Really?

Updated on February 15, 2007 By Ken Begg 12 Comments

So I’m reading through Library Journal, looking over the book review section (I work in a public library), and there’s a capsule review of a novel about a woman who is suspected of being a terrorist after she sleeps with, unbenownst to her, an Al Quaeda terrorist.

So the review ends, “Recommended for mature audiences, especially for those unwilling to buy into the mass hysteria of the war of terror.”  Now, putting aside whether that bit of one-sided editorializing is appropriate in a book review meant to influence what public libraries buy and recommend, all I can say is, “mass hysteria?”  Really?  Where?

I don’t know.  Obviously there are people that have deeply held views on the war, on both sides of things.  But where in our culture do we see anything approaching ‘mass hysteria’?  Hell, you can barely find a movie or TV show that features Muslim terrorists, much less ones that in any way suggests keeping on eye on all Muslims or something on that order. 

For a country that had explicitly religious terrorists fly planes into renowned landmarks and killed 3,000 of our citizens, I’d say we’ve been pretty non-hysterical about the whole thing, war or not.  Certainly we’re not seeing nearly the amount of TV episodes about Muslim terrorist that we have about, say, nutty Christians who shoot up abortion clinics.  And it’s not like we’ve government propaganda posters up all over the place warning us to keep an eye on mosques or anything. 

Even if you disagree with the war, I don’t see how you can accuse the administration or the public or the news media or much of anybody of being ‘hysterical’ about it.  Stories about how alar-ridden apples are going to kill all of us maybe, but not on that issue. 

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  • Greenhornet

    Maybe in the future we will see the “mass hysteria” as the DENYAL of any danger!

  • RandomBlogger

    Well, there are those things like airplanes being turned around because a passenger takes a pee when told not to by the cabin crew, or not allowing a person to fly an airplane while wearing a shirt with Arabic on it because it might be seen as terrorism, or fining Turner $2 million for placing some lite-brites of cartoon characters around town, or police suspecting folks who put up posters of fake police sketches of somehow doing it as a terrorist act, or confiscating cameras from people who take photos near bridges, or forbidding large toothpaste containers from being brought onboard planes, or putting people on no-fly lists even after they’ve been found innocent in courts of law, or the like…but hysteria? No, of course not. As bad movies teach us, hysteria involves hyperventilation and high pitched screaming. I think by “mass hysteria” they meant “mass overreaction, hyperbole, and justification of random shit based on fear”. Just as bad, really, but much more placid.

  • ericb

    I’m no Bush fan and think his handling of the “War on Terror” has been a fiasco but people who talk about how repressive he is need to read some history. What’s happening now is nothing compared to the repressive hysteria that Woodrow Wilson inflicted on the nation during World War 1 or even Roosevelt during World War 2 (like where are all the internmant camps for American Muslims). Which doesn’t make what Bush is doing any less sleazy but, jeez, get a grip people, hyperbole never helps anyone’s cause.

  • You apparently don’t watch 24, which prominently features Muslim terrorists, and had a propaganda-tastic episode in the fourth season about how we should be allowed to torture Americans and anyone who says otherwise is a direct pawn of the terrorists (Which, by the by, made me greatly sympathize with you have to watch movies shill Liberal views). Admittedly, that show’s political views vary wildly, but I’d still hold it up as an example of “TV show that features Muslim terrorists”, and a popular one at that.

    I suppose if you compare the number of Americans killed in 2001 by terrorists to the number killed by, say, measles, our reaction does seem somewhat exaggerated. I wouldn’t say hysterical, though. Especially not *mass* hysterical. People have a natural tendency to get ornery about getting killed by people, rather than more mundane causes, so we do react more strongly to the 3,000 killed by crazy dudes in planes instead of the 30,000 killed by the flu. Not saying that’s wrong, just the way people are.

    There certainly *are* people who are completely overreating to the still-very-real-but-really-relax threat of terrorism, but most of them hang out on the fark.com boards.

  • Pip

    Randomblogger blathered:

    “but hysteria? No, of course not”

    Yep, you’re right. There hasn’t been mass hysteria. Just the unverified instances you mentioned, which reflect mistakes I would expect any society like ours to make.

    Hysteria like, oh say, pogroms that kill millions of people, churches burned by the dozen, inquisitions, resettlement camps, etc.

    Thanks for agreeing.

    Ta,

    Pip

  • FS

    Mooninites come to mind as a good example.

  • Actually, I haven’t seen 24 (DVD has made me a “I’ll get around to it later guy), but my impression from what I’ve been told is that they didn’t center on Muslim terrorists until something like the fourth season…which seems weirdly delayed for a show built around terrorist threats in the era after 9/11.

    Then, of course, we have truly moronic manifestations like filmmakers changing the terrorists in a Tom Clancy adaptation from the original Islamic terrorists to the obligatory neo-nazis.

    Again, I’m just really questioning the level of rhetoric here. “Mass hysteria”? Is the reviewer really that historical and culturally ignorant, or what?

  • The Rev. D.D.

    Have there really been that many TV shows with episodes featuring “nutty christians” attacking abortion clinics? I must not watch those shows…I imagine Law and Order probably had an episode like that at some point, but is it really a topic used that much, compared to Islamic terrorists?

  • RandomBlogger

    Well, we’ve got a conflagration of a couple of issues here. We have some people interpreting “mass hysteria” as meaning “mass overreaction”, while others interpret it as “mass adrenaline panic”. So people with different definitions of the expression “mass hysteria” are going to disagree about whether it is or isn’t mass hysteria, but they’re really disagreeing about terminology.

    Second, we have folks who are interpreting “mass hysteria” as including “unparalleled in history”, while others don’t include that in the definition. So, again, you’ve got disagreement, but it’s more about what “mass hysteria” means than the way the US is reacting to the attacks.

  • Ken HPoJ

    Even to the extent that’s true, I don’t think you can plausibly argue that anything we’ve seen in over five years now even remotely calls to mind what could reasonably be denoted by that phrase. Msss hysteria would suggest something so widely spread as to impact a decent-sized percentile of the country on a regular basis, and moreover, that it would be hysterical, i.e., unwarrented. I haven’t seen anything that falls even remotely into either ‘mass overreation’ or ‘mass panic.’

    If anything, I think you can make a better argument that we aren’t worried enough. We’ve done nothing to make our borders secure, for instance, and many seem paralized by the idea that attacking Islamic terrorists just can’t be differentiated from attacking Muslims in general, despite the fact that anti-Muslim sentiment in this country has been functionally non-existant, even following 9/11.

  • Chris Magyar

    I also take issue with the ‘mass hysteria’ label (and the appropriateness of that marketing tactic overall), but I’ll allow that there’s been quite a bit of mass overreaction on the part of the government. Study after study condemns airport security protocol under DHS regulations as completely unnecessary and ineffective, and last month’s crackdown in Boston on ATHF Lite Brites was nothing if not police overreaction.

    There’s cause for concern, but the struggle to make our society simultaneously secure and free is one that will only be won with level heads.

  • damanoid

    Yeah, I suppose if you don’t consider the war a sign of hysteria, then there isn’t much evidence to back up the reviewer’s claim. Other than America being spooked into invading a country for no good reason, killing untold tens of thousands of people and wasting hundreds of billions of dollars… other than the extrajudicial renditions, permanent imprisonment without charge, and torture that we have embraced as a nation– putting all that aside, can our country really be said to have acted irrationally?

    Cone to think of it, there really isn’t much sign of religious hysteria in medieval Europe either, if you don’t factor in any of the wars or people being burned at the stake.