The Wall Street Journal has a great story about how America has gone stranger-danger-crazy, especially on Halloween:
Halloween is the day when America market-tests parental paranoia. If a new fear flies on Halloween, it’s probably going to catch on the rest of the year, too.
Take “stranger danger,” the classic Halloween horror. Even when I was a kid, back in the “Bewitched” and “Brady Bunch” costume era, parents were already worried about neighbors poisoning candy. Sure, the folks down the street might smile and wave the rest of the year, but apparently they were just biding their time before stuffing us silly with strychnine-laced Smarties.
That was a wacky idea, but we bought it. We still buy it, even though Joel Best, a sociologist at the University of Delaware, has researched the topic and spends every October telling the press that there has never been a single case of any child being killed by a stranger’s Halloween candy. (Oh, yes, he concedes, there was once a Texas boy poisoned by a Pixie Stix. But his dad did it for the insurance money. He was executed.)
If you’re looking for a good book about how Americans live in fear of all the wrong things, you should read Barry Glassner’s The Culture of Fear. It’s a level-headed look at how the news media inspires us to live in fear of statistically irrelevant things. The book was published in 2000; I wish Glassner would do a post-9/11 update on all the different ways fear has taken hold on every level of American society.
(Via The Awl.)
Hey, Paul
Glassner just became the new President at Lewis and Clark! You should totally look him up. I bet he’d be happy to grant an interview.
I have that book. Yeah, it’s crazy how prescient it was — I wonder what Glassner would have to say about the Tea Party or the current political culture in general.
Thanks for reminding me I need to read that book aaaaaaaaand LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU!!!
Kids, if the candy tastes funny, it’s probably just because that old lady left it in a basement cupboard for 25 years or so. (If it’s *really* old you might want to ask dad to sell what’s left on eBay, once you’re finished projectile vomiting the ones you ate.)
Yes they are Poisoning Halloween Candy. It those people from the corn sugar industry. Put the frackin cane sugar back into the candy !
Hey, Paul: Nice post. Glassner did update Culture of Fear post-9/11. It was re-published this year:http://www.powells.com/biblio/7-9780465003365-1
And, yes, we are thrilled to have this great cultural commentator serving as our new president at Lewis & Clark. — Jodi Heintz @ Lewis & Clark