10 years of fear
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Spiked
Author: Nathalie Rothschild
This has been the decade of panics, overblown fears, health scares and general scaremongering, where human relationships and human interventions into the natural world have come to be seen as a risky business, as potentially lethal, toxic and damaging. There was the paedophile panic, reaching its zenith with the establishment of the Independent Safeguarding Authority in the UK in 2009, requiring up to 11million adults to undergo criminal records checks; bans on smoking in public places around the world, defended on the basis of spurious theories of the dangers of second-hand smoke; the non-existence of ‘weapons of mass destruction’ justifying a seemingly never-ending, elusive global war on terror; and many, many more scares. The Noughties panics have reframed both our everyday lives and international relations. (12/22/09)