5 ms·

It was a lot easier to tolerate risk when people had a common Big Picture. This could be provided by religion, ideology etc. Such attitudes still hold in some

by zeteo 13y ago

It was a lot easier to tolerate risk when people had a common Big Picture. This could be provided by religion, ideology etc. Such attitudes still hold in some places, e.g. Amish communities seem more resilient after school shootings [1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish_school_shooting#Amish_community_response http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish_school_shooting#Amish_com...

microb 13y ago
Indeed. Repeated use of scapegoats like "communists" and "terrorists" may make up for our move away from religion as a source of shared ideology [1] [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scapegoating#The_.22scapegoat_mechanism.22_in_philosophical_anthropology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scapegoating#The_.22scapegoat_m...
Florin_Andrei 13y ago
And when the Big Picture is fractured, trust disappears. I see the anti-vax craze as primarily an issue of trust and control. "I don't trust Those People (the doctors)" or along the lines of "I need to control everything, including my vaccine schedule".
- smacktoward 13y ago
  Or perhaps, "I can't control nearly anything anymore, so I'm going to get super focused on those few things I still can control, like my child's vaccine schedule." People have spent decades now having their lives turned upside down by forces they're told they can't control: market movements, giant corporations, unresponsive political systems. Rather than pushing back and trying to assert some control over those things, which would require collective action, they focus inward instead on those things in their lives that they know they can control. It almost doesn't matter if their interventions there make things better or worse; it's more about giving the feeling of being In Charge. It's like the CEO of the failing company who spends all his time micromanaging the colors on the company Web site home page. He can't give an order that will turn the business around, but he can give an order to change those colors. Which makes him feel like he still has some control over the future, even though he really doesn't.
  - Florin_Andrei 13y ago
    I like your version better. After all, in modern society we delegate an awful lot of stuff. Shoe making to shoe makers, security to police and military, health care to doctors, teaching to teachers, etc. etc. etc. The stuff we delegate is so close to 100% of our lives, the actual difference is lost in the noise. On top of that, the little that most people do control is meaningless to their own lives. You do customer support at Big Widget Factory Inc. How is that relevant to you? Probably home schooling is also an offshoot of this phenomenon.
  - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
    Your explanation sounds a lot like what certain studies have been showing. http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2013/08/10/jennifer-silva-working-class-youth-are-privatizing-happiness/HH4CYToyNXlWvlWVCDUpOL/story.html?s_campaign=8315 http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2013/08/10/jennifer-silva-w...
- mtdewcmu 13y ago
  I think it's motivated a lot by fear of autism, which contributes the vindictiveness. It also seems to be an offshoot of the anti-science left, which embraces natural food, loathes agribusiness, and prefers alternative medicine to the hated big pharma. I think it's grounded in Romanticism [1]. There's definitely a mistrust of doctors, but I don't see it as being generically about control. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism

by zeteo 13y ago

microb 13y ago

Indeed. Repeated use of scapegoats like "communists" and "terrorists" may make up for our move away from religion as a source of shared ideology [1] [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scapegoating#The_.22scapegoat_mechanism.22_in_philosophical_anthropology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scapegoating#The_.22scapegoat_m...

Florin_Andrei 13y ago

And when the Big Picture is fractured, trust disappears. I see the anti-vax craze as primarily an issue of trust and control. "I don't trust Those People (the doctors)" or along the lines of "I need to control everything, including my vaccine schedule".

smacktoward 13y ago
Or perhaps, "I can't control nearly anything anymore, so I'm going to get super focused on those few things I still can control, like my child's vaccine schedule." People have spent decades now having their lives turned upside down by forces they're told they can't control: market movements, giant corporations, unresponsive political systems. Rather than pushing back and trying to assert some control over those things, which would require collective action, they focus inward instead on those things in their lives that they know they can control. It almost doesn't matter if their interventions there make things better or worse; it's more about giving the feeling of being In Charge. It's like the CEO of the failing company who spends all his time micromanaging the colors on the company Web site home page. He can't give an order that will turn the business around, but he can give an order to change those colors. Which makes him feel like he still has some control over the future, even though he really doesn't.
- Florin_Andrei 13y ago
  I like your version better. After all, in modern society we delegate an awful lot of stuff. Shoe making to shoe makers, security to police and military, health care to doctors, teaching to teachers, etc. etc. etc. The stuff we delegate is so close to 100% of our lives, the actual difference is lost in the noise. On top of that, the little that most people do control is meaningless to their own lives. You do customer support at Big Widget Factory Inc. How is that relevant to you? Probably home schooling is also an offshoot of this phenomenon.
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  Your explanation sounds a lot like what certain studies have been showing. http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2013/08/10/jennifer-silva-working-class-youth-are-privatizing-happiness/HH4CYToyNXlWvlWVCDUpOL/story.html?s_campaign=8315 http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2013/08/10/jennifer-silva-w...
mtdewcmu 13y ago
I think it's motivated a lot by fear of autism, which contributes the vindictiveness. It also seems to be an offshoot of the anti-science left, which embraces natural food, loathes agribusiness, and prefers alternative medicine to the hated big pharma. I think it's grounded in Romanticism [1]. There's definitely a mistrust of doctors, but I don't see it as being generically about control. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism