Self-Danger and Stranger Danger: Misunderstanding Fear and Risk

Children are taught to be wary of strangers. Stranger danger. That remains good advice for adults, too. And, thanks to Covid-19, we have learned of the danger of family and friends as well. The fear factor has increased dramatically in the last two years. Not surprisingly, considering that the virus has killed at least 4 million people worldwide (perhaps more than double that number) and over 600,000 Americans.¹

And in the last decades, fears of domestic and Islamist terrorism have also increased, adding to our fears of mass murderers and serial killers, and the usual list of phobias: agoraphobia and claustrophobia, fear of snakes and spiders, and the dark and death, and so much more. Not to mention weapons of mass destruction, the escalating climate crisis, the rise of autocrats and dictators, and again, so much more.

This changing social climate is compounded by the proliferation of fake news, some by foreign powers, conspiracy theories, QAnon, the downright bare-faced lies, and widespread corruption of political and corporate elites, and then the attack on the Capitol in January. These dangers are all real, but the focus here is on the personal rather than the global.

Stranger danger.

Consider the advice we give ourselves and our children, and hear all the time, all of which indicate a clear awareness of danger and evil. The list of cautions is long. The 20 Commandments:

• Be back before dark.
• Count your change.
• Don’t hitchhike.
• Don’t pick up hitchhikers.
• Lock your door.
• Do not leave your computer unattended (libraries).
• Keep a few $1 bills handy for beggars (Washington travel advisory).
• Caveat emptor.
• Never give a sucker an even break.
• The weakest go to the wall.
• It’s the survival of the fittest.
• Every man for himself.
• Business is business.
• Nice guys finish last.
• Read the fine print.
• Look out for number one.
• It’s a dog-eat-dog world.
• Might makes right.
• Mind your back.
• And the three orders for Covid-19: Wear a mask, keep your distance, wash your hands.

Self Danger

The funny thing about our fears is that they are often largely unfounded. We often fear things we do not need to fear and do not fear things that we should. Certainly, there is some risk of being murdered by a serial killer or mass murderer, or by a stray bullet in a shoot-out—wrong place, wrong time. But the risk of being killed by a stranger, or anyone, by homicide is minimal. The fear of homicide, though widespread, is simply not realistic: possible but not probable.

Consider the statistics for the US for 2019:

Homicide: 19,141 (14,414 by firearms. Rate: 5.8/00,000)

Suicide: 47,511 (10th leading cause of death)

Accidents: 173,040 (3rd leading cause of death)

Strangers are not so dangerous to us. It is our own sweet selves who are most dangerous. Deaths by suicide are about 2.5 times more numerous than deaths by homicide in the US, (dissimilar to the UK and Canada, due to differences in the homicide rates).²

And deaths by accidents (texting while driving, not wearing a seat belt, or a life jacket, high-risk jobs, or sports) are often our own mistakes and responsibilities and constitute nine times the number of homicides. But accidents also include natural disasters; not all 173,040 deaths are human error or stranger danger.³

This self-danger has been clarified by two recent crises. The first is the “deaths of despair,” a term coined by two Princeton economists, deaths by suicide, alcohol, and drugs. The second is the pandemic, which has caused over 600,000 deaths and, after a long decline in infections and deaths, is now rising again with the Delta virus and among the unvaccinated. The cumulative impact of both crises is a decline in longevity, from 78.7 in 2015 to 77.3 in 2020, an unprecedented decline since World War II. There is also a widening of the gender inequality gap from 4.8 years in the early 2010s to 5.7 in 2020, and a sharp increase also in racial inequality as Hispanic people experienced a three-year drop in life expectancy in just one year, from 2019 to 2020, and Black Americans a decrease of 2.9 years compared to 1.2 years for White Americans. (Leonhardt, 2021).

The common factor in both the deaths of despair and the decisions not to get vaccinated is that both are personal: Self-made. They are mediated by many social factors, no doubt, but they remain individual, and components of self danger.⁴

The Basic Emotion of Fear

Fear is one of the six basic emotions, universal and innate, the others being joy, distress, anger, surprise, and disgust. But fear is probably the most primal and ancient, very necessary for survival in predatory environments; it pre-dates the dinosaurs, and was likely present 500 million years ago in the first vertebrates, and transmitted through our evolutionary heritage. (Evans, 2003:5, 31).

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As an emotion, however, fear is vulnerable. It is not necessarily rational. It may or may not be. Phobias are real in their consequences, but not necessarily realistic, as in my friend’s mice phobia which compelled her to run across a four-lane highway, (to give an extreme example of avoidance). Many of our decisions are made emotionally, not rationally, and may be regretted later. Second, fear can be manipulated, and is constantly by trolls, hackers (perhaps foreign), QAnon, politicians, lobbyists, advertisers, anyone. Third, social fears come and go in waves: the Cold War increased global fears, and the Cuban crisis in 1962, raised American fears a notch or three. As did the assassination of President Kennedy in 1968, the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, and especially 9/11. As situations normalize, fears decrease. But they rose again with Covid-19 in 2020 and the attack on the Capitol in 2021. Americans armed themselves.

These tidal changes are evidenced by the Gallup polls: after Oklahoma City, 42 percent of respondents were very or somewhat worried about terrorism; this rose to 59 percent after 9/11 and by December 2015 was down to 41 percent. (Rothman 2016). By 2008 there were other fears (the recession) and by 2020 yet others (the pandemic, wildfires).

Conclusion

Now we have Neighborhood Watch and CCTV cameras everywhere. But little to protect us from ourselves. This Stranger Danger ethic illustrates not only our fear of our fellows (and probably the dangers of too much TV) but also our misplaced fears. We probably love ourselves, but fear is also appropriate. We are much more dangerous to ourselves than anyone else in the whole wide world, not only by suicide but also by our lifestyles, which can be our deathstyles. Self-danger is the problem.