Red Squirrel Reflections Dave Hoover explores the psychology of software development

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The Commercialization of Fear
Sunday, August 31, 2003

My wife and I just watched Bowling for Columbine, a movie I think every American should be exposed to. It is a documentary by Michael Moore. He asks a question, "Why does the United States have over 10,000 murders per year while Canada has only a small fraction?" None of the familiar arguments stand up to the data...Canada has more guns per capita, twice the unemployment rate, they see the same movies, play the same video games, and listen to the same music. The difference seems to be in our network news coverage: the Commercialization of Fear.

It seems that many Canadians do not lock their doors, even ones who have had home intruders in the past. Although I live in an incredibly safe suburb of Chicago, many of my friends and acquaintences raise their eyebrows when I tell them that I rarely lock my door. Now that I think about it, the only time I feel compelled to lock the door is when I've watched something scary on TV. Fear truly is the Mindkiller.

Replies: 1 Comment

Yeah, that was one of the things that I thought was interesting about the movie. For the first half or three quarters of the movie, he makes you think that he is making an anti-gun movie. Then he gets to Canada, and he changes directions and points out that it's not just the number of guns. I had to wonder if he changed his mind during the making of the film, or if he was intentionally leading us one way and then the other.

It's a very interesting question, why are Americans so violent, and to me, it didn't seem that he felt he had the answer at the end of the film. One part of his answer, which I thought was interesting, was that America has always had history of violence (i.e. Native Americans, slaves,) and our nation's violent and unjust childhood is part of why we're dysfunctional in adulthood.

Posted by Roman on 09/01/2003

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