr. glassner, you wrote this book in 1999. 1999 what were we afraid of? >> in some ways a was different than now and some ways the same. if you think back to that period what will be afraid of? we were afraid of missing in

terms and of shark attacks. if you look at the cable tv news that is the kind thing you would see and we were still at that point also agreed in bigger ways of school shootings. school shootings were the big issue and if you listen to what the discussion was at that time you would have thought that just about every young american male was a potential mass murderer. there was so much noise going on. there were some terrific shooting is no question about it of was serious business but the notion that every school was in danger and this was rampant was prevalent at the time when actually they were very rare and actually right after my book came out was the worst school shooting at columbine which truly was the worst in the nation. >> so you wrote this before but include the school shooting? >> a lot about the school shooting and in the early edition of the book because there was a lot of fear mongering. >> you updated now. it's the tenth anniversary edition put out now. what are we afraid of today?

>> i think the big thing that has changed is if we look back to that period there was a lot of talk that i would call the sick society story, the notion that american society was sick and in that story there were no hero's. all of the philippines were domestic. as i said mostly young american males and the story was about the decline of a great civilization. that all changed in the american public conversation and discourse, it all changed in one moment. september 11 when a 2001 and then after that point you start hearing that story so much. >> why is that? >> i think a couple of things happened. most dramatically of course we were attacked from outside of the u.s. and that event was such an earthshaking event that the old fear faded away and now the

story became we are in danger from outside and everything i just mentioned changed so now the villains of being a domestic or foreign, there were heroes in the new york fire department in the military and the whole story changed but some things stay the same which is a lot of these little dangerous blown out of proportion, those continue. >> since we only have about 30 minutes with dr. glassner what's but the numbers up. 20 to is the area code if you would like to purchase a bit in the live program. 585-3885 for those of you in the east and central time zones. 585-3886 for those in the mountain and pacific time zones. the head. we will begin taking those calls in just a minute. so, barry glassner, are we terribly afraid of terrorism today? ten years, nine years after? >> i think there are good reasons to be concerned about terrorism and the appropriate government agency police departments need to deal with it but i think the fear is out of

proportion in certain ways. certainly domestically. more americans over the last four decades have been killed by being struck by lightning than by terrorists. so for us to be thinking that this is an eminent danger and especially in our kind of politics and political discourse to go so far overboard sometimes i think it is just like what we have done in the past with other scarce whether it is the communists, whether it is crime in the streets, the drug crisis, we have one after another and this is the latest one. we need to be prepared, no question about it this is a real danger unlike some of the earlier ones but yes i think it is very, very intense at certain periods and there is something that contributes to that like the color code. >> cultural fear what are the chapters in here? it's called black men. >> one big change many people

would say over the last decade is now we have an african-american president and what some people say is so that year, the inside about african-american men must have vanished but if you actually look at it unfortunately that has not happened and even if we focus on the election, president obama won by a decisive margin but he lost the white vote by about 12% and in some southern states he received about 10% of the white vote so the notion that there is a change even in that election is misguided and some of the consequences of the fear of african-americans get played out routinely so when we talk out of the crisis, the banking crisis and the mortgage crisis, primm mortgages were disproportionately marketed to african-american men, african-americans more broadly. we know that. we know that there is discrimination in jury as areas that continues. there has been a lot of

improvement but there is still high levels of fear among some sectors in the society. >> barry glassner economic fears a 1999 economic fear today or any time in history have we ever not have economic fear? >> well you know interestingly when i wrote the first edition of this book economic fear of the sort now we are almost nonexistent. people felt quite secure. they were not worried they were going to lose their home. they were worried some sector of losing their jobs but a different reason. there was a lot of downsizing, the term we don't use much anymore. there's always been economic fear. but for some sectors of the society especially the middle class they are much more intense now and based on much more reality. >> what is the point of writing this book? >> the point of writing this book. when i started writing it was going to be about something very specific which was i was shocked to see one sector of the society pregnant adolescents, teenage moms they are called were blamed

for all kinds of problems pretty much any problem you could talk about at that point in american society and i'm thinking how can they be responsible for everything that is wrong. then as i started looking at it was just a tiny piece of the story. we get afraid of so many things we don't need to be so many small dangers are blown out of proportion and anxiety is the number one psychiatric disorder, psychological disorder in the country so i thought how does this happen, who is benefiting from this, how does it happen and can people calmed down a little bit. >> in the next ten or 15 minutes if you would like to send a tweaked to barry glassner twitter.com/bookt is a reporter address. let's take some calls. austin texas you are on first with barry glassner, author of "culture of fear. >> caller: below, thanks for taking my call. i have a question for you obviously it's been awhile since the book originally came out and

i'm curious how you would encapsulate how americans are fearful now in light of the fact we have as you mentioned the economic crisis, black president all that i'm kind of curious the fact we also have a much more broader internet presence and multimedia community which she would think would mean we are more informed and capable of suppressing those some unrelated fear but in addition to that there is a new-found populist sentiment which seems to be looking to the old fear he mentioned your of immigrants, fear of teenage pregnancy and it's kind of capitalizing on that. so the more things change the more they stay the same but i guess just to clarify do you think that there is -- to your brand this year in light of the fact we are more connected and more -- >> all right. things, dr. glassner. >> that is a great question. one thing that changed in a big way from when i first read the book to when i wrote the new

edition is exactly the internet and on-line phenomenon and that has changed in significant ways and other ways hasn't changed anything because on the one hand you still have the same fear and on the other hand they get blown way out of proportion very fast so a story often false camps led the league could spread quickly and far. one place i think about in that regard is scare about vaccines if you think that during the flu epidemic and all the stories about how the whole society was going to be wiped out by the virus that didn't happen. a lot of those fears were countered very quickly that a lot of the scare about the vaccine had stories about consequences of the vaccine were able to spread very quickly on the internet and this happens with a lot of things. so on the one hand you can get a lot more information both reliable and unreliable very quickly but skiers can spread

very fast. as blackberry glassner cannot, in case you would like to see the other seven books that he has written. next call from springfield missouri. >> caller: hello. i wanted to share personal coping skill. i get tired of being afraid so i just quit listening to tv and quit reading the fearful stories but i wanted to hear you talk about just the concept of fear and change as i grow older i just am very uncomfortable with the speed of change and i don't want anything to change and i am fearful of the future because of this changes and i wonder if that is at the root of the lot of anxiety. thank you. >> thank you. that's an interesting question. >> yes. one thing i want to say right away and out that is that -- and obviously i don't know the

callers age range or group but one thing we find in a lot of research that is interesting and i think really important is the more scary tv, especially local tv news we're still the motto is if it leads it leaves, it could be a crime story the beginning, the community will some scary if you watch the show is very often the more that older people watch that kind of television the more afraid they tend to be and there is clear evidence people isolate themselves more in their homes and to go to the caller's point become more afraid of change, more afraid of all sorts of external realities and some actually the advice, while i would never say to turn off booktv there are some scary shows we probably should turn off if we are being made of freedom necessarily to switch the channel, to get a good book and do something else. >> is fear a bad thing? >> fear is a complicated thing. so we have -- you know, as

animals we have an instinct, we are programmed to be fearful for good reason. for our ancestors of there was a big animal coming in would be a good idea to get away very quickly for example. so, the response is a good response. mauney question always about that is when should we have it and who is manipulating it. so if to go to the to play gave a minute ago if cable news channel or a local tv news channel is trying to gain ratings by hyping a scary story blown out of proportion that isn't a good use of fear. if a politician is trying to get us to vote for them and against another candidate out of fear mongering that isn't a good use of fear. that isn't why we eat salt to be fearful. >> but those are very common uses aren't they? >> extremely common usage of fiercer by and large if we want to talk about why are we afraid

of their own thing so often in this country we could get the answers. the groups that raise a lot of money off of the fear mongering. i don't know what your in box looks like in e-mail or from the paper mail at home with the various groups i am on when i get a solicitation they're telling me if i don't send a check something horrible was going to happen to something i care deeply about. i subscribe to ones i don't care about so i can see how they are doing it as well and then certain sectors of the media, not broadly because actually a lot of the deep on the close on an immediate but some of the sectors i mentioned before and then politicians and campaigns. >> very glassner are you teaching this semester? been ekimov right now i'm doing some administrative work. >> what course is your favorite to teach? >> my favorite is any kind of course on american society so teach a variety of courses of american society but i am also interested in why americans believe and act the way they do. >> next call for barry glassner comes from san francisco. good afternoon san francisco

>> thank you, peter. actually it was the question of the spring to ask about how can you use fear positively so maybe perhaps mr. glassner could talk about incorporating his other books of the gospel of food and how we are afraid of food and food additives and pesticides and how that plays out in the culture today. >> thanks scholar. >> thank you. and i have to say i don't recognize the voice but thank you for mentioning my other book. i'm always interested in why americans are afraid of things they shouldn't be so in the gospel of food a lot of what i am concerned about is why is it that americans seem to treat every food as a possible danger to our health? you know people walk through the and look at restaurant menus constantly afraid of anything they could be sold whether it is carbohydrates, fat for another group, salt, sugar, additives,

no additives, it goes on. the list is almost endless and i think that it's part of the same phenomenon and the same reason in that case largely because of marketing more than some of the factors i talk about in the culture of fear. there are whole sectors in the food industry that rely on us being afraid of one sort of food rather than another to sell the alternative. >> should we be afraid of those additives, carbohydrates, saltzman velt? >> if we are free of all of those we are not going to be achieved anything so the answer is clearly no. whether we should be concerned about any particular ones really depends on our own health patterns so there are some people who should definitely be concerned about how much salt intake for example they have, how much saturated fat intake. on a population basis as we say for the general population most of the scarce are pretty much clearly blown out of proportion of depends on the particular

person and particular profile but what is often left out of the discussion is that the anxiety and fear itself isn't good for one's health. ischemic as the "los angeles times" about culture of fear barry glassner has written an expos the of one of the most widespread delusions of our time, misplaced fear. next call for the guest comes from palm springs california. >> yes, good afternoon. i was wondering if you see the correlation between the primaries in the 20's to the rise of mccarthyism and what historian richard hofstadter called stalin of american politics up to today seem kind of the wedding of the conservative right media to fox news and government officials using the instrument to public policy and all of that of course is still surrounded around a big style of fear that seems to take

over the society. if you have any comments on that, thank you. >> yes i do think that there has been a lot of fear mongering in politics as you are suggesting for a very long time. it is not new. there are some things that are different now though. one of them is the important of the sound bite which wasn't true that much even in the fairly recent past. but to run a successful campaign these days especially in some local areas but also some national campaigns it's all about getting the right sound bites and the sound bite that attracts voters that actually motivates people. a very effective way to do that is with something scary. fear is motivating site think it is much more common in that regard now. whether one side or the other does more fear mongering i would be very cautious about saying. all sides of the political spectrum engaging fear mongering. it is certainly true in some

elections, some period one side does it more than the other. i think in the last presidential election that was true objectively because one candidate ran on the campaign of hope the was the model and a lot less fear mongering on that side but there is tremendous fear mongering in politics and that goes we back. >> on the reverse side of the clan ronald reagan ran on a very hopeful campaign did he not and there was some fear thrown at him and what he could possibly do. >> that's right. to imagine is only on one side of the political spectrum, fear defeat could here or elsewhere is from. it goes back and forth and it depends upon who mostly who is organizing a campaign, police strategizing. >> have you discussed this the core issue with your students as a professor at usc what are they afraid of? and is a rather elite university

is it not? >> no, not really. that is somewhat of a misconception. a majority of the students are more and financially but it is the case that they have plenty of fear of their own and i haven't taken a survey in a while so i would be cautious about trying to say what they are afraid of. the glib answer is they are afraid of the final exams coming up but it is true that for young people in college the fear tends to be immediate and proximate and their immediate lives because they are still engaged with their media environment and college work but then the national scarce that are out there they tend to also respond to very quickly. so i recall for example after 9/11 is very fearful student population. >> very glassner teaches sociology at essey and he's now the one the campus of ucla, doesn't need to get a passport to come over here or anything. indiana university and plumbing

and indian and that is where the next call comes from. go ahead. >> yes, my question is why is the government, samet and our congress not having term limits when the same people are coming in as has been in there for 30 or 40 years? why is it there are term limits and in the congress and the senate and why shouldn't the american people be able to vote for that? >> i don't the if there is an answer you can extrapolate from that fought. >> that is a little far from the work i do. i think it is an interesting point. but i try to stick to things that i've studied. >> as congress react in fear? >> absolutely. any scare that is out there that is prevalent -- >> financial regulation. >> if you are a smart politician, you are one way or another going to respond to that and my concern is not that they do that brought the but when they do it with fear and danger that really are not anywhere near as big as they are made out

to be. so an example that i get it is important in this regard is missing children. one missing child is serious, normal situation. i do not minimize it in any way but we go through these patterns of the nation being terrified where you can't turn on cable tv news without hearing about missing children and you get all these numbers turnaround. the last time i saw one of the cycles, 100,000 missing children was the number three or not. the actual numbers between 100 to 200 each year kidnapped for a substantial period of time by a stranger who are in actual danger. there are many market typically by people they know well and often a custody dispute or something like that but we have a lot of legislation that has been passed in various states and national league in response to that and the missing children phenomenon. why? because it is a great campaign. a great for running for office. nobody's going to take you on,

your opponent is not going to oppose that a specially when there is a little child that is missing and is on the news all the time. my concern is when they manipulate it in that kind of way. we clearly have a big problem in the financial system. we disagree about the solution is to really try to be very non-partisan about this but we had a big problem. i don't think that any sane person would disagree. yes, they should respond to that to get should they then, however as is sometimes going on even with a serious matter like that make people even more afraid of the financial situation and they already are that would be a bad idea. >> next call, washington. he wore on with barry glassner, the head. >> caller: one other problem is similar to you there was another look written called 1984 doublespeak where we get the idea that one thing is right and in the next day it's not. we get that from the fda

concerning food. we did that about the war. it seems like fear is constantly fed to us because we can't be certain about anything and that seems to be where our country seems to want to be is on certain. and it's common knowledge about the one first in the bible that is repeated over and over again is if you're not. so why are people using fear so much especially from the religious right and the bush administration? >> if of questions packed in there. first, let me thank you for comparing my work to "1984." i wish i could do that kind of work. but very seriously, yes, it is the case it is very confusing to try to get the facts. with those it often feels like we are told one thing one day and something the next day or two different things by two competing groups who both of

whom seemed knowledgeable. to go back to a previous question we are in a great position most of us these days because we have good access if we use the right through the internet coming especially throughout really reliable information sources. so you mentioned the fda. you can go to the cdc, for example, for very clear information about the actual dangers from almost any kind of disease scare that you are hearing about. you can go to various reliable medical sites like mayo and choose another one for medical conditions. you can get a government side project information before i mentioned how many essential for our there. we hear a large number. you can go to the justice agency. there are various .gov's for that and you can get the numbers. what people too often do is to go to an advocacy group that wants you to be afraid or to a political campaign that wants you to be afraid but we don't

have to do that. these days, unlike even just recently ten years ago you could get the real information pretty quickly. >> last call for dr. glassner comes from fairfax, virginia. >> caller: hello? professor b glassner, i was disappointed by your statement that the supply -- sob cspan: problem in the country is primarily and substantially one where black homeowners or potential homeowners were the purchasers were responsible for the issue and the problem of supply and loans. that is absolutely false -- >> all right,