ok
let me explain
Say that I am afraid of rabid dogs- though the liklihood of my meeting one is low (and the liklihood of anyone meeting one is low)- and quite a bit less than, say, my risk of cancer. I should probably try to change many things about my diet, and lifestyle, before I worry too much about rabid dogs, so my fear is out of proportion to my risk. Would it be rational for me to vote for the candidate who promised to focus most of his time and spend most of my tax money on controlling rabid dogs, or would it be logical for me to vote for the guy who would focus the attention of the government on cancer research and prevention? The folks in the red states have irrational fears about terror- polls and studies showed they have elevated these fears to some of the major fears in their lives. Fear is irrational to begin with- it is a feeling- it is not logic, and to fear those things that are unlikely to affect your area, and to PLAN as if your irrational fears need to be planned for, more than the more rational risks you could fear- compounds the irrationality of fear.
"It is irrational to focus on that which is unlikely to affect you."
So I'm not saying there is NO risk, (and there can't be no fear- because human beings experience fear all the time, and it's a natural irrational part of what we are- I'm talking about response to fear, with logic) because there is risk to everything- someone somewhere probably managed to hurt themselves with a bath sponge, but what I am talking about is FOCUS, and prioritizing things by their danger to us, to society, and not by our perception of how afraid we are of something- I'm not just talking about the individual. Maybe liberals prioritize risk better- I don't know. The studies I saw just examined the fixation of the red staters (and likely Bush voters) on fear. It's interesting- the psychology behind voter affiliation, or at least I find it interesting. I'm not making an objective value judgment about it- fear can be very adaptive, in certain situations- in other situations it can kill you- so it takes all kinds to contribute to the survival of a species.
If this didn't work to explain what I meant, I'll try to explain it in another way. |
