Evolution Of Fear Research Paper

It is dark at night, you are five years old and you cannot sleep. “Mommy!” you shrink down under your covers and call for the seventh time that evening. The door cracks open and you see familiar, clear, blue eyes peer in and take a look around. They finally land on you, quaking under the blankets. She walks calmly towards you and sits down, brushing your hair out of your face, “What’s wrong baby?” “He’s back, he’s in the closet again.” your eyes bounce between your mom and the door in the corner that cracked open slightly. She sighs, letting her impatience show, and gets up to check the closet. Opening it slowly, she takes her time to show you that no one is hiding. You nod your head, feeling assured once more. As she walks out of the room

When you look at what our parents and grandparents feared in the mid-1900s right up to the change of the century, compared to what we fear now, it has shifted. My mom always talked about going outside after school and running around with the neighborhood kids. The idea of kids being taken, or raped, or killed was not a reality for them growing up. Now, though, you cannot let a group of kids go down to the park without an adult. The fact is, that more people want to do harm to others. Some will say that it has to do with the violence that technology has brought about. It is not unlikely for you to find a teenager in his basement after school playing a shooting game. The idea behind it, is that it introduces kids to violence. From there, they begin to look up dangerous people. Take Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the two boys who shot up Columbine High School, for example. They worshiped Adolf Hitler. From there, their obsession reached a dangerous point. This also brings up the interesting point of how national fear changes. In the 1950s the United States was coping with the Cold War. Schools had students doing “Duck and Cover” drills because they were paranoid the USSR was going to bomb them. Ever since Columbine happened, schools across the nation have taken precautions. There are shooting drills, bullet proof glass, and doors that need special badges to unlock. There is still a fear that schools are not safe, but the reason why has changed. That is not the only way advances in technology has changed the way we fear. Before 9/11, passengers could walk up and talk to the pilot. There were not as many security checks, and the families could go up and wait with the passenger till their airplane was ready to board. Post-9/11, all of that changed. It was not just for airplanes, either. People fear going out in public with the amount of terrorist attacks today. Fear will always be