It can't be cool to be scared

We are generally a pretty self-confident bunch. Look at progress, technology, and rationality. There is nothing faintly teleologically flawed about this path of human development, right? But there is something about raw emotion which seems to be outside this realm of modernity; it is timeless and universal despite the paradigmatic changes in which our thoughts are framed. It is clear that our epistemological centre is radically different now compared to even 50 years ago, but an emotion like fear - it never goes away.

This may sound pretty obvious, but it is evident that our fears these days are confronted in a pretty sanitized, safe environment. We might watch a horror movie, or perhaps do a bungie jump in our gap yaar. But most of the time, we never really embrace our fears to the extent that one might have done before.

An example of this is the demise of myth in modern society. We can always work things out scientifically these days, like the Loch Ness monster is proven to be a hoax caused by refractions of light, or something along those lines... The sun doesn't revolve around us, it is scientifically proven we orbit it. Myths are not believed any more, they are just stories, or perhaps folklore. But it is important to consider why these myths came about in the first place, and how they reflected the society that they lived in. Why is there such stories of Hades, the minotaur, and the 'boogie man' (sometimes spelt bogeyman)? In some respects, they must reflect people's fears: why else would there be those ceremonial rituals of sacrifice, and vivid images of voodoos and people dancing around a fire with crazed eyes? It seems that people - in the absence of scientific confidence - really lived with fear. It seems to me that it was an accepted and respected part of the human fabric. But do children still really believe myth in the same way as before, as they play on their Game Boys playing Tetris or some awful farming game? Although I do have some respect for those Pokemon's; some of them were apparently based on the mythical creatures of history.

Do these two have anything in common?

But it's not really allowed to be scared, only unless you have an ulterior motive. You're scared of death but realize you're only acting it out in a play. You see the floods in Pakistan wreaking havoc but only see it on the 'flattened narrative' that is TV. The media says the Americans won the Gulf War, but Hedrik Smith shows that this is all a con. You expose some real emotion to someone, but then they take advantage of the situation. The newspapers just talk about bad news - wars, scandals, deaths, disappointments - but they are mere profit-driven businesses after all.

Historiography is leading the way in turning towards the intangible. Histories of madness and sexuality have been done and moved on. What the body and the 'heart' meant in early modern history is currently being explored. Who said history was dead, when the history of the irrational is being explored with such relish? Let us not just embrace fear historically, but perhaps think again about how we see fear through our computer screens today.

See relevant links:
Wikipedia entry on Michel Foucault's Madness and Civilization
Observer review - Joanna Bourke's Fear: A Cultural History
Hedricksmith.com - The Media and the Gulf War
Abstract of Geremie Barme's paper - China's Flat Earth

Many thanks to my friend J.C. for sharing thoughtful discussions on themes relating to this topic.