Fantasies of Safety

If you decide to give up your worldly comforts and go to Afghanistan to provide health care for people who have none, is it your fault if you get shot? If you do not wear a seat belt and are ejected from a car during a crash, is it your fault if you are injured? If you fall down the stairs because you tripped over junk you left in the hallway, is it your fault your broke your arm? And most of all why do we care so much about fault? Many people think of a smoker as guilty of lung cancer while a non-smoker is a more innocent victim. Someone who exercises regularly and suffers a heart attack is more to be pitied than another who is overweight and inactive.

I suspect that if we can convince ourselves that accidents and illnesses can be blamed on someone, then we believe we can prevent bad things from happening to ourselves.

Somebody rationalized the death of aid workers in Afghanistan like this: since they went somewhere dangerous instead of abiding by the principle of "charity begins at home," their death is their own fault. Never mind that some of them had been in Afghanistan for years and years. But they were helping Muslims, when they could have been helping needy Americans. Blame assigned. Compassion withheld. The illusion of personal safety enhanced.

Last week, a huge gas explosion in San Bruno, California killed four people. Within hours of the disaster, news outlets across the country began asking the question "Could it happen here?" Suddenly we are informed of possible risks of gas explosion in our neighborhoods. Reports of gas leaks, most of them groundless, increase exponentially and absorb resources that might be better spent on more immediate local concerns.

A bridge collapse in Minneapolis in 2007 killed thirteen people, and by the next day we were reading stories about aging and dangerous bridges everywhere. Anxious drivers tried to choose their routes based on bridges. And although only a few bridges have been repaired as a result of the scrutiny following the tragedy in Minnesota, I suspect most people have forgotten to worry about bridges.

Of course it's important to investigate the causes of disasters and accidents and, if possible, prevent them from happening again. Of course those responsible should be held liable. Of course we should learn from mistakes and act accordingly. No one would argue with that.

What I want to argue about is fear and irrational thinking. Might it be hazardous to our well being to choose our safety preoccupations based on the rapid news cycles covering the most recent horrible events? Almost before we can feel concern for the losses suffered by others, we are wondering whether we ourselves are also at risk. And we are afraid. We are also distracted from any number of other hazards that almost certainly pose a much greater personal risk than the one we are panicking about right now.

We have a similar pattern with health dangers. An outbreak of a disease, especially if it is an unusual one, throws our attention immediately to that particular illness, and we are suddenly more anxious about that germ than about ailments that we have equal or greater probability of contracting. The length of our focus on a certain virus or poison or bacteria is controlled by how long media attention lasts. Whatever happened to anthrax? or SARS? When did you last open an envelope with trepidation, worried that white powder might fall out, or wear a breathing mask to the grocery store? (I take that back. You may have done so during the recent H1N1 season, and perhaps wisely so.) Are you more concerned with Asian Bird Flu or salmonella? killer bees or Lyme disease? flesh eating bacteria or brown spiders? tainted Tylenol capsules or mad cow? spinach from California or eggs from Iowa? I am not diminishing the importance of any of these problems, but in my view it makes no sense to let my fears be selected and inflamed by what the media thinks I should worry most about at any given time. Or really, to be frank about it, what the media thinks I will be most interested in worrying about. When the news value of any given problem wanes, a new fear will be fueled.

The issue is proportion. Reasonableness. And a healthy attitude toward safety. That is my view.

Here is the reality: we are not safe. And no amount of fussing will change that.