understanding fear using my sociological imagination - okcir

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ISSN: 1540-5699. © Copyright by Ahead Publishing House (imprint: Okcir Press) and authors. All Rights Reserved.

HUMAN ARCHITECTURE

Journal of the Sociology of Self-

A Publication of OKCIR: The Omar Khayyam Center for Integrative Research in Utopia, Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics)

I. I

NTRODUCTION

Since I can remember, nearly every as-pect and event of my life, whether good orbad, has been characterized by the sense ofbeing driven. This, it seems, is a fairly com-mon phenomenon. People everywhere de-sire and do things, set goals and achievethem, being driven by some force such assuccess, happiness, or wealth. In my case,however, what has been driving me bothtowards and away from the things I hope toaccomplish, the choices I have made, andthe goals I set for the future, is

fear.

It seems that into whichever area of mylife I choose to delve, what I find is an un-derlying characteristic of fear defining myfeelings, choices, motives, actions, and as-pirations. As to the origins of this fear, it iseasy for me to pinpoint why

some

areas ofmy life would have such a fearful emo-tional charge. However, I continue to strug-gle with understanding why this fear hasseeped and bled into other unrelated as-

pects of my life. Likewise, I also have yet tofigure out how this undertone of negativitycould be eradicated from my decision mak-ing and goal setting processes completely.

In early childhood, from what I remem-ber and what my mother has shared, I wasscared of quite a few things. My father be-ing a firefighter, I was scared of the houseburning with me trapped inside. Becausehe was an alcoholic and unemotional, I wasscared of him. In a correlative sense, I as-sumed that he would be unable or unwill-ing to save me as our house potentiallyburned to the ground. I was scared ofdeath, and losing my parents, as I thinkmost children probably are. My house wastall, old, and creepy, reminding me of

TheAddams Family

home. Lastly, I was scared ofspiders (and anything with more than fourlegs, for that matter).

As I grew older and life became morecomplex, so did my fear. At the age of 14, Iwas sexually assaulted outside of my homeand my life was threatened at my ever

E. M. Walsh (pen name) is an undergraduate student at UMass Boston. She wrote this paper while enrolled as ajunior in the course Sociology 341 (“Elements of Sociological Theory”) instructed by Mohammad Tamdgidi(Associate Professor of Sociology at UMass Boston) in 2008.

Understanding Fear Using My

Sociological Imagination

E. M. Walsh

University of Massachusetts Boston––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Abstract: In this paper, the author examines her long-standing fear using her sociologicalimagination applying various theoretical lenses offered in sociology, ranging fromphenomenological sociology, symbolic interactionism, social exchange/rational choice theory,functionalism, conflict theory, and postmodern perspective. Relating her personal troublessurrounding her fear to larger social issues, she hopes to not only achieve a better sense of thefear in her own life, but also shed some light on issues of fear in society as a whole.

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speaking of what happened. Immediately Iwas confronted by a fear and lack of trustfor any other person. At first, I did as I wastold and kept the secret. As my thoughtsbegan to boil and fester in my memory andimagination, the fear began to turn onto myself. I felt as if I had betrayed my

self-con-cept

and my own body to the extent that Icould no longer trust myself, and thereforewas someone to be feared. I knew I neededhelp for what had happened to me, but wasafraid to tell anyone, fearing that the manwho hurt me would come back and rapeme again, or worse yet, kill me. I was alsofearful that no one would believe me or thatI might even be to blame for what hap-pened. I began cutting myself to such an ex-tent that someone would notice and reachout to me. More than once I also drank hardliquor because I knew it would make myblood thinner, thus potentially killing meand in turn putting an end to my fear. I nowrealize that this was also a method I hadused to get in touch with my own emotions;the hurt I inflicted on my body bothbrought to mind and simultaneouslynumbed out the emotional turmoil. It hadthe ability to both distract me from my fearif it became debilitating and allow me tofeel something if suppressing the memoriesleft me void of all emotion.

Eventually my self-destruction “paidoff,” and my cousin noticed and broughtme to the hospital. My parents were calledand I was admitted to a private hospital forovernight observation. It was here, in thetemporary feeling of sanctuary that thehospital gave, that I first told someonewhat had happened to me. I began gettingtreatment for post-traumatic stress disor-der (PTSD) and depression linked to the in-cident, yet I still refused to give the identityof the man who hurt me.

Over the years, I have for the most partresolved and recovered from my PTSD. Ihave not had a flashback in over two yearsand have relinquished much of my fear ofother people, my self, and my perpetrator.

However, it seems that to a large extent, thefear I experience in my day to day life is alingering effect of both my trauma and mychildhood with an alcoholic parent. In or-der to resolve issues of my past which havedriven me into a life of fearful action andreaction, I must heed Louise DeSalvo’s(1999) advice and deeply explore my painand fear. She writes in her book,

Writing AsA Way of Healing: How Telling Our StoriesTransforms Our Lives

, about how writingcan influence healing that in order toachieve healing, we must “go with our painand into it; we observe it and examine it indetail” (1999:52). It is now my goal (onethat I am fearful to set for myself, might Iadd) to examine and interpret this fear us-ing a

sociological imagination

, applyingvarious conceptual lenses in sociologicaltheory. On the microsociological and mac-rosociological levels, I will try to relate mypersonal troubles surrounding my fear tolarger social issues. In doing this, I hope tonot only achieve a better sense of the fear inmy own life, but also shed some light on is-sues of fear in society as a whole. In doingso, I may find that I am not alone, that oth-ers are dealing with similar issues, and thatwe can mutually learn from our experi-ences.

II. P

HENOMENOLOGY

OF

F

EAR

I find it helpful to first look at my fearthrough the lens of

phenomenology

, takinga step back to treat my fear as problematicand examine how I experience and appre-hend my fear from the standpoint of astranger who is new to this life. I mustquestion my assumptions regarding fear’sorigins and continuation, observing it as ifI were outside of my self.

From this vantage point, it becomesclear that my fear has been the result of

so-cialization.

The fear instilled in me due tomy father’s sterility and lack of emotionwas a product of

primary socialization

and

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shaped me as a growing, thinking, learningindividual. Later the fear was further in-grained by let downs and violations bymen in my life. This was a form of

second-ary socialization

from which the roles I be-gan to take in life were characterized byelements of fear. As Anthony Giddenspoints out, socialization occurs “by creatingand recreating the familiar” (Wallace &Wolf, 2006:266). Thus, the continued fear Ifelt towards my father as a child was recre-ated by another, yet more traumatic, famil-iar sense of fear towards people in my life.This socialization was also reinforced bywhat Alfred Shutz termed the

“reciprocityof perspective,”

which states that throughinteraction, the meaning attached to situa-tions can become shared between those in-teracting (Wallace & Wolf, 2006:267). Inother words, my mother’s anxiety, whichshe had suffered from during my entire lifelargely due to her relationship with my fa-ther, was in a sense passed along to me. Themeaning she attached to living in daily lifewas apprehensive, which made my fearseem normal, thus reinforcing it.

The way in which my fear has pro-gressed in my life can also helpfully belooked at in terms of

ethnomethodology

,which is defined as “how people makesense of everyday activities,” and is used ina way that one “treat(s) as problematicwhat is taken for granted in order to under-stand the common sense everyday world”(Wallace & Wolf, 2006:269). By problematiz-ing my fear and my ideas of how it influ-ences my life, I begin to see it in a new light.Essentially, as stated above, I feel as though90 percent of my issues both in regards tochildhood and being raped are resolved.The 10 percent remaining surrounds the is-sue of fear, but my fear is not necessarily al-ways debilitating. It is, however, largely mystandard for making sense of my environ-ment. I find that even my successes, such asbeing a “straight-A student,” are motivatedby fear of not being good enough or smart,and fear of financial instability. But, as I

treat these assumptions—fear as my driv-ing force, or the belief that my previouslystated issues have actually been resolved—as problematic and taken-for-granted, I re-alize I could be wrong. Perhaps these as-sumptions have merely allowed me tomake sense of and order my environmentbased on terms that I am familiar and com-fortable with. After all, “by making sense ofevents in terms of a preconceived order forsociety, people create a world that is indeedordered” (Wallace & Wolf, 2006:270).

I have become somewhat comfortablewith fear, as it has become what is familiar.Maybe this is just my way of presumptu-ously

accounting

to myself and to thosearound me how I am making sense of mylife and my actions. In other words, my fearhas become so

routinized

that it is now theformulae by which I judge almost all as-pects of my life. Bristol and Sherman (1954)state that

…every wrong picture which en-ters your consciousness, with in-tense feelings of fear behind it, islike a seed that takes root in mindand, eventually, reproduces similarhappenings in your life. (pg. 153)

By looking at my fear in this way I be-gin to see that it has not only become rou-tinized, it has also been the foundation forhow I have

constructed my social reality

. Ihave realized that in past situations fear hasbeen

externalized

by others and imposedon me through a process of

objectivation

that has been facilitated by various culturaland gendered structures of knowledge.Through

internalization

of these via vari-ous forms of socialization, I have acceptedthis fear and made it my subjective realityin areas of my life previously unrelated tothe trauma or my childhood. This realitythat I have internalized spills out and be-comes the fabric of my day to day experi-ence, causing ever renewed cycles ofexternalization, objectivation, and internal-

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ization. In other words, this fear that hastaken over my self-concept has projectedinto my external environment, shaping andmolding not only who I have become butalso the world I live in. If this is true, it isnot necessarily bad because, in all its com-plexity, “it [also] means that human beingscan create a new social reality” (Wallace &Wolf, 2006:287). Therefore, my fear is notbeyond eradication, and I can do some-thing about it, because it has not been an in-nate, but a socially constructed, realityinfluencing my life. Louise DeSalvo ex-plains how writing can be a method of

real-ity construction,

and how Virginia Woolfbegan reconstructing her reality throughwriting. Speaking of understanding thechaos of life, Woolf says “It is only by put-ting it into words that I make it whole…This wholeness means that it has lost itspower to hurt me” (as cited in DeSalvo,1999: 42). It seems as though Woolf uses herwriting to manipulate and reconstruct hersocial reality. Perhaps by simply writingabout my fear, making it whole, and under-standing it, I can reconstruct my reality toexist without fear.

In this

context of my social reality

andthe process by which I construct and recon-struct it, I have also become aware of whatBerger and Luckmann call

“reification.”

This is when something, my tendency tofear, is accredited to being produced bysomething other than human action, suchas one attributing something to “god’swill” (Wallace & Wolf, 2006:291). I begin tosee that in some cases I have reified my ac-tions, stating that they were spawned bymy fear, and thus fully explained. By doingso, I dehumanize my actions, making an ex-cuse rather than fully understanding andmaking them meaningful. Doing this alsorelinquishes me from the grip of responsi-bility by implying that my condition is“meant to be.” For example, after highschool I decided not to move away for col-lege, something I deep down really wantedto do. I stated that it was simply because I

was afraid of having flashbacks and peoplejudging and not understanding my circum-stances. I instead went to a community col-lege, which I knew was an “under-achieving” behavior by my own standards.I used my fear to reify the fact that I wassimply not ready to move away from home,and that I wanted to be a little lazy for onceand not overexert myself in my studies. Inother words, it seems that up until I under-stood the social process of constructing re-ality, fear had not only been hindering mybehavior, but had also been a useful excuseto avert dealing with my true feelings.

III. F

EARFUL

S

YMBOLIC

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NTERACTION

It is clear that my fear, both in the pastand continuing into my present, is an emo-tion that has had a lasting effect on my so-cial behavior. I am not passive in what Ichoose to do, say, or be. Rather, mythoughts and emotions rooted in my fearare continuously reinterpreted in differentsituations causing me to respond the way Ido. This is made clear through the lens of

symbolic interactionist

theory. From thisvantage, I can see that I am an individual“with a self,” and there continues to be aninteraction between my fear and my socialbehavior (Wallace & Wolf, 2006:199).

Symbolic interactionists tend to “lookat the process by which individuals definethe world from inside and at the same timeidentify their world of objects” (Wallace &Wolf, 2006:227). By looking at my fear inthis way, I see that I tend to view my lifethrough fearful eyes. This can be seenclearly in the case of finding and securing acommitted relationship, for example. In thecycle of my

stimulus-interpretation-re-sponse

, when a suitor (A) acts with interesttowards me (B) (this attraction being thestimulus), I respond based on the meaningthat I attach to the way A is acting, by inter-preting this meaning (Wallace & Wolf,

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2006:214). Due to having

internalized

myfear, this unnecessary emotional attach-ment gets looped into my interpretationand influences me towards a fearful, non-trusting response in interaction with mymale suitors. Even in situations where Ihave succumbed to feelings of love andcompanionship, over time my fearful inter-pretation overcomes and causes the rela-tionships to end due to what appears to thesuitor as jealousy, insecurity, and lack oftrust. Beyond this, my fear of a

dyad

alsoexpands to include being fearful that I willbe abandoned. This is understandable, dueto the nature of a dyadic relationship As ex-plained by Wallace and Wolf (2006) whenintroducing the ideas of Georg Simmel, ifone or the other (A or B) withdraws fromthe relationship, the dyad as a whole ceasesto exist (pg. 201). Perhaps this is the reasonwhy I find myself more comfortable withsmall groups of close friends, finding secu-rity in the fact that if any in the groupchooses to leave, the group itself will re-main intact.

Furthermore, my

interpretation

of po-tential dyadic relationships is influenced bywhat I like to call my

“imposed dyad,

” or inother words, the dyadic relationship frommy past that was never consensual. Thisparticular interaction had lasting effects onthe way I interact with others in the rela-tional sense. I have also related my experi-ence to my interactions with my motherand father growing up. My father nevershowed love towards anything. In responseto this my mother’s life seemed filled withanxiety. We both feared my father becauseof his distance and lack of empathy, but Icame to fear him even more than she. As Ibegan

role-taking

, putting myself in hershoes, my interpretations of love relation-ships became even more dire. Even now, asI try to keep my past as my past, and workon successes for the future, my

definitionof the situation

I find myself in continuesto be one of dread. Like UMass Boston stu-dent Christine Berry exploring her life in

“Coaching Myself Beyond Self-Doubt”(2006), I realize that I may often define mysituation incorrectly. Somewhere in my

self-interaction

(my internal conversationin relation to life situations), particularly inregards to love relationships, the situationbecomes warped by my fear and apprehen-sion. As in a self-fulfilling prophecy, there-fore, my situation then becomes “real in itsconsequences” (Wallace & Wolf, 202): thatmy fear of not being able to trust enough,despite love, to build a significant, lasting,long-term relationship, produces such a re-ality as a consequence.

It is somewhat unclear as to what

phase of the self

my fear lies in. My fearmay be arising from the

“Me”

phase, the“perspectives on oneself that the individualhas learned from others” (Wallace & Wolf,2006:206). In other words, I could be simplyreacting based on my internalized, past ex-periences with fear in a way that does notrightly evaluate the situation as a new, anddifferent situation. In this sense my fear hasbeen learned and is the perspective fromwhich I now judge my interactions withothers. Or, my fear could be contained inthe

“I”

phase, which is “the unorganizedresponse of the organism to the attitudes ofothers, the spontaneous disposition or im-pulse to act.” The fear may be, in otherwords, a spontaneous reaction arising fromeveryday interactions in the present. AsGeorge Herbert Mead explains, however, itis most likely an interaction between bothof these phases:

The self is essentially a social processgoing on with these two distinguish-able phases. If it did not have thesetwo phases there could be no con-scious responsibility, and there couldbe nothing novel in experience. (ascited in Wallace & Wolf, 2006:207).

In light of this evaluation of the

phasesof the self

, it seems as though over theyears of interaction between the

“I”

and the

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“me,”

the influence of my “me” self on my“I” self has in a sense desensitized the reac-tion. This causes me to “do it naturally”without self-interaction. In other words,my fear response, which was initially partof the “me,” organizing and guiding my be-havior, has engulfed the “I,” depriving it ofrecognizing the novelty of every new rela-tionship and situation and thereby of beingable to react to it as such. Most of the time,therefore, my ‘I’ is simply a pre-condi-tioned reaction to situations withoutthought.

In light of Herbert Blumer’s three basicpremises of symbolic interactionism, themeaning that I have attributed to situationsin my past have come to be involved in theinterpretation of current interactions, andthus the meaning I attach to new situationsis also one of fear. Blumer’s first premisestates that “Human beings act towardsthings on the basis of the meanings that thethings have for them.” Basically, my behav-ior away from committed relationships andtowards educational goals can be better un-derstood in terms of the fear I have devel-oped toward my social interactions. Myfear is pushing me away from somethingpositive (love) while simultaneously pro-tecting me from something negative (un-employment). The second premise: “Themeaning of things arises out of the social in-teractions one has with one’s fellows,” alsorings true in my situation. The interactionsbetween myself and my perpetrator, my fa-ther, my mother, and a significant numberof my friends (many of whom have alsobeen physically or sexually abused) allowme to continue to attach a fear-based mean-ing to my interactions. Premise three, stat-ing that “The meanings of things arehandled in and modified through an inter-pretive process used by the person in deal-ing with things he encounters,” sheds lighton just how I interpret new situations basedon those of the past, ascribing to them anemotional tag of fear (Wallace & Wolf,2006:217-19).

I have said that I am uncertain in myeducational goals, and believe that I amonly continuing on the path I am on due tobeing afraid of lack of success. Howevermy choice of going into the field of psychol-ogy may also be differently explained.Mead explains that the self “arises in expe-rience through the individual stimulatinghimself to take the attitude of the other inhis reaction towards the object” (Wallace &Wolf, 2006:210). This explains that perhapsmy decision to go into psychology is be-cause I have been in the “role of the other”for which the people I hope to help are alsoin. I feel that since I have been in the rolesof raped, violated, and mentally ill, essentiallyit can be my goal to help others who havehad to play similar roles. My success in col-lege could also be explained by the conceptof role-distance. Over time, as I grow andchange, I begin to deny “not the role [beinga sufferer of PTSD] but the virtual self [be-ing fearful] that is implied in the role” (Wal-lace & Wolf, 2006:221). By looking at myfear and educational goals in this way I cansee that I have actually made muchprogress away from the fear I experiencedthroughout high school. I have been able toput enough distance between myself andmy fear to be able to maintain good gradesand a healthy college life. I have never lostthe label of my mental illness, but by dis-tancing myself from the actions expected ofsomeone in this role, I have been able tomaintain sufficient distance from my fear-ful self in order to successfully partake invarious educational and professional roles.This reminds me of the film Twelve AngryMen. In the film, twelve jurors are deliberat-ing over a murder case that seems to be aclear-cut case of presumed guilt. The menare using their past experience and interac-tions to simply dismiss the boy as guilty.For example, one man who recently had afalling-out with his son is applying the dis-appointment he felt in that situation tojudge the young man in the case as guiltywithout question. This is the same way I

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use the fear lingering from past situationsto judge new experiences fearfully. I seenow that I tend to dismiss the facts of thesituation, like the facts of the case, andmake a summary ruling based on fear. Oneshould therefore not forget that Blumer’spremises are also intended to draw our at-tention to the fact that meanings are notreadily determined by previous interac-tions, but can also newly arise in the here-and-now realities.

Oftentimes I find myself feeling likeNeo in The Matrix. I am in between two dif-ferent realities. I find myself caught in the“matrix” of a girl with a debilitating illness,yet I have begun over the years to also seeand live in the real world of successful,goal-oriented people. Taking the “red pill”to see how deep the rabbit hole goes, how-ever, is not easy, though it is my only hopetoward seeing the whole truth of my fearand being able to escape the Matrix. Hav-ing a mental illness in the land of “theAmerican Dream” often makes me feel as ifI have what DuBois calls a double-con-sciousness, in which I have the “sense of al-ways looking at one’s self through the eyesof others,” separated by the veil of mentalillness (Farganis, 2008:152-3). Basically, mylooking-glass self, how I imagine others tobe perceiving and judging me and the wayI feel towards my self as a result, has per-petuated my fearful actions. I imagine thatpeople assume someone with PTSD will behandicapped in day to day activities andthat some level of fear is to be expected.This may be why it has been hard to escapeor overcome my fear; because I imaginethat it is imposed on me by others. Anotherreason why I may also stay attached to myfear is due to genderism, which ErvingGoffman defines as “a sex-linked individ-ual behavioral practice” (as cited in Wallace& Wolf, 2006:243). Women traditionally areallowed, perhaps even expected, to be fear-ful of certain things, and it is men who areexpected to be protectors of women, help-ing them to escape their fear. In my own

imagination, I continue to ascribe to thisnotion of gender, yet I am additionally fear-ful because the men in my life have tendedto increase my fear rather than steer meaway from it.

Achieving success in the wake of men-tal illness and a history of abuse involves agreat deal of impression management.Erving Goffman, in his dramaturgical the-ory, describes how it is necessary for peopleto coordinate their front and back regionsin order to manipulate how others perceivethem. My back region, the part I keepclosed and hidden, includes my sense offear and my history of abuse. By keepingthese hidden, I can give others the impres-sion I present in my front region: that of asuccessful, emotionally strong, goal-ori-ented young woman (Wallace & Wolf,2006:238). Although I am able to keep myfaçade most of the time by managing myfront and back regions, there have beentimes when they have not been well coordi-nated and I have at times been discredited.This is similar to what the people in the filmMultiple Personalities (1994) experience. Asin the three cases portrayed in the film, oc-casionally a personality that is being hid-den in my back region becomes noticeableby onlookers. However, unlike those in thefilm who suffer from multiple personalitydisorder, I am conscious of not only havingthese contrasting selves, but also when theybecome visible in my front region.

In a class I had taken at a previous col-lege, once my history and mental illness be-came apparent when I had a breakdown inclass. My attempts at emotion manage-ment failed and I lost my appearance as anintelligent and strong class leader, and wasfrom then on seen as what I had been hid-ing in my back region: an unstable personthat was unreliable in times of stress. I no-tice that Sheerin Hosseini, another UMassBoston student, felt similarly in the sense ofalways having to “save face.” In her paperwhere she describes her need for accep-tance, she explains how “[i]n order to main-

124 E. M. WALSH


tain face” she found she must “conform tothe values and norms set by society”(Hosseini, 2005:32). Like Sheerin, I feel thatin order to be successful, I must maintainface by being sure that the emotional at-tributes left from my past trauma remainhidden in the back regions of my every daylife’s drama.

IV. FEAR OF EXCHANGE/RATIONAL CHOICE

By examining the past decisions I madeout of fear, I can see that, for the most part,I have done so rationally despite my senseof fear. At times, however, my fear has in-terfered with my ability to make rationalchoices.

According to rational choice theory,“people are rational and base their actionson what they perceive to be the most effec-tive means to their goals” (Wallace & Wolf,2006:303). Social exchange theorists see so-cial interaction in terms of the exchange ofgoods or services, whether material or im-material, between individuals. These ex-changes are governed by the norm ofreciprocity, in that the exchange is expectedto be, for the most part, equal (pg. 308). Forexample, in a love relationship, the interac-tion between the two individuals is ex-pected to be characterized by a mutualexchange of emotions; the two individualsinvolved are supposed to maintain mutuallove, respect, and trust for one another. Inthe case of my relationships, however, thisnorm of reciprocity is not fulfilled. My in-ability to commit to things in life (goals, re-lationships, identity) is largely due to theviolations of the moral or normative expec-tations of exchange. Because of past experi-ence, I often expect a let down, and in turnam unable to reciprocate love and trust,even if the person is in fact being lovingand trustworthy. Therefore the cost of over-coming my fear and the possibility of suc-cumbing to further let downs seems to

overshadow the intrinsic rewards of a loverelationship.

It even seems as though sometimes I donot have clear options to choose from, orthat my fear causes me to behave irratio-nally. I am reminded of the lead character,Tommy, in the film The Fountain. Tommy isa scientific researcher looking for a cure forcancer, motivated by his dying wife. After aremarkable breakthrough (the lab finding areversal of the aging process) Tommy be-comes upset and continues the search forthe cancer cure against authority. His bosstells him that he is “not being rational,” andthat this remarkable discovery is some-thing not to be dismissed. This is in facttrue; Tommy’s fear of losing his wife iscausing him to forego rational thought inhis decision-making, and continue on hisgoal despite numerous unsuccessful at-tempts. My fear also tends to get in the wayof my rationality. I don’t take chances, andchallenge myself academically when Iknow I should, because of my fear responseto interactions. Fear also, like Tommy’sdriving him to find a cure, is driving meaway from interpersonal relationships withother people, and also towards a career inpsychology. I seem to be caught up in a cy-cle of fear rather than making rational inter-pretations of fact and knowledge to judge asituation. This again reminds me of the filmTwelve Angry Men. The men‘s feelings andinternalizations of past experiences affecttheir rationality. They were at the begin-ning, as I am, not looking at the whole pic-ture in a rational way, but were motivatedin favor of a verdict of guilty without exam-ining all of the facts.

Like UMass Boston student KatherineHeller, who uses her sociological imagina-tion in her paper “My Choice of a Lifetime:‘Finding True Love’ in a Sociological Imag-ination” (2004) to explain her search fortrue love, my alternative choices have beenblinded as I have become trapped in myown self-fulfilling prophecy. Heller wascaught up in questioning the choices of her



lovers to the extent that she felt she wouldalways retain some lack of confidence in re-gard to her relationships. In the same way,I have become trapped by my fear, causingme to not only be distressed by interactionswith others, but also to convince myselfthat all my troubles must be due to my fear.This is perhaps a means of avoiding thefeeling altogether; by simply denouncing asituation as ruled by fear, I sort of “changethe subject” on the issue.

I have learned that fear, though a nega-tive emotion, can cause positive social be-havior. The hurt I felt from being violated,and the resulting fear, serve as the founda-tion for my work in the field of psychology.Peter Blau’s explains in terms of social ex-change theory that the concept of reciproc-ity is “the ‘need’ to reciprocate for benefitsreceived in order to continue receivingthem serves as a ‘starting mechanism’ of so-cial interactions” (Wallace & Wolf,2006:343). This notion helps to further ex-plain why I set education goals towards adegree in psychology. In my case, however,I am reciprocating for punishments received,while anticipating future benefits. It is achoice I made to continue receiving healingfor myself through helping others to thehealing I hope to achieve. Thus, as Cole-man’s view on exchange asserts, “your ac-tions benefit others, then those others havean incentive to provide rewards” (Wallace& Wolf, 2006:356). Hopefully, my contribu-tions to psychology will benefit others intheir healing process, yet unbeknownst tothe patient, they will be aiding in my heal-ing process as well.

George Homans’s “elementary socialbehavior” also seems to shed some light onmy issue of fear. Homans describes certainpropositions of social behavior in terms ofan individual’s motivations and psychol-ogy. His aggression-approval propositionseems to be the most fitting to my situation,in stating that:

When a person’s action does not

receive the reward he expected, orreceives punishment he did not ex-pect, he will be angry; he becomesmore likely to perform aggressivebehavior. (Wallace & Wolf,2006:316)

Another of Homans’ propositions alsoimplies that a behavior receiving punish-ment and lacking expected rewards will de-crease the likelihood of the behavior. This isapparent in my social life. I received un-warranted punishments (rape and emo-tional abuse) in my social interactionsoutside of my home and with my father.Due to this, I became angry and less likelyto take part in interactions. This proposi-tion explains why I shy away from dyadicinteractions, the social world, and a rela-tionship with my father. My choice to takepart in social life, then, is largely inhibitedby my expected fear response.

The lack of close-knit relationships inmy life due to my fear is not a negativething in terms of my success. The basic ele-ment of trust that exists in basic human in-teraction, due to having been continuouslylet down, is difficult for me to appreciateand develop in my interactions. Due to thislack of trust, I have formed many weak as-sociations with other people, rather thanclose emotional bonds. Mark Granovetter‘s notion about the “strength of weak ties,”explains how loose ties in a social networkoften better serve an individual, in thatthey are important for “furthering an indi-vidual’s goals” (Wallace & Wolf, 2006:361).Mere “acquaintances” that are not closelytied to an individual often bring forth infor-mation from other networks, which couldprove helpful to an individual’s goals. Ashe explains, the information in a tight knitgroup is, by nature, shared with the en-tirety of the group, and thus is less impor-tant for the individual’s goals. This helps toexplain why I have continued to be success-ful in spite of my fear. My success in educa-tion and the job market can be attributed to

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the wealth of information I receive person-ally since I am not part of a more intimategroup, with whom I would have to sharethe information I receive.

V. CONFRONTING FEAR ALSO AS A PUBLIC ISSUE

It becomes apparent looking at fearthrough the lenses of these largely microso-ciological perspectives that my questions inregards to the origins, effect, and continuityof my fear are not beyond answering. Withjust a little introspective help from socio-logical theories and concepts, I believe Ihave already made progress in how I view,explain, and hopefully resolve, my issues offear. In reexamining my fear through theselenses I notice that the fear I experience inmy day to day life is not something that Ialone must conquer, but that there are oth-ers who are struggling with the same prob-lem. DeSalvo seems to be right in statingthat “writing about difficulties enables usto discover the wholeness of things, theconnectedness of human experience…Through expressing ourselves, we establishour connection with others and with theworld” (43). By crossing the bridge frommicro into macro theories, it becomes crys-tal clear that my fear is not only a personaltrouble, it is also a public issue.

Some of the first cues that I was notalone in experiencing fear in my life camefrom the media exposure that I experienceevery day. The more I came in touch withmy fear and try to explain it, the more I be-came aware that many singers and song-writers were expressing similar emotions.One of the first songs that I assimilated Ihad heard many times before but had nevernoticed the similarities of emotion. Thesong starts out: “Fear / and panic in the air/ I want to be free / from desolation anddespair.” As I changed the song to another,and then another, I realized that fear is, infact, a common emotion expressed in cur-

rent popular music. Popular music has al-ways seemed to me to be an expression ofthe era. For example, if you listen to musicfrom the ‘60s you would hear a political un-dertone of anti-war protest and emphasison loving one other. This is a tell-tale re-minder of both the Vietnam War and thehippy subculture. This is not a coincidence;it is simply the fact that symbolic expres-sion through music not only communicatesindividual emotions, but also the national,and even global, climate of emotion. Ac-cording to DeRivera, Kurrien, and Olsen,

Societies seem to have emotionalclimates that affect how people feeland act in public situations. Unlikethe emotions experienced in an in-dividual’s personal life, these mod-al feelings reflect a collectiveresponse to the socio-economic-po-litical situation of the society andinfluence how most people behavetowards one another and their gov-ernment. (2007:1)

This may explain how emotions, in-cluding fear, make their way into popularculture, but it does not explain why.

Looking at current events both in theUnited States, as well as globally, one willfind much to fear. As a nation, we havebeen victims of terrorist attacks. We aredaily losing brothers, sisters, mothers, fa-thers, sons, daughters, and friends to a warthat seems to be without end. Left and rightpeople are killing, beating, torturing, rap-ing, and brutalizing their own fellow hu-man beings. Natural disasters strikewithout warning, leaving in their wakedeath, destruction, and desperation. It isimpossible to turn on any news channelwithout hearing about all of the things I justmentioned. It is no wonder people are liv-ing in fear. Relatively unrepresented by themedia are instances in which good thingshappen to good people. Muzzatti andFeatherstone (2007), in an article on the me-



dia’s coverage of crime, explain that “newsincreasingly consists of stories about whatto fear and how to protect ourselves,” butthat “the news media is not always a repre-sentation of objective reality” (pg. 1). Theimportant thing, as William Isaac Thomasexplains, is that “If men define a situationas real, they are real in their consequences”(Wallace & Wolf, 2006:202). The reality themedia portrays becomes internalized in in-dividuals and one consequence is wide-spread fear throughout the culture. In orderto fully understand this fear one must looknot only at individuals but also to the largersocial structures and institutions within oursociety.

VI. FUNCTIONS OF FEAR

Functionalism is a scope of sociologythat transcends the individual and looks atsociety as a functioning whole. This wholeis made up of parts, consisting of economic,social and cultural phenomena. The partsperform certain functions and are interre-lated within the social system. Further-more, functionalists believe that societyitself is naturally homeostatic, and thatproblems in society are problems of theparts, not the whole (Wallace & Wolf,2006:17).

From the functionalist perspective, onemust look at the function that fear serveswithin society. For centuries fear has servedthe function of societal regulation and con-trol. Jeffrey victor (2006) explains that fearhas been “manipulated by special interestgroups,” especially politicians, in order toserve such a function. One example thatimmediately comes to mind is Robespi-erre’s “Reign of Terror,” a campaign ofmass executions to control French citizensat the outbreak of The French Revolution.Even closer to home, however, for some cit-izens, the mere knowledge of secretive gov-ernment agencies such as the CIA and FBIcauses some to fear the government

enough to “stay in line.” Similarly, one caneven identify the function of media as thegrapevine through which this fear is circu-lated.

The media reinforces fear to the pointthat it is taken for granted as a social fact,“which is general over the whole of a givensociety” (Wallace & Wolf, 2006:20). RobertMerton made the point that it is always im-portant to ask for whom something is func-tional or dysfunctional (Wallace & Wolf,2006:48). The use of fear to govern societymay at first glance seem functional for agovernment. Michael Moore points out inhis documentary Bowling For Columbine,however, that this fear can cause citizens todistrust their neighbor, leading to seriousconsequences. Moore believes that wide-spread fear is why so many Americanscarry weapons and are quick to use them incomparison to Canada. If this fear, then, isthe reason for our country’s exceptionallyhigh crime rates, then how is this functionalfor anyone? The manifest, expected or in-tended, function was control, but the unin-tended consequences, or, rather, the latentfunction was to create a society in whichindividuals are so scared of one anotherthat they react with violence.

Critically looking at functionalist Tal-cott Parsons’ four-function paradigm mayalso serve helpful in explaining the originsof fear. In his view, four functional require-ments need to be met in order for a socialsystem to be functional: adaptation, goal at-tainment, integration, and latent patternmaintenance/tension management. In Par-sons’ view, these needs are met by the es-tablishment of social institutions, or“interrelated systems of social norms androles that satisfy social needs or functions”(Wallace & Wolf, 2006:38). Adaptation in-volves a system’s need to adaptively secureand maintain necessary resources and dis-tribute them (behavioral system often in-volving economic activities). Goalattainment is the mobilization of these re-sources to achieve a goal (personality sys-

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tem often significant in political decision-making). Integration is the need for partsof the system to work together and regulateone another (social system). Latent patternmaintenance/tension management is theneed to motivate the actors to play theirpart and to provide outlets for tension thatmay arise (cultural system, as in family, re-ligion, and education). Further light on thenature of modern society and how fear isimplicated in it can be found in EmileDurkheim’s work. Durkheim theorizedthat too much or too little of either integra-tion (how much those within a society areinterdependent) or regulation (how muchcontrol they have over their social lives) canbe detrimental to a society (Wallace & Wolf,2006:23). Perhaps the lack of integrationamong members of society has led to fear,particularly that of outsiders. Perhaps alsothere is too little personal (and/or toomuch official) regulation of society’s mem-bers, and fear is springing from the per-ceived notion of so many living in anomie,or normlessness, hence the high crimerates. It is also possible that there is toomuch regulation, causing people to beafraid that they might step outside thelines.

Fear can stem from the dysfunctions ofinstitutions (or, if we use functionalism crit-ically, of the whole system) that are sup-posed to be serving the aforementionedfunctions. As far as adaptability is con-cerned, running out of fossil fuels and in-creasing costs of energy, environmentaldegradation, pollution, and abuse of naturecertainly strike fear among many aroundthe world . Personality systems, especiallyin the political arena, but also in civil soci-ety not only do not contribute their part inattainment of societal goals, but amid glo-bal clashes of ideas and ideologies havecaused tremendous fear among thosestruck by terrorism in all its official or unof-ficial forms. The social and legal systemsare doing a poor job at engendering na-tional and global integration, causing much

anomie and alienation and conditions ofliving in social isolation and fear, becausethere is still widespread inequality amongraces and classes, as well as corruptionwithin our legal and economic systems.Also, as far as cultural systems are con-cerned, again, due to the changing of thestructures of family and religion, and thedifficulty of achieving effective educationand earning a career, latent pattern mainte-nance/tension management are not beingeffectively fulfilled. Given such systemicdysfunctions, it is no wonder that peoplelive in such generalized environmentally,economically, politico-legally, socially, andculturally induced states of fear. Further-more, my own fears arising from the abovesystems (financial instability, personalityconflicts, social commitments and safetyfears, and cultural/educational challenges)can all be explained by the flaws in thesesystems.

The problem with Parsonian function-alism was that it assumed the system as awhole is not structurally flawed, and onlyby fixing its dysfunctional parts, it can berestored to equilibrium. Neofunctional-ism, a perspective later developed to ad-dress theoretical limitations inherent in theParsonian functionalism, has been particu-larly geared towards tying together microand macro concerns while putting an em-phasis on uncertainty and human creativ-ity. Jeffrey Alexander argues that humanaction and reaction contain an element offree will (Wallace & Wolf, 2006:58), whichmeans people may be differently affectedby problematic social structures and insti-tutions, and can also act to transform them.This concept explains why my fears maydiffer from yours, or how I may choose toact differently based upon those fears. Thisnotion explains how despite the wide-spread fear after September 11th, 2001,there was also an overwhelming sense ofpatriotism. Some saw it as a reason to altertheir day to day lives, while others saw it asa chance to join the armed services and



show their support and pride in the nation,and yet others considered the tragic eventsas a wakeup call to question the historicaland global socio-political roots of condi-tions which precipitated 9/11. SociologistNeil Smelser also suggests that people tendto have opposing affective orientations to-wards the same objects, symbols, or people(Wallace & Wolf, 2006:59). This again de-pends on free-will and a person’s individ-ual meaning attached to the object. Forexample, after September 11th, the vast ma-jority of this nation saw a state of unity andpatriotism. Many others, however, sawseparation as people began to more closelyscrutinize and be suspicious of their neigh-bors.

VII. CONFLICT AND THE POLITICS OF FEAR

Perhaps fear is rooted in the malfunc-tion of the parts, or maybe it is a problemwith the whole. Fear examined through thelens of Conflict theory would imply thatthe latter can also be the case. Unlike func-tionalists, conflict theorists hold the notionthat conflict, rather than equilibrium, is thenorm in society. They argue that the strug-gle for power, resources, and control overthese is inevitable. Marx, one of the leadersin conflict theory, heavily stressed peoples’individual amid especially class interests,and believed that when interests differ,conflict is created. Marx would most likelyargue that fear is a necessary byproduct ofcapitalism and that eradication of this, andother, class-based social systems, will bringforth a communist society free of sociallyinstitutionalized fear. What Marx essen-tially saw in his class theory was classstruggle involving mass fear leading to theeventual change within society to the pointof reaching a utopian society. What hap-pened in actuality was the failure of hisproposed communist state. Revolts againstthe bourgeoisie did occur resulting in

many individual communist states. How-ever, the global revolution that Marx pre-dicted never happened. For these reasons,the historical experience of communist andsocialist movements and states have so farproven such predictions otherwise, suchthat fear remained and remains a centralfeature of social psychologies of the com-munist states.

Max Weber, another forerunner, wouldprobably also argue that fear is endemic tohuman society, and especially in a capitalistsociety bent on moving toward an “ironcage” of bureaucratization and depersonal-ized social life. Unlike Marx, in otherwords, Weber was not so optimistic thatfear based society may come to end at somepoint, and would argue that since humanconflict is eternal, so is the fear it creates.

It is important to note that in a class so-ciety, fear is not a psychological attribute ofeither rulers or the ruled, but is endemic tothem across the board, albeit in differentforms. There are differences in how fear isexperienced amongst those with status andwealth versus those lacking them. By itsvery nature, in other words, capitalism gen-erates differential conditions of wealth, sta-tus, and varied forms of fear associatedwith them, and power across populations.Using Marx’s class analysis, the fears of thebourgeoisie is different from fears of theproleteriat, and this also applies to the fearsthe classes have toward one another. Awealthy business owner of high status, forexample, may not fear this country’s alarm-ing deficit if he has invested his wealthproperly and has others in power to backhim up. On the other hand, a factoryworker who is aware of the failing econ-omy may be terrified that this will be theweek he gets laid off and cannot supporthis children. Also, as portrayed in MichaelMoore’s film The Big One, when companieslay off workers to “down-size” and moveto third-world countries as a way to in-crease their profits, the employees and theiremployers of down-sizing firms experience

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fear differently depending on their inter-ests. The employee is interested in makingenough money to support his family, and isfearful of being unable to do so if he is un-employed. The employer, on the otherhand, is interested in being able to remaincompetitive against other large companies,and fears going bankrupt leading to the po-tential loss of the company.

Marx described wealth and class interms of property ownership and its distri-bution. “A class is made up of people whoare alike in their relationship to property:they have none, or they have the sametype” (Wallace & Wolf, 2006:82). By thisconcept, one can see that the conditions ofcapitalism also serve to reinforce fear.Those who have property and access topower must continually struggle to keep it.In other words, fear is endemic to how cap-italism works and is its systemic attribute.Each actor, individual, group, or corporate,lives in constant fear of being underminedin the “free” marketplaces of economics,politics, and culture. It is this same need ofthe ruling class to remain in power that per-petuates the system of oppression of mi-nority and “inferior” groups, yet anotherprominent source of fear for those whocomprise those oppressed group (Wallace& Wolf, 2006:83). Those at the bottom rungsfear being unable to rise in ranks, whereasthose at the top fear the rise of the under-dogs.

Economically speaking, there are manycauses for alarm in our current system.Marx’s concept of alienation that describesthe social psychology of the workforce ba-sically tells of a continued sense of es-trangement of which fear is a centralattribute. This is alarming for any happi-ness-seeker. The striving of the capitalistsfor infinite profit creates a system thatalienates people from not only the work,but from each other, from their work envi-ronments, and themselves (Wallace & Wolf,2006:88). Once one has committed to workfor the capitalists, they find themselves do-

ing more and more, not for themselves butto meet the demands of the employer. Thisin turn takes one away from his or her indi-vidual interests. In Tuesdays with Morrie,Mitch Albom is very much caught up in thecapitalist hum-drum. As a journalist, he isworking so hard to meet the demands ofhis media boss and the system to find theright stories to write about, that he is com-pletely alienated from his own true inter-ests. He almost loses the woman that heloves, because the system has robbed himof all his time and he cannot fit her into hisbusy schedule.

Another theorist, Pierre Bourdieu,sheds even more light on why fear may beso widespread. Pierre Bourdieu uses theconcept of fields of conflict, to explainshow life in a capitalist society one confrontsin all walks of life never ending processesof competition . He uses the term “field” in-stead of “classes” to explain how conflict ismuch like that of opposing sports teams.“People maneuver, develop strategies, andstruggle for resources” not only in the senseof classes, but in every area of life (Wallace& Wolf, 2006:112). This constant competi-tion in society is scary, because it meansthat unless the system of capitalism is radi-cally transformed, one may potentially endup on the losing end. Bourdieu’s concept ofclass reproduction makes me think thatcapitalism, and thus fear, are here to stay.He theorizes that generations pass on theirprivileges to the next generation (Wallace &Wolf, 2006:114). It is doubtful that anyonewho is given privilege at birth will give itup willingly. It is also highly unlikely thatthose who are upwardly mobile, once inpossession of such privileges, will make amove for change. As a result, we find our-selves caught in series of what Bourdieucalls habitus; “a system of durably ac-quired schemes of perception, thought, andaction” (pg. 115). By these standards, itseems unlikely that conflict can or will beeradicated, thus leaving fear amidst theclass struggle.



Conflict can play different roles in de-fining certain groups and their stability.Lewis Coser argued that internal conflict,conflict within a particular group, can ei-ther increase or decrease the group’s cohe-sion and stability. If the conflict is handledproperly, it can create a sense of satisfactionamong the group that they have success-fully resolved a conflict, thus making themstronger and more unified. But in the caseof divisive social conflict, the group isweakened and split or eradicated. Cosernotes that such conflicts are likely to occurin societies whose groups do not overlapand have tried to suppress dissent (Wallace& Wolf, 2006:135). This is ironically reassur-ing, because many different groups in oursociety are overlapping despite the compet-itive atmosphere amid which they live.While freedom of speech allows for expres-sion of dissenting opinions in certain coreareas of the capitalist world-system, as soci-ologist Immanuel Wallerstein would haveit, he also reminds us that there are otherparts of the world in which speech and dis-sent are far from free, and, moreover, that inthe modern world-system the freedoms ofsome at the expense of oppression of othersare not separate processes but have condi-tioned one another.

One of the biggest fears stemming froma conflict perspective among people in theU.S. is that of violence. Given the extent oftension among and within classes overavailable resources, violence has seemed tobe just a part of life. Michael Moore in hisdocumentary Bowling for Columbine on me-dia-perpetuated violence went to Canadato see if the climate of fear there differedfrom that of the United States. After beingtold by many citizens that they neverlocked their doors, even by some who hadbeen robbed before, he went out to checkfor himself. Every door he attempted toopen was unlocked. Upon asking thosewho were home why they don’t lock theirdoors, many responded that they trustedtheir neighbors. One man even said that by

locking others out in fear you are only lock-ing yourself in. Walklate and Mythen arguethat “the intensity and the frequency of fearare not causally connected to the probabil-ity of harm” (2008:1). So, in other words,more people are afraid of being harmedwhen the chances of their actually being thevictims of violence are slim. But with“crime as a sellable commodity” (Muzzatti& Featherstone, 2007:1), just another thingto buy and sell in our capitalist world, theideas that we should oppress certaingroups and that violence is a common real-ity are reinforced. The availability of newsstories of all the things in life we shouldfear, paired with the availability of gunsand weapons, individual and massive, con-tinue the cycle of fear and violence.

Wallerstein’s “modern world-system”perspective is helpful in explaining the is-sue of fear in regards to economic condi-tions. He argues that capitalism has beenfrom its inception a globally expanding, hi-erarchical economic system. Within thissystem, the core provides the labor with theraw materials extracted from the periph-ery, each serving a particular function inperpetuating the capitalist world-economy.The core controls the periphery by meansof economic integration, by buying its rawmaterials and thus “underdeveloping” itseconomy and society, making it increas-ingly dependent on a global division of la-bor (Wallace & Wolf, 2006:165). However, ifa country in the periphery was no longerwilling to supply the core with the raw ma-terials that it needed, the system would bedisrupted. The tensions between the inde-pendent seeking peripheral state and re-gion and the dominant core states can besources of significant instability and fear.Fear, in the views of many Americans isrooted in this exact scenario, with Iraq be-ing a part of the periphery and a main sup-plier of our much needed oil. Anti-globalization activists argue that “a singleinstitution—the large multinational corpo-ration—has taken over… government”

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(Wallace & Wolf, 2006:166),and seeks to im-pose its priorities and interests on theworld’s population. This is alarming be-cause “corporations” are not fool-proof andare susceptible to failure, yet, legally areonly virtual entities and their CEOs and di-rectors are not susceptible to punishmentand penalty, especially when much of theirpolicies and actions can have long-term, ir-reversible, consequences for the environ-ment and the eco-system. This enormouspower to shape the world and lack of legalresponsibility for its outcomes is indeedsource of much fear and anxiety for theworlds citizens.

VIII. THE MODERNITY AND POSTMODERNITY OF FEAR

Capitalist modernity also heavily em-phasizes the notions of evolution andchange. Jürgen Habermas, believes that so-cial evolution is the result of contradictionswithin a system, which then causes “steer-ing problems” in a system that lacks of def-inite direction (Wallace & Wolf, 2006:177).This helps me make sense of the seeminglack of direction in our current political cri-sis in the United States especially in regardto policies toward terrorism, and the warsin Iran and Afghanistan.

Habermas is still very much interestedin pursuing and deepening the project ofmodernity, though in ways that departsfrom the mainstream modernity that capi-talism offers. Central to his alternativemodel of modernization is the enrichmentof the ways people can and should commu-nicate with one another. He combines ob-servations of the evolutionary process ofsociety with how they are interpreted by in-dividuals. In doing this, he argues for thenecessity of an “intersubjective projectioninto others lifeworld’s”, in other words,“for understanding what it would be like tobe inside someone else’s skin, experiencingthe world as he or she does” (Wallace &

Wolf, 2006:180). Much like the idea of role-taking, but taken in both macro and microsenses of the term, Habermas is stating thatthe importance and meaning in the socialstructure can be understood throughshared experience. By understanding thesituations of others and understanding theways they experience the lifeworld, simplythe world we live in, one becomes aware ofhis or her self as a part of the whole.

To advance his perspective andagenda, Habermas ties in symbolic interac-tionist thought in his theory of communi-cative action. “It is through the action ofcommunicating… that society actually op-erates and evolves; this process is encom-passed and structured by the actors’lifeworlds” (181). He argues that crises de-velop along the lines where the system andthe lifeworld meet due to contradictions ofvalues. Wallace and Wolf give the exampleof how the conditions under capitalism de-stroy the family structure (2006:183). Thisseems to imply that the crises of distrust inthe natural order of society and the fear thatstems from it has developed in relation tothe system itself. In order to understandthis fear, therefore, one must delve into thelifeworlds of others, and see that they mayalso be afraid. Habermas also seems to im-ply that in order for issues of society to beresolved, including the phenomenon offear, communication is necessary. At themicro-level and even introspective, thisidea is received well in the work of LouiseDeSalvo, who notes that expressing emo-tion in writing not only serves to communi-cate and help others with similar issues, butthat it is healing for one’s self. She explainshow she utilized the communications andwritings of others that had described issuessimilar to hers. “I could remind myself thatothers, too, had shared my experience,”writes DeSalvo. This also helped her to“learn how others rebuilt their lives,” andreconstructed their reality (DeSalvo,1999:104).

Giddens does make some predictions



about modernity and what is to follow. Hebelieves that society will continue tochange social structures and institutions asit has since the beginning of time. He ar-gues that although “modernity has de-stroyed tradition,” it has also served torebuild it by creating new traditions (Wal-lace & Wolf, 2006:190). He defines traditionas “an organizing medium of collectivememory,” and as being protected by“guardians” who serve to preserve andkeep it (Wallace & Wolf, 2006:190). If tradi-tion is not preserved, a new one will replaceit because individuals will continue to or-ganize amongst others who share similarideas. He also explains that “the loss of tra-dition means that people have to decide ontheir lifestyle, their relationships with peo-ple, and the sort of person they are going tobe” (Wallace & Wolf, 2006:191). This con-flict between traditional and modern livingand standards can be significant source ofanxiety and fear.Another modernist, An-thony Giddens, points out in his theory ofstructuration a notion similar to micro-per-spective theorists. He believes that al-though it may be true that actors create andreproduce the social structure that reactsback to constrain action, it is not a viciouscycle. He argues that human action is trans-formational and that humans are capableof changing social structure (Wallace &Wolf, 2006:187). When individual’s becomeso constrained that it leads to widespreadunhappiness or fear, they may act backupon the social structure and attempt tochange it. Could the fear and unrest beingexperienced globally lead to social change?What I find most interesting about both thecritical versions of modern and post-mod-ern thought is that we can only adopt a crit-ical and activist view toward existingconditions and the here and now. Usingthis lens we are not only philosophers, tak-ing from what we know in society’s past tomake predictions about the how, why, andwhat’s of the future, but also we can adopta transformative attitude toward our

shared, global reality.Giddens even goes so far as to say that

there is a commonality of anxiety in our so-ciety. This is because globalization has be-come too future-oriented in its riskcalculation. Wallace and Wolf explain that,although primitive societies may havefaced more risks, they were not able to “tryto quantify the risks, set out alternative sce-narios, and insure and plan their lives ac-cordingly” (Wallace & Wolf, 2006:192).Without modern knowledge, more primi-tive societies of the past merely had to ac-cept the risks and hope for the best.Nowadays, “the future is continuallydrawn into the present by means of the re-flexive organization of knowledge environ-ments” (Wallace & Wolf, 2006:192). It isbecause of our risk society that “people inthe United States are constantly bom-barded with appeals to fear” (Victor, 2006).We are always watching out for what mighthappen next rather than experiencing lifeas it is now. The attention paid to the globalwarming crisis, although indeed impor-tant, has been a cause for much concern inmodern thought. On issues like this, how-ever, I feel that fear can also be an impor-tant attribute, as it will spur action to fix theproblem. If we do not narrow our focus towhat can and should be done now, the is-sue will never be resolved. Perhaps we arefocused too far ahead, preventing us fromseeing alternatives that can at least get usmoving in the right direction.

In the post-modern perspective theconcept of modernity is approached from acritical perspective. The two main featuresof post-modern thought that distinguish itfrom contemporary social theory are the re-jection of the use of an over-arching scien-tific model to explain society and thereliance on discourse and texts (Wallace &Wolf, 2006:421). I tend to think that my pa-per leans on having adopted the perspec-tive of a post-modernist by way of itsconclusion. I tend to suspect the notion thatscience can fully explain my fear, i.e., that it

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is something that can be definitively under-stood. Even though I have usefully drawnupon a wealth of discourse and texts drawnfrom various sociological and social scien-tific lenses, and as such have benefited fromthem, I still feel that I should remain alwayscritical of all these lenses, and be skepticalof the notion that an overall, over-arching,social theory can once and for all illuminatehow my fear has come to be.

Post-modernists believe that “there hasbeen a major shift in the nature of society,and that the type of society that we havecharacterized as modern has been suc-ceeded by a very different one” (Wallace &Wolf, 2006:420). One theorist of this per-spective even goes so far as to compare ourmodern society to a prison. To Michael Fou-cault “the prison and the asylum exemplifythe modern world” (Wallace & Wolf,2006:422). Foucault’s notion of the carceralsociety is based on how power is exercisedin modern society; in a way that is muchlike in a prison. Prisoners, under the as-sumption that their behavior is being con-stantly monitored, begin to disciplinethemselves. The prisoners’ fear of potentialpunishment from the guards is enough tokeep their behavior in check, most of thetime. In a similar sense, my fear that hasgeneralized to many areas in my life maybe a manifestation of how society havemade me keep my behavior in check mostof the time. It is true that my fear keeps meon my educational and career path andsimilarly away from things that might de-ter me from such goals, but I should also beon guard against situations were my inter-nalized fears are disciplinary mechanismthat society had internalized in me to con-form to its taken-for-granted needs andgoals.

In other words, taken in another light,it could be that my path to success itself iswhat much of my fear stems from. Foucaultbelieved, keeping with the perspective’sview on rejecting scientific canon, that thehuman sciences have become breeding

grounds for power and fear. According toFoucault, in James Farganis’ words,

The knowledge produced in thesedisciplines has had a profound im-pact on the lives of ordinary peopleand has shaped their views ofthemselves and others around con-cepts of normality and deviance.(Farganis, 2008:415)

This seems to paint my life of fear alltoo colorfully, especially considering mychoice of majors. The kind of knowledgethat I am receiving as a psychology major,according this perspective, advances thenotions of normality versus abnormality alltoo uncritically. Given the stigma attachedto my mental illness, I would be consideredabnormal by comparison. Reading aboutthis everyday in my courses, designed tofeed me this knowledge, I am consistentlyreinforcing my fear because I am ascribingto science’s notions of behavior and society.Similarly, in order to reach my goal of com-pletion of a degree, I find that I must con-tinue to define myself by what is “normal”for a college student. I find that I must con-tinue to do the work, attend the classes, andpass exams in order not to be considered“deviant” and unsuccessful in reachinggraduation.

Postmodern thought also emphasizesthe role of the mass media on the way peo-ple experience society. Postmodernists rec-ognize the “profound effect that the massmedia have had on our experience of theworld and on what people experience asreal” (Wallace & Wolf, 2006:420). From thisperspective, one can easily see how myworld could have come to be defined byfear considering the richness of fear-pro-voking images in the media. The mass me-dia also serves to keep me on my careerpath by defining education and career-ori-entation as the norm.



IX. CONCLUDING REMARKS

Fear, when critically looked at throughvarious lenses of sociological theory whilemaintaining a skeptical point of viewthroughout, becomes a less difficult topic ofexploration. It is helpful to know that it cannot only be explored and somewhat ex-plained, but also that it is not a feeling thatI struggle with alone. Concerning my per-sonal fear, I understand that its roots can befound in the ways I have been socialized.False interpretations of situations, my in-teractions with others, and even by my ownreconstruction of the fear itself based on as-sumptions about my self and the worldhave allowed my fear to fester and con-tinue. I know now that the reality I havecreated for my self has also led me to con-tinue to be fearful, and that the structure ofsociety as a whole is also playing a part.Both sources of fear are thereby twin-born.My mother said to me once that “fear be-gets fear,” probably quoting something shehad once learned. Because I am not just anindividual, but also part of society, if thosearound me are in fear, then mine will con-tinue despite differing origins, so long as Iremain sociologically unaware of the ori-gins and nature of my fears.

In order to eradicate fear from my life,I must learn to deal with by becoming evermore aware of it as both a personal problemand one that is shared as a public issue inmy culture. The best thing to do is to under-stand that my fear has been defined by mylifeworld, my interactions, and my society.It is important to use my fear to my own ad-vantage and not allow it to debilitate meand steer me away from the things in lifethat I want and need. It is important to re-main positive, because Like PresidentRoosevelt said in his 1933 inaugural ad-dress: “The only thing we have to fear isfear itself.” I must acknowledge that somefear is good fear, causing me to act for thebettering of my self and my society. Con-

versely, the fear that could be detrimentalto my achievement can be calmed, if not de-feated entirely. The fear that exists amongmembers of society today must be takeninto account, but not allowed to rule mylife. Jeffrey Victor states that, due to the em-bedding of fear within our society by themass media, one must always use “reasonand skepticism” when making decisions(2006:7). If I start to make decisions out offear rather than by well-informed choice, Imust remember to go back to using my so-ciological imagination to find out why andhow fear is weighing in again in my every-day life.

The mere expression of my fear and ac-knowledgement that it exists is a step to-wards living a life free from it. In order tochange my self or the society I live in, Imust communicate with others the issue athand. It seems as though fear in society willcontinue to exist so long as the prevailingconditions in our global society continue.As I am part of the whole, it is no doubt thatmy future will always retain some fearfulelements. However, understanding that Iam a thinking, acting, and rational individ-ual in a world and society that is capable ofchange is enlightening. I understand nowthat the fabric of my life is largely a creationof my own, but is also a patchwork of expe-riences of the society I live in. I can chooseto allow my own and my culture’s fear toconstruct a shroud that will smother myhopes and actions; or I could use my socio-logical imagination to allow my blanket ofreality to warm me into a successful future.

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