Fear is a very powerful driving force and according to Zizek, our current culture is dominated a bit too heavily by fear. Unfortunately, the majority of today's media is spent on covering fear both near and "far" from the United States. By simply turning on a TV, one can flip through to a channel that has some sort of update on a nearby threat, be it war, crime or disease.
At the same time, our culture has taught us to be a prideful population almost to the point of being hubris. "The real horror happens there [not the US], not here [the US]" (232). This idea of other-ing makes us feel invulnerable and therefor have careless actions believing that we are in no immediate danger.
As stated in class, even within our fictitious television or films, America is completely fascinated with the idea of an attack or a catastrophe happening. The fascination does not become terror because of the mentality that it cannot happen. However, as Zizek commented shortly after the terrorist attack on September 11th, "America got what it fantasized about, and that was the biggest surprise" (233). Current media has numbed the general public to the idea of an attack and has even led some to believe that they would be able to step up and rise as heroes in the event of an attack, but instead it seems that even the most popular media could not prepare the majority for an actual catastrophe. Imagining something and thinking about a reaction is one thing but actually having to react to a current event can be completely different.
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