Quote of the day from Frank Furedi on the recent swine flu and what it tells us about fear entrepreneurs:
The protagonists in today’s market of fear have forcefully sought to
demonise flu as a threat to the world, as something that might even be
turned into a weapon of mass destruction. The prestigious Massachusetts
Institute of Technology now advertises a course on ‘Pandemics and
Bioterrorism’. It claims that ‘swine flu is only the most recent of the
challenges posed by threats of bioterrorism and global pandemics’. The
casual manner in which the threat of bioterrorism is introduced into
the discussion of swine flu, by one of the most respected scientific
institutions in the world, provides disturbing evidence that
fearmongering has become a respectable pastime and pursuit.
Today, fear entrepreneurs come in all shapes and sizes. Some are
moral crusaders who genuinely believe that the very fabric of society
is threatened by evil forces. At the other end of the spectrum are the
salespeople and hustlers of the market of fear.
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