Teaching Timidity to Kids
Laura Sessions Stepp,
Washington Post,
Dec 09, 2002
Last week I saw Michael Moore's 'Bowling for Columbine' and I've been thinking about it since. Among many other points, Moore suggests that Americans are being driven toward a culture of fear. Not that that's hard, these days. Moore suggests that there are racial overtone to this culture, but I think that the fear being packaged and sold is more general than that. This article is a good companion to Moore's interpretation. Like Moore, it says we are over-reacting to perceived dangers to ourselves and especially to our children. "Parents have always been concerned about their kids, but now they feel as if they're fighting a war and have no allies." I think that advertisers are in no small part willing purveyors of fear, knowing, as they do, that fear sells. Now what I wonder is what percentage of the demand for online learning, home schooling, charter schools, and other educational alternatives are driven by this sort of fear. I think there may be connection, at least, a partial one. Something to think about.
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