Last night I was on Discovery channel and happend to watch ‘Martian Mania’. More details here, here and here.
From the last
I couldn’t help but notice the similarity of what happened then and now.
In 1938, it was a radio show host that managed to create panic and morbid fear in the minds of the people of an invasion from Mars. In 2002, it was the administration that was successful in creating a somewhat similar paranoia of an attack from another country.
It was ludicrous to see the people fleeing their homes and and towns because they believed that they had been invaded by aliens! How come most did not even have the common sense to confirm a report as bizzare as this from an alternative source deciding to abandon their homes.
Why are the Americans so gullible as to believe anyone, be it a lying radio host or a president that says “Look they are coming to get you…”?
I do not wish to be pitted, but…seriously?
The War of the Worlds was broadcast in a very different time. People just weren’t as media savvy as they are nowadays. The radio was their window to the world. The president spoke to them on it and they got their news from it.
If they missed the beginning of the WofTW broadcast and only heard the first and second act then I can totally understand why some people lost it.
Funny story. My mother as a teenager during the 60/s came home and turned on the TV. She saw an official newsflash on the Irish national TV station. “THIS IS THE 5 MIN WARNING. NUCLEUR MISSILES ARE IN THE AIR AND WILL FALL SHORTLY. PLEASE FIND SHELTER etc.” She had missed the bit before saying that this is what the message will be like if it ever happened.
She grabbed all the younger brothers and sisters and ran dragging them down the road to the local pub as they had a cellar. The locals had a right laugh when she ran in with all the kids in a basic state of panic.
Yes, yes. You’ve got us there. The only times we Americans take time off from trying to subjugate the world is for the occassional mass-hysteria induced by an Alien Invasion. Why, we all just put down our Big Macs, jump in our SUVs, and drive as fast as we can to the nearest Bomb Shelter without even consulting the Internet, FOX News, or anything. :rolleyes:
There is a significant portion of naivete in any country, not just America. I can’t imagine that there is not some place in every country where that would have worked.
Why do we believe it? I’m not totally sure, myself. We do need to let go of our dependence on one form of media and learn to check, double-check, and then triple-check. We are prone to believing the Argument from Authority most of the time.
We’re working on it. I don’t know the culture of other countries except India, but I’m sure the Argument from Authority is hard-wired into the human mind. It may take a while.
As for the “War of the Worlds” panic, you should also remember when it happened. Germany was marching through Europe. Japan was marching through China. War was engulfing the world. The US was still neutral, but everyone could see war coming.
As for why people would be worried about terrorist attacks today in 2005, I suppose September 11th might have something to do with it.
I’m not sure if you could possibly have come up with an OP that has less substance. But let’s see:
a. The War of the Worlds broadcast was designed to sound exactly like a conventional news broadcast of the time. And it was a simpler time with less experience in mass media and less sophistication in terms of understanding of science. If people came in too late to hear the disclaimers, then one can certainly understand a degree of panic in at least a subset of the listeners. Let’s face it, the anecdotes don’t include the people who listened for a while and called shenanigans.
b. Your second example seems to miss the point that there were at least some people in the government who seriously believed the threat was real. It may have been based on laughably bad intelligence, but they believed. Even now, there are many people who do not believe that the government was deliberately acting in bad faith. There were many people here on the board who did not believe the intelligence, not because they were particularly privileged in terms of extra knowledge, but because their distrust of the government biased them towards disbelief. It could easily have gone the other way.
c. Why do you think it’s just the American people that are prone to this? You could argue that we’re * more * skeptical. Read “Extraordinary Popular Delusions And The Madness Of Crowds” for an example of many manias and odd beliefs throughout history. Even today, people in Africa believe that foreigners can shrink their penises. People all over the world were eager to buy into the “Jenin Massacre” even though no massacre appears to have taken place.
In general, when presented with information from authority figures, people are inclined to believe it.
It seems to me that the OP involves a tremendous S>T>R>E>T>C>H which compares apples and oranges to make a point that he/she just skirts around. :dubious:
As has been noted, your base assumption is unproven. You are attempting to label an entire nation of individuals as gullible. That’s a task only the gullible would try.
Ignoring the OP’s ridiculous question, there is some evidence we as Americans tend to blow things out of proportion. A large portion of Americans still live in rural or suburban areas far from major cities. They tend to lead dull, normal existances where they aren’t exposed to most of the horrors they see on the news. Often, they see something on the news and either overreact to it or have a disproportionate expectation of it occuring in their homes.
On January 17th 1926, the BBC broadcasted a program entitled “Broadcasting the Barricades”, purportedly a news broadcast covering a revolution in the streets of London–actually a fictional work.
Awww jeez! Are the Martians at it again? Sigh good thing I put all that Nelson Eddy/Jeannette MacDonald music on CD then. Ok, I’m off to usurp local airways to broadcast “When I’m Calling Yoooooooouuuuuuuuuooooooouuuuuuu.”
Them Martians ain’t takin’ over south GA if I can help it.
Americans are humans, humans act like sheep… sheep react not think
Well having determined that americans are “scare” prone like any other people… you should consider what you would do if CNN broadcast that Aliens were popping humans with lasers from outer orbit. How do you confirm such a thing like you suggest they should have done ? I know many of us would log into the SMDB… but even then are you going to wait while aliens might kill you ?!
In the 80’s there was a made-for-TV movie called “Special Report” which simulated news coverage of a crisis involving a terrorist nuclear bomb in Charlston, SC. To avoid a repeat of WOTW, they innundated the viewers with dislaimers that it wasn’t real, at both ends of every break and with a message crawl during the program every 10 minutes or so.
Well msmith537 where do you get that information? Perhaps you’d like to give us a cite. For your information I live in rural Mississippi. During the summer there is approximately 50 acres of cotton growing in my back yard. My reaction to those horrors you describe is that I’m glad I don’t have to worry about that happening to me. I also know that it isn’t going to happen to Memphis, Birmingham or a bunch of other cities. If it happens it will happen to New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and maybe even Boston. Also I don’t just sit around out here in the boondocks hiding. I’ll match my travel itinerary with yours any day. Close-minded is when you think you know why you are better than everyone else. For the record I don’t think all people in northeastern states are liberal, opinionated snobs. That exemption applies to you.
We have every right to be scared of Aliens. Being the greatest civilization in the entire universe naturally drawls the ire of spacemen everywhere. Aliens hate us because of our freedom.
