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Threat Perception: Mindfulness and Terror

At this point, with some sense of urgency, I will turn the attention of the blog towards some matters of some more molar significance: the perception of threat at a personal and cultural level.

Mindfulness and Terror: Irrational Risk Perception

So I was recently on a vacation with my daughter to get some Florida sun and warmth. In the course of our travails with airport security, I was struck by the realization that all this money and hassle had little or nothing to do with increasing actual security, but rather the perception of security. Though I am from the Bronx, I dont have a particularly diabolical mind and yet I was quickly able to think of all manner of ways in which potentially lethal means could easily come on board an airplane.  George Carlin, in his standup entitled “We Are All Diseased” poignantly stated that the only reason for airport security “…..is to make white people feel safe. It’s an illusion…the illusion and feeling of safety”. “Oh and by the way, an airplane flight shouldn’t be completely safe”, he continued. “You need a little danger in your life. Take a little chance once in a fucking while. After all, what else are you going to do, play with your prick for the next 30 years?”

I am personally OK with the invasiveness and inconvenience of airport security if it gives people comfort in the illusion of safety. What concerns me most is the fact that we are so willing to sacrifice basic aspects of privacy and civil liberty in the pursuit of this perception and so unwilling to assume a measure of risk and danger. And as a psychologist, I am intrigued by the capricious nature of risk perception versus the appreciation of actual risks that should cause considerable concern.

Our ability to evaluate risk, is a complex mixture of intuitive gut reactions and cognitive/evaluative processes that has evolved for simpler and more immediate sources of danger: saber tooth tigers, marauding invaders and so on. It does not do a very good job of addressing more abstract or delayed sources of danger, which in today’s world probably represent a much more grave source of actual danger. So for example, in 2012, 34,000 people died in automobile accidents. Yet we all drive with hardly any thought of the risk. Few of us lose sleep over the declining ability of antibiotics to keep up with the rapidly evolving bacteria even though the risk of a infectious pandemic capable of killing many millions of people is steadily advancing. We are more concerned with combating terror than in facing the realities of climate change even though the threat of any one individual being hurt by terrorists is almost incalculably small.

We have declared war on terror. However, terror is not a nation, or a nationality or even a tactic. It is an emotional response to perceived threat. So to declare war on terror is tantamount to declaring war on anger, or guilt. Individuals who commit acts of terror are in fact doing so in order to create a measure of fear and reactivity, far out of proportion to the actual degree of threat that they represent And guess what? It works. It causes us to spend incalculable resource to combat terror (ie., to ease our own perception of fear). We pour incredible financial resources into out military, national defense, homeland security, all of which robs natural treasure which could otherwise be spent on our own people, and infrastructure, or to address the international financial and socio-cutural issues that produce the poverty and disenfranchisement that gives rise to terror in the first place. In so doing, we actually become weaker, which is the very purpose of terrorism.

So rather than combat terror and committing our precious financial and human resources towards a never ending war, what if we learned to confront our own fear and terror? Remember the great words of FDR following the bombing of Pearl Harbor when he stated, “Man’s greatest fear is fear itself”. I believe that he was imploring the nation not to be paralyzed by fear in the wake of a national threat, but rather to marshall a the resolve and personal sacrifice necessary to endure and rationally respond in the face of this threat. In contrast, President Bush, in the wake of 9/11 asked us to go shopping!

So, I am not saying that we should ignore the threat of terror, but rather be mindful of the emotions activated by acts of terror, and embrace the resultant fear, helplessness, rage and other emotions that are likely to ensue. Only then can we respond in a measured and rational manner, rather than in a reactive fashion governed by our primitive drive mechanisms.

In the next post, we will discuss risk aversion and ask the question, Why don’t more kids have ripped pants?

I recognize that this post may yield some controversy. Please feel free to provide your own comments.