Culture of fear

While I have gained so much knowledge about the fear of missing out and how Denison students discuss and work to avoid this phenomenon, we still encounter this on a large basis, and I have worked to reframe my overall research question to ask how Denison students discuss and work to avoid the fear of missing out through extensive interaction? Furthermore, how do the differences in our definitions and interpretations of FOMO implicate our relationships with others? My experiential observations…

How can you find serenity in life? Searching for peace can be a difficult task when everything around you relates to violence. In Williams Faulkner’s short story “Barn Burning”, Sartoris Snopes is constantly overwhelmed by fear, agony, and despair because of his father’s practices of violence not only against his family but also the law when burning the barns. Peace is essential for human development; it gives a sense of tranquility and seclusion from oppression. Throughout the story Sarty deals…

Zombies, vampires, dooms day, apocalypse, nuclear bombs, and complete mass destruction all seem to be ideas that suffocate our popular culture today and that loom over our heads as a constant reminder that one day humanity might end. But what is America’s fascination with these violent and scary thoughts? Someone say that it is because it reflects our true inner fears for the future, others think it is because we dream of a time that includes no rules or structure. Whatever the case may be, it…

Dracula as an iconic horror novel The strongest feeling of humans is fear. It exists as one of the primal instincts and as one of the most sophisticated, unknown phenomena. During all human history, fear follows people in the superstitions, dread before the dark, occult rituals. All these elements become an inseparable part of human culture. The so-called gothic literature founded the horror genre’s principles which should be followed in order to create a good horror novel. One of the brightest…

Horror fiction has been a part of pop culture since the 18th century when it presented itself as Gothic horror, but the concept of mythical creatures and monsters is no modern day invention (Mullan para. 3). In fact, stories of horror and mythical creatures date back to the earliest of civilizations, like the Utukku of 2400 BCE Syria and its vampire like tendencies, believed to walk the earth dead but unburied, or the later borrowed Hebrew tale of Lilith, believed to hate the children of Adam…

and turn in their beds until a loving parent arrives to comfort them. Often though, the thing that eventually eases the child back into sleep is their own idea that morning and light are near. It is human nature to look toward the future to relieve fear and anxiety; but what if that future seems uncertain? What if the new day coming looks grim, foreboding, not hopeful at all? The 1980s were a time of excess and materialism. Fashion became more vibrant and eccentric. Movie plots were absurd. The…

philosopher Stephen Cave covers why humans fear death and when we first realized that we were going to die. He supports his ideas by describing it as a curse that we developed by being so clever. Cave describes the knowledge of mortality as being the biggest bias ever and he proves this by giving examples of experiments that were done involving this idea. He then goes on to describe the four different categories in which the stories are found in many different cultures. They are the elixir of…

Golding and Beah suggest that fear and the struggle to survive may result in the degeneration of civilization and logical thought, the loss of one’s humanity, and the corruption of leaders. Both Golding and Beah illustrate how society can collapse due to terror and chaos. For example, in Lord of the Flies, the boys heatedly debate the existence of a monster, and “to Ralph...this seemed the breaking of sanity” (Golding 88). Golding clarifies how the boys’ fear of the beast makes them wary…

A self-defeating behavior I experience on a daily basis is the fear of rejection. This mostly takes place in social settings, such as university, events, or places with peers close to my age. My fear of others’ negative opinions of me occurs daily and greatly limits me. This behavior has existed for as long as I remember. I suffer from social anxiety and have low self-esteem and thus have a hard time being around others without feeling judged or evaluated. I am extremely critical of myself and…

In its evolved state, fear is a reaction to potential threat, or, if thought of in a social interaction of sorts, a concession to an aggressor. Explanation of the Evolutionary Perspective on Emotionality With respect to the limitations of any perspective in the…