You may want to read a piece on fear and 9/11 that I wrote for ministerial class that was posted on the Center for Spiritual Living Santa Rosa Blog. It begins:
–Today marks the 9th Anniversary of the attack by Al-Quaida on the United States. In the intervening period, it seems that the politics and culture of fear in the United States has escalated. I am writing this statement today to declare that nine years of fear was enough; let’s spend the next decade living in hope.
From 2001 to 2010 our government responded to and accelerated fear through an erosion of our civil liberties: the right to free speech, the right to assemble, the right to travel, the right to counsel, the right to confront your accusers, and the right to privacy all have been abridged, trampled upon and narrowed by the U.S. government in the name of safety from “terror.” As a result it is harder to travel, harder to protest government actions, harder to communicate freely and above all harder to trust each other.
At the same time, a culture of parenting from a position of fear has taken hold. “Helicopter” parents hover over their children’s every move. Rather than being given the increasing freedom that growing older used to naturally bring, many of today’s children are prevented from walking or biking to school or friends’ houses. They are in constant contact with their parents and others through electronic devices. They often spend most of their non-school hours glued to television, computers and video games rather than engaging in imaginative play, or being outdoors. Those children who parents keep them active often pursue punishing schedules with an endless array of sports, lessons, and prescribed commitments. A “good” parent worries about car safety, food safety, air safety, safety, safety, safety.