Culture of Fear

Abstract

Fear grips American society. People embed it in almost everything they do. Fear limits people’s decision-making process. Fear blinds people to solutions. It requires a plan of action that addresses only the fear and not necessarily the problem. It controls whom people vote for, whom parents let their children play with, and which laws legislatures pass (Furedi, 2002). The educational system contributes, and helps lay the foundation for fear in America. Students go through an educational system where everyone lives in fear, trickling down from the administrators, to the educators, and to the students. Whether it is fear of losing a job, schools closing, failing a test, or not lining up properly, there is a constant fear of something in the current educational system. In many ways, the institutional fear in schools is a form a disciplinary power (Foucalt, 1995). Administrators and educators are so fearful of stepping outside of the norm, that they perpetuate the fear by imposing it on students.