Digby: Terror Management

Here's an interesting post at Thought Theatre about something called Terror Management Theory, which is a fascinating study of how people react to the knowledge of their own mortality. It's particularly relevant to this ongoing sense among some Americans that terrorism is an existensial threat even if they live in Topeka (or especially because they live in Topeka.)

When looking at the fact that nearly two thirds of Americans polled seemingly accept a program of widespread domestic surveillance, the theory offers a plausible explanation. Essentially, anything that helps assuage the fear of death can potentially be seen as an acceptable situation whether it be rational, real, or imagined. To offer an analogy, one might look at those who refuse to fly in an airplane…despite statistics demonstrating that flying is safer than driving, the fear of what is perceived to be a more certain death can overcome the logical data. I suspect this same thinking is, to a degree, at play in these otherwise confounding numbers.