2.13 Prof. Frank Furedi: The Culture of Fear in the 21st Century

The UK's most quoted sociologist, Frank Furedi is emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent, and specialises on the sociology of fear, education, therapy culture and paranoid parenting. As explained in his 2018 book, "How Fear Works: The Culture of Fear in the 21st Century", fear has now assumed the commanding moral position in society. Over the past 20 years as society's basic values, beliefs and ideologies have declined or disappeared from public life, so increasingly fear is used to legitimize their arguments and causes. Virtually every moral, political or economic position is justified in terms of scaremongering. And this transcends the ideological divide as both the left and the right put forward a message of fear rather than hope. As our children grow, instead of teaching them about good, positive values like prudence, courage or loyalty we instill fear in them as well as teaching them tricks to avoid dealing with their fears. Children must be constantly validated and cannot be criticised or disciplined. This is leading to a generation who are unable to deal with life and who describe insignificant issues as "stresses" and "challenges". So many normal problems, which were once described as being shy or introverted or awkward, are now regarded as medical conditions, whereas in reality these are due to not being normally socialised, kept protected from confrontation & failure, and taught how to deal with challenges.vThe UK's most quoted sociologist, Frank Furedi is emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent, and specialises on the sociology of fear, education, therapy culture and paranoid parenting. As explained in his 2018 book, "How Fear Works: The Culture of Fear in the 21st Century", fear has now assumed the commanding moral position in society. Over the past 20 years as society's basic values, beliefs and ideologies have declined or disappeared from public life, so increasingly fear is used to legitimize their arguments and causes. Virtually every moral, political or economic position is justified in terms of scaremongering. And this transcends the ideological divide as both the left and the right put forward a message of fear rather than hope. As our children grow, instead of teaching them about good, positive values like prudence, courage or loyalty we instill fear in them as well as teaching them tricks to avoid dealing with their fears. Children must be constantly validated and cannot be criticised or disciplined. This is leading to a generation who are unable to deal with life and who describe insignificant issues as "stresses" and "challenges". So many normal problems, which were once described as being shy or introverted or awkward, are now regarded as medical conditions, whereas in reality these are due to not being normally socialised, kept protected from confrontation & failure, and taught how to deal with challenges.