# America's fear of terrorism is mostly irrational xenophobia **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 18, 2016, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-fear-of-terrorism-is-mostly-irrational-xenophobia/743499 "2016-01-18T14:30:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2016, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-fear-of-terrorism-is-mostly-irrational-xenophobia/743499/21 "2016-01-18T17:48:15Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > I think you guys have the media causality mostly backwards. I think they cater to fears about foreign others because it gets them viewership. It may also contribute at the margins to that fear, but I think the direction of causation is mostly that the xenophobia causes that kind of coverage, not vice versa. To be fair, though, I’m not sure you can divorce the two. ISTM to be a pretty strong feedback loop. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2016, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-fear-of-terrorism-is-mostly-irrational-xenophobia/743499/22 "2016-01-18T17:48:59Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > I think the OP as phrased is probably pretty right on… But keep in mind that the OP is fairly precise. “Fear” of terrorism motivated by fear of foreigners? Yep, pretty reasonable. > > But I think some may take that to mean that policy choices, like whether to try to bomb the snot out of ISIL, is really a separate question. I’m not afraid of ISIL in any meaningful sense, but I favor bombing the snot out of them. That’s because I think they are a menace to many people trying to live peaceful lives - I’m just not one of those being threatened in any realistic way. Yes, I agree with this distinction, and did try to frame the OP to avoid arguments over whether it is nevertheless good policy to fight terrorists abroad. I do wonder how many Americans would support bombing ISIL out of good will towards the innocent non-American people of Syria and Iraq (and Yemen, Libya, etc.). Ironically, this would mean that xenophobia is enabling a policy with the principal goal of helping foreigners. Right? ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2016, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-fear-of-terrorism-is-mostly-irrational-xenophobia/743499/23 "2016-01-18T17:49:52Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Pretty simple. Terrorism provides an ideal justification for endlessly expanding the size and power of government. Politicians and their allies always want to expand the size of power of government, so they always talk about terrorism. Whether the goal _du jour_ is a larger military budget, warrantless wiretapping and NSA data collection, or more unionized TSA employees, it can be shoehorned into some sort of anti-terrorism action. Even things totally unrelated to security, such as corporate bailouts and food regulations, somehow end up having something to do with terrorism. > > Fear of death by snakebite or lightning strike doesn’t justify expanding government nearly as well. You know, I think I would largely agree with this if I replaced “government” with “military-industrial complex.” ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2016, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-fear-of-terrorism-is-mostly-irrational-xenophobia/743499/24 "2016-01-18T17:51:34Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > It is scarier to be targeted than to die indiscriminately? Absolutely! For many people,of course it’s scarier. Let’s try an analogy: You’re a perfectly average person, in an average middle class American neighborhood. And you happen to be black Imagine two situations: 1. you wake up one night and find an armed burglar in your house. 2. you wake up one morning, look out the window, and see a noose tied to a tree on your street, with the words “niggers go home” spray-painted on the sidewalk nearby. In the first case, you were personally threatened and could have died. (but luckily the robber fled). In the second case, you personally aren’t threatened at all. But which is scarier? Which story would get more news coverage? It may be irrational, but human beings are not rational creatures. Some things scare us more than others…So it is not fair to dismiss fear of terrorism with a disdainful attitude, and label it Xenophobia. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2016, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-fear-of-terrorism-is-mostly-irrational-xenophobia/743499/25 "2016-01-18T17:56:22Z")
I don’t see why your final sentence follows from the previous ones. Why isn’t it fair to criticize irrational fears? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2016, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-fear-of-terrorism-is-mostly-irrational-xenophobia/743499/26 "2016-01-18T17:59:38Z")
> [@andros](#): > > To be fair, though, I’m not sure you can divorce the two. ISTM to be a pretty strong feedback loop. I’m sure that’s right. But I think the implicit point made by these critics is that if only the media made different choices then we wouldn’t have this problem. My point is that so long as the media is for-profit then this feedback loop will exist. If that’s so, in a free society the problem is really the media-viewers and not the media. ---
**Author:** ![Jayhawker\_Soule](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/57b2e6/32.png) [@Jayhawker\_Soule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayhawker_Soule)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2016, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-fear-of-terrorism-is-mostly-irrational-xenophobia/743499/27 "2016-01-18T18:18:09Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > CNN is the network that first comes to mind for you when it comes to xenophobia? Yes, not because they are particularly guilty, but because that is the news channel that I typically watch. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2016, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-fear-of-terrorism-is-mostly-irrational-xenophobia/743499/28 "2016-01-18T18:40:39Z")
I suspect it is the same reason people are afraid of shark attacks when swimming. Shark attacks are a trifling danger, but there have been movies and TV specials made about them, and they occasionally appear on the news, so people far overrate them as a danger. See also: child abduction by strangers. I don’t think this sort of thing necessarily requires “xenophobia”, just a lot of public consciousness devoted to it. Terrorist attacks are newsworthy because they are startling and frightening if they happen; the public is constantly reminded of them, because they make the news. Once they are imprinted into the news cycle, people devote more worry to them than is rational, because people’s threat responses are like that: more rationally significant threats are familiar and so contemptible. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2016, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-fear-of-terrorism-is-mostly-irrational-xenophobia/743499/29 "2016-01-18T18:42:31Z")
> [@Hank\_Beecher](#): > > In 2015, the majority of people murdered in the US in mass shootings were killed by Jihadi terrorists. > > [An Accurate Count Of Mass Shootings Like San Bernardino Is Hard To Come By : NPR](http://www.npr.org/2015/12/05/458492474/how-many-mass-shootings-this-year-theres-no-consensus) Your “citation” offers little, if any, support for your position. Indeed, the title of the article explicitly references the lack of reliable numbers. Being “How Many Mass Shootings This Year? There’s No Consensus.” A brief scanning of the article does not turn up even a reference to _jihadi_ terrorism. Can you point out for us the wording that supports your thesis? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2016, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-fear-of-terrorism-is-mostly-irrational-xenophobia/743499/30 "2016-01-18T18:50:49Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > I suspect it is the same reason people are afraid of shark attacks when swimming. Shark attacks are a trifling danger, but there have been movies and TV specials made about them, and they occasionally appear on the news, so people far overrate them as a danger. > > See also: child abduction by strangers. > > I don’t think this sort of thing necessarily requires “xenophobia”, just a lot of public consciousness devoted to it. Terrorist attacks are newsworthy because they are startling and frightening if they happen; the public is constantly reminded of them, because they make the news. Once they are imprinted into the news cycle, people devote more worry to them than is rational, because people’s threat responses are like that: more rationally significant threats are familiar and so contemptible. I address this in the OP. If it were merely the same set of biases that make people fear shark attacks, then you’d expect fear of mass shooting to be on par with fear of terrorism. But it isn’t. People fear foreign terrorism roughly twice as much. Do you think the difference is entirely accounted for in the level of media coverage of the two kinds of events? And if it is, what is the underlying cause of that greater coverage, in your estimation, if not the greater salience of foreign dangers? ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a8b319/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_wuzzy)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2016, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-fear-of-terrorism-is-mostly-irrational-xenophobia/743499/31 "2016-01-18T18:52:34Z")
I don’t believe it is entirely due to irrational xenophobia. Terrorism, for better or worse, is in the news lately. Plus, we have the added problem of greater immigration and the rise of militant Islam. The conseuence of these latter two problems we don’t yet fully know. It’s therefore next to worthless to point out past numbers of deaths caused by terrorism in the US and come to any firm conclusion over future attacks. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2016, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-fear-of-terrorism-is-mostly-irrational-xenophobia/743499/32 "2016-01-18T18:53:59Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](#): > > It’s therefore next to worthless to point out past numbers of deaths caused by terrorism in the US and come to any firm conclusion over future attacks. So your thesis is that fears of terrorism aren’t irrational because they could be based on future predictions of thousand-fold increases in the likelihood of being a victim of terrorism? ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2016, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-fear-of-terrorism-is-mostly-irrational-xenophobia/743499/33 "2016-01-18T19:00:33Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > I address this in the OP. If it were merely the same set of biases that make people fear shark attacks, then you’d expect fear of mass shooting to be on par with fear of terrorism. But it isn’t. People fear foreign terrorism roughly twice as much. Do you think the difference is entirely accounted for in the level of media coverage of the two kinds of events? And if it is, what is the underlying cause of that greater coverage, in your estimation, if not the greater salience of foreign dangers? Not at all: in fact this supports my theory. Mass shootings in the US in particular are now simply too common to summon up the “shark attack” fear/fascination reaction. They are so common, the smaller ones have ceased to be newsworthy, except locally. I’m not the only one to have noted this: [Oregon college shooting is 994th mass gun attack in US in three years | Oregon college shooting | The Guardian](http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/01/obama-oregon-college-shooting-routine) > [@](#): > > Barack Obama put words to the desperation of millions of Americans – and the despair of the rest of the world – after another mass shooting at a school in Oregon on Thursday, the latest of nearly 1,000 since his re-election in 2012. > > “Somehow,” the president said, “this has become routine. > > “The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine. The conversation in the aftermath of it,” Obama trailed off, at once frustrated and spirited at the White House. “We’ve become numb to this … We talked about this after Columbine and Blacksburg; after Tucson, after Newtown; after Aurora, after Charleston.” > > The words mark a long list of tragedy. Since Obama’s re-election to a second term in November 2012 – which itself was followed by the shooting of 26 people including 20 children at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, just a few weeks later – there had been 993 mass shooting events in the United States . Thursday’s attack, at Umpqua community college in the town of Roseburg, was No 994. Almost 300 of them have occurred in 2o15. > > That’s almost one every day. In short, mass-shootings (non foreign terrorist variety) have simply joined car accidents and the like as aspects of modern life in America that are somewhat dangerous, but not surprising or startling any more. One may as well ask why stranger abductions of children are more frightening that abductions of children by family members (which are far, far more common). Both are “abductions”, yet the far rarer one is the far scarier to the general public. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2016, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-fear-of-terrorism-is-mostly-irrational-xenophobia/743499/34 "2016-01-18T19:02:48Z")
Seems like a hypothesis we could test. According to your theory, fear of mass shootings should have decreased over the last two decades, right? ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2016, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-fear-of-terrorism-is-mostly-irrational-xenophobia/743499/35 "2016-01-18T19:05:13Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > I address that in the OP. I think a lot of the irrational fear of mass shootings is about availability and recency bias. Fear of foreign terrorism is roughly twice as high as mass shootings, and it’s that difference that I think is explained by xenophobia. Haven’t read the entire thread - but while xenophobia is often used as an excuse and definitely is a piece of it for some - the real reason we fear both of these items to the extent we do is it makes us fully realize just how “not in control” of our surroundings we are - its losing the ability to ‘walk down the streets safe in the good part of town’. We hear in the media about car bombings and explosions in “foreign countries” - we wonder how people live in that type of society all the time - we get a few events like that in ‘our safe country’ and it causes us to fear it even more so. Its no longer ‘just them’ - its also ‘us’ - and that is pretty fucking scary. It doesn’t help that fear is an easy thing to sell - it does a wonder for religion. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a8b319/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_wuzzy)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2016, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-fear-of-terrorism-is-mostly-irrational-xenophobia/743499/36 "2016-01-18T19:16:41Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > So your thesis is that fears of terrorism aren’t irrational because they could be based on future predictions of thousand-fold increases in the likelihood of being a victim of terrorism? Well done for subtly changing the parameters of the issue. The issue is not only about myself, but also my family, and if you are being sympathetic to my fears then you can also add fear for my friends. That’s a whole lot of people to fear over; some of whom will no doubt spend substantial time abroad. Heck, im not even American, but what scares me will likely scare your average American, German, Brit and Australian. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2016, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-fear-of-terrorism-is-mostly-irrational-xenophobia/743499/37 "2016-01-18T19:18:30Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](#): > > Well done for subtly changing the parameters of the issue. If I’ve done so, it wasn’t intentional. Perhaps you can clarify. Are you not claiming that the fears are rational because in the future there may be dramatically more terrorism to the point that it becomes rational for an individual to fear it? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2016, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-fear-of-terrorism-is-mostly-irrational-xenophobia/743499/38 "2016-01-18T19:19:16Z")
> [@](#): > > …care your average American, German, Brit and Australian. Nothing scares Australians, they live in a place where butterflies are venomous. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2016, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-fear-of-terrorism-is-mostly-irrational-xenophobia/743499/39 "2016-01-18T19:20:59Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Seems like a hypothesis we could test. According to your theory, fear of mass shootings should have decreased over the last two decades, right? It would certainly be interesting to see. I would have predicted it to go down over time, yes. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2016, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-fear-of-terrorism-is-mostly-irrational-xenophobia/743499/40 "2016-01-18T19:25:16Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > It would certainly be interesting to see. I would have predicted it to go down over time, yes. I’m not finding any trendlines in quick googling. I’ll keep looking. Based on your theory, what do you make of the stark partisan divides on fear of terrorism that persist regardless of who is in power? I don’t believe the same divides exist as to, say, shark attacks. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-fear-of-terrorism-is-mostly-irrational-xenophobia/743499.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/americas-fear-of-terrorism-is-mostly-irrational-xenophobia/743499.md?page=3)