WEBVTT - The Power of Fear 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:02.400 From how Stuff Works dot com. This is the Stuff 0:00:02.440 --> 0:00:10.560 of Life. I'm Julie Douglas, host of The Stuff of Life, 0:00:10.720 --> 0:00:13.400 a podcast that teases a part of the tales we tell, 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:17.160 because when we crack open a story and look inside, 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:21.160 we see the seeds of what make our world so maddening, 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:26.480 so strange, and so achingly beautiful, not to mention ridiculous. 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:29.840 The Stuff of Life is a podcast about how we're 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:33.839 all just getting by, learning and surviving through the stories 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:37.519 we share. In this episode, we take on the power 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:40.720 of fear, and we talked to a swap team member 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:44.080 and a former firefighter about how we react when the 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:47.919 survival chips are down. Then we eavesdrop on the how 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:52.480 stuff Works collective and the types of emergencies they imagine 0:00:52.520 --> 0:00:57.960 but rarely voice. Finally, a professor of sociology who's trying 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:00.840 to get to the bottom of what Americans are really 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:05.360 scared of. He schools us on what we're obsessing about 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:18.200 and why fear has this double power over us. It 0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:21.520 has the power to to you know, of course, frighten us, 0:01:21.560 --> 0:01:24.199 to make us coward, to change our behavior, but also 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:27.520 the power to make us ask all these questions about ourselves. 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:35.240 And question who we are. Most of us seldom actively 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:39.360 ponder the things that could go wrong instead are subconscious. 0:01:39.480 --> 0:01:42.000 Is the jar of our fears. I mean, think about it. 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:44.759 We wouldn't be able to function if every single worry 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:47.800 came to the forefront of our conscious minds. We'd be 0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:52.400 completely stunned. So we jar up the worst case scenarios. 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:54.800 We put them on a shelf and there they remain 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:58.520 until a nightmare unleashes them. Or we say, board a 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:01.400 plane and we take that jar the shelf to examine it. 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:06.000 And we've been doing this since we were children, absorbing 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:09.519 messages from fairy tales like beware of the wolf disguised 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:12.440 as a family member, or do not enter that charming 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:17.880 cottage that smells like gingerbread. These are survival kinds, the 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:22.160 very first fears to go up on the shelf. The 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:24.920 idea in this episode is to try to square up 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:28.520 the real and imagined fears that made it into adulthood, 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:31.800 how we think about them, and how we deal with them. 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:35.280 So first we turn to two experts who have their 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:43.960 boots on the ground preparing for the real deal picture 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:47.960 the Jason Movies or the Freddy Krueger and the girls 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:51.120 getting chased. She's got a hundred yards on the guy. 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:54.400 All she has to do is unlock her car with 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:56.640 the Keith and she can't do it. And you're in 0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:59.840 the movie theater screaming at her unlocked, unlocked the door, 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:04.560 locked the door. We think that's just movie. It's actually 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:08.320 what happens to people. That's Brock Ryan, a former firefighter who, 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:11.040 along with Paul Merritt, a member of the Atlanta Police 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:15.639 Department swat team, formed a company called Life Safety Solutions. 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:19.640 They used their own blueprint for survival, all those high 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:23.359 wire moments they've encountered to teach others how to meet 0:03:23.400 --> 0:03:27.520 their own life or death moments. That moment came to 0:03:27.600 --> 0:03:32.440 me as a firefighter UM I was doing evacuation training 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:36.480 for the fire Department for high rise buildings. I was 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:39.680 trying to introduce them into how serious the matter can be, 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:42.840 and at that point there was a lot of people 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:45.600 not taking that serious. The planes said the building in 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:51.000 New York City and everything changed. Everything changed in the 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:53.960 sense that the veil had fallen. We had to now 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:57.960 think harder and smarter about the places we assumed were safe. 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:01.000 And while we all know that Sir vibing. An emergency 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:03.280 can sometimes come down to dumb luck, like say you're 0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:06.720 close to an exit door. Sometimes the ability to persevere 0:04:06.840 --> 0:04:12.360 comes down to self possessed split second decisions, something Paul 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:16.800 Merritt knows firsthand. If someone is not prepared for it 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:19.120 and they don't know what their options are, when they're 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:22.320 hit with that surprise emergency threat and they get big, 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:25.120 that big dump of adrenaline in their system, they're gonna 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:27.440 have a hard way thinking their way through the issue. 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:30.359 They're not going to take action. They're gonna search in 0:04:30.400 --> 0:04:32.960 their and their brain for the proper response, and if 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:35.599 there's nothing there, that's when we see people take highly 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:38.359 logical actions. Paul said two things that I think we 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:42.440 can all relate to. That adrenaline rush that washes over us, 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:46.880 changing our body temperature, stiffening our muscles, dilating our pupils, 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:50.599 a feeling like the inside of our stomach is being 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:55.640 hollowed out flight or fight, as it's known. The other 0:04:55.720 --> 0:04:58.880 thing we do is what we hide in plane sight, 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:01.880 just like you see young kids do when they first 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:04.800 try out a game of hide and seek. There they 0:05:04.839 --> 0:05:08.280 are out in the open, hands pressed to their eyes. 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:12.599 It's a kind of magical thinking. If I can't see you, 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:18.080 you can't see me, and then the incantation please please 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:22.080 don't see me. If you look at the Columbine shooting, 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:25.280 they had students who were hiding under tables and plain 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:28.839 sight in the library that it was not a good 0:05:28.839 --> 0:05:31.600 place to be. But because they were hit with this 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:35.080 unexpected stressor they couldn't logically think their way through it. 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:37.120 And in hindsight, we'll look at it like, what were 0:05:37.160 --> 0:05:40.880 they thinking? How could they do something like this? That's 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:44.240 the issue. We can't are We can't logically solve a 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:47.400 problem when we're scared to death. One of the things 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:50.120 Brock and Paul talk about is a kind of mental 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:54.200 rolodex that your brain flips through during an emergency. They 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:57.800 point to the cliche of your life flashing before your eyes. 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:00.600 They say, it's not that your mind and is giving 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:03.799 you a last glimpse of your life. It's your brain 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:06.720 looking for an answer to the problem in front of you, 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:11.800 perhaps even looking inside of those jars of fears. Meanwhile, 0:06:11.839 --> 0:06:14.760 your body is undergoing a massive chemical change that can 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:18.719 result in cognitive distortion and the loss of fine motor skills. 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:22.880 A lot of things both cognlively and perceptual distortions that 0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:25.440 happened to people. Not everyone gets all of them, things 0:06:25.440 --> 0:06:29.240 like tunnel vision, things like auditory exclusion, time, slowing down, 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:33.039 time speeding up, trouble with death perception, all these things. 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:37.920 Save someone's in the building and they might get tunnel 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:40.159 vision on the exit. Why they're totally focused on the 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:44.279 exit and their perfect vision is gonna basically go down 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:46.880 to nothing. We see that all the time with people 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:49.400 who were from from a law enforcement aspect. When you 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:53.160 talk someone's been rocked and they you say, what's the 0:06:53.200 --> 0:06:55.000 description the guy. I can't tell you what he looked like. 0:06:55.040 --> 0:06:57.360 I can't tell this, I can't that. But his gun 0:06:57.440 --> 0:07:00.680 was huge. It was a massive gun. The gun was gigantic. 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:05.240 Why because all their focus is on is on that threat. 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:07.200 It's that gun. All of a a sudden, it might be 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:09.240 a little revolver, but the gun looked like a howitzer 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:12.280 because they were totally focused on it. Now, remember what 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:15.800 Brock said about Freddy Krueger. He's chasing the girl, getting 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:18.640 closer and closer, and she's fussing with the keys. She 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:21.840 can't unlock the car door. That turns out to be 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:25.440 a pretty good example of the loss of fine motor skills. 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:31.080 We think that's just movie, it's actually what happens to people. 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:35.480 She cannot unlock the door. She's too scared. She can't 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:37.840 control the key. It will not go on the whole. Okay, 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:40.840 so your heart's racing. You have only your gross motor 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:45.400 skills at your immediate command. What do you do well? 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:52.040 You breathe from the beginning. There's one thing that everybody 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:54.080 can do, and we just call it tactical breathing. You 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:56.880 call it psycle breathing. It's a four count breathing exercise 0:07:56.920 --> 0:07:59.840 where I would breathe four and through my nose, hold 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:02.200 of four for sole the release of the mouth, hold 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:05.800 it for four. And when you do these breeding exercises, 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:09.960 it will help bring that hormone increased heart rate down 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:12.800 a little bit, which will improve improve your cogn ability. 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:15.920 It will reduce those perception storations, help you perform a 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:21.200 little bit higher level. They also train people to build 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:25.920 up a blueprint for themselves, learn their environments and their options. 0:08:25.960 --> 0:08:30.080 It's about specifics, not generalities. They may even have blocks 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:32.360 of wood that they hit together to mimic the sharp 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:35.960 report of a firearm. So that if you ever do 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:39.880 encounter the real thing, the real sound, you won't be 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:42.920 quite as thrown by it. It's funny. We were doing 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:45.560 a training exercise in one building, and we train it. 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:47.880 We tell everyone, Hey, wherever I am, we hit these 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:50.280 blocks of wood together. I'm the bad guy. So when 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:51.840 they knew what their options john, we tell everyone there 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:53.679 is no right and wrong option. You do what's best 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:56.160 for you in relation to the threat, but bear in 0:08:56.200 --> 0:08:58.880 mind I am the bad guy. So and this is 0:08:58.880 --> 0:09:00.880 why it kind of tell the stories why it's so 0:09:00.880 --> 0:09:03.800 important to have more than one option, more than one. 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:06.240 If I get this, if a happens, I'm always going 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:08.800 to do be Because I'm standing in the hallway and him. 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:10.760 These two pieces would together, and this guy comes out 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:14.600 of it and he's decide he's gonna practice evacuation and 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:17.959 he's leaving his cubicle and he starts coming right at me. 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:20.200 I was between where his desk was and where the 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:22.920 exit was, and I said, what are you doing? I'm 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:26.280 the bad guy. He goes, but that's my exit. And 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:28.960 that was a good teaching point because you saw his 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:31.839 shoulders kind of dropped and he realized, you know, no 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:33.520 it's an odd idea. So then we kind of thought 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:35.760 through what what will be a better option, because most 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:37.960 floor plans double back on themselves. He's like, why could 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:39.680 have gone this way or that? But I was, I 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:41.440 was only he'd made up his mind what he's gonna do. 0:09:41.440 --> 0:09:44.000 But this type of training looks simple, but it's not easy. 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:48.040 There's a lot there's many many ways to do it wrong. Um. 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:50.960 For example, one, uh, there's a lawsuit going on right 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:53.840 now from a place out west. They decided at a 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:58.679 retirement community to a surprise active shooter drill. Not surprisingly, 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:03.120 people were traumatized, people were scared um and lawsuits arose 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:05.040 from it. We saw this also happened last year at 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:08.199 a school in Florida to where let's do a with 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:12.560 realistic weapons shooting planks, do a surprise active shooter drill. 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:15.880 We never ever, ever do surprise at active shooter drills. 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:18.040 It doesn't matter that people know what's going on. What 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:21.000 is important is they get the stimulus, they get to 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:24.120 practice their response and they succeed at it. If there's 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:26.839 anyone thread connecting Brock and Paul from their past to 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:29.240 their presence that they credit for keeping them out of 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:33.160 a jam. It's that four count breath or tactical breathing, 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:37.480 something Brock isolates in his memory of the Olympic Park 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:44.000 bombing in Atlanta. I was the first engine in for 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:47.920 the Centennial Olympic Park bombing. We were two blocks away 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:52.440 on a medical calm when the radio rang out, we 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:55.600 have a bomb in the park with several bodies down. 0:10:56.400 --> 0:10:59.480 I turned the fire engine around, drove to the bottom 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:02.240 of the hill, turned into introve up into the park. 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:06.920 Um As we were pulling in, things were still settling 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:09.800 from the explosion. We were there in about forty seconds 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:19.200 after the explosion. From that, I remember specifically looking through 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:23.040 the chaos. I remember the lieutenant I was driving. I 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:25.640 remember the lieutenant looking at me. We got out, we 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:28.240 came around to the front of our truck and just 0:11:28.800 --> 0:11:32.719 visually assessed what was out there. We looked at each 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:35.600 other and I told him, I said, Lieutenant, we've done 0:11:35.600 --> 0:11:38.400 this before. It's just been one at a time. There's 0:11:38.440 --> 0:11:40.520 a bunch of them. Let's go through one at a time. 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:44.360 And we actually did our tactical breathing. A lot of 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:47.200 things that happened with my career, but on a regular basis, 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:49.400 we ever get a swap call out, you know, you know, 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:51.400 on virtually all of them, the person you should be 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:53.520 talking to negotiators saying, yeah, they come in, I'm gonna 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:56.320 shoot Hi, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna kill everybody. Um, 0:11:56.360 --> 0:11:57.959 you know, I'm married, I've got a family, I want 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:00.599 to go home. It's stressful at times, so but that 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:05.280 that's the common call. So as we're going to the call, um, 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:07.079 you know, people will be joking around, still trying to 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:09.360 keep things light. But as as we get close to 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:11.760 the call, as we as we get there and as 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:13.960 we start moving to the house, all the joking will 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:17.160 always stop. People stop, and and what starts At that 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:19.280 point everyone kind of gets in their own head. But 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:21.480 what do you hear? You hear that four count breathing 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:24.240 pretty much from everyone from all twenty guys we have. 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:40.160 Let's take another jar off the shelf of fears. Any 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:43.040 good Boogeyman story is just a stand in for the 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:47.280 terrible knowledge that life is fleeting. We will all die. 0:12:47.880 --> 0:12:51.040 But the fictional version of the Boogeyman allows us to 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:55.480 die over and over again and resurrect ourselves each time. 0:12:56.280 --> 0:12:59.520 After all, he's stuffed inside the pages of a story 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:03.240 far far away from us. But as we get older, 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:07.560 we begin to understand that he's escaped. He could be anywhere. 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:14.000 Once I was walking down a deserted street late at 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:17.400 night when a man appeared. How do you catch a 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:21.400 unique rabbit, he asked, assessing me as he took a 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:29.360 drag off of his cigarette. Unique up on it. Whenever 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:32.720 I step out into the dark alone, that punchline comes 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:36.200 swinging back, and I think of the split second between 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:47.160 prey and predator, the boogeyman and the dark. We'll look 0:13:47.160 --> 0:13:51.000 into this primal fear the dark, but first we talked 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:54.200 to some unique rabbits from How Stuff Works to get 0:13:54.280 --> 0:13:58.480 their thoughts on fear and survival. The rabbits in question 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:04.040 senior editor Alison louder Milk, writer and podcast host Joe McCormick, 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:08.280 An editor and podcast host Holly Fry. We need the 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:11.840 potato gun active and armed at all times. I wanted 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:14.679 to know what was lurking in the jars of the 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:17.640 fears of my coworkers. We need to pick who is 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:20.240 strongest in the office that could use you like a javelin, 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:23.080 So I asked them to share the scary stuff that 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:26.920 they had pushed way way back on the shelf. I 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:30.280 think exactly the reason it's uncomfortable is the reason it's interesting, 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:34.440 Like there's something like strangely uncomfortable about talking about this. 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:37.600 Let's hear from Joe, who has given this topic a 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:40.160 lot of thought, and by the way, he wants you 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:42.320 to know that you should do your very own research 0:14:42.360 --> 0:14:46.400 on how to survive his worst case scenario. The following 0:14:46.560 --> 0:14:48.880 is just what he has built up over the years. 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:52.280 I think what anybody would agree is the most terrifying 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:55.720 scenario going off a bridge or you know, over a 0:14:55.840 --> 0:14:58.400 river bank in your car and then sinking slowly in 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:02.520 and then drowning in your car on a bad traffic day. 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:04.640 You know, like you were already upset, but if it 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:06.760 happened on a good traffic day, you'd just be calm 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:09.160 as a Hindu cow and just sink to your death happily. 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:12.880 What you have to do if you're in a sinking 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:16.320 car is immediately roll the windows down. The problem is 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:19.640 going to be as the car sinks, the pressure pushing 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:22.400 down on the on the doors from the outside of 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:24.280 the car. The water pressure is going to prevent you 0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:27.280 from popping the doors open because the car is going 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:30.600 to sink faster than the interior of the cabin fills up, 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:33.080 so the pressure on the outside is greater than the 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:34.800 pressure on the inside. So you're gonna be trying to 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:37.320 open the doors and they're just too heavy. You can't 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:40.080 get them open. But if you can roll the windows down, 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:42.240 then you can just pop out through those. Joe is 0:15:42.280 --> 0:15:45.120 not alone in this fear. Turns out that Holly has 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:47.280 kept the same sort of fear on her own shelf. 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:51.280 You have accidentally stumbled on one of the reasons why 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:54.200 I am a pain in the took us when it 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:56.240 comes to buying a car, because I'm the one person 0:15:56.280 --> 0:15:59.480 on the lot that doesn't want power windows or power locks, right, 0:15:59.480 --> 0:16:01.880 you gotta have will have manual windows for the one. 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:05.280 That's one of the reasons for me. My anxiety comes 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:09.560 from dwelling on a home invasion, and that's Allison's fear too. 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:12.280 But if you look inside the jar on her shelf, 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:18.680 her home invasion is perpetrated by the undead. If society 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:22.560 went haywire for whatever reason, Um, you know, yeah, sure, 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:25.640 I've imagined just living in the basement, like which room, 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:27.520 which part of the basement would be? Like the bedroom, 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:29.520 which part would be like the steady and like where 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:32.080 we do like homeschooling and you know, have our meals 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:38.280 totally planted out. I like her kids are still going 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:40.560 to be educated. Yeah, I mean I think about it 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:43.680 all the time. You know, my partner travels a lot 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:46.200 and I'm home with the kids, and I think about 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:48.840 I mean, our house is kind of unusual. Um, we 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:51.960 have a ton of glass, which is really not good 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:54.760 for a zombie attack because we will totally be you 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:58.280 know seen. That's an interesting point that you bring up zombies, 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:01.400 because I think I've noticed throughout the years that a 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:05.240 lot of people use kind of fake, funny zombie scenarios 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:10.159 to work out their actual anxieties about emergencies and societies 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:13.560 and breakdown of law and order in society. People are 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:19.160 it's just the general placeholder, the fictional, fantastical placeholder for 0:17:19.359 --> 0:17:28.920 what happens if everything goes wrong. Oh yeah, absolutely totally. Um. 0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:33.680 What's interesting to me about this conversation is that it's 0:17:33.760 --> 0:17:37.439 all theory. Polly's actually had to deal with a moment 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:41.680 where things began to feel very real and very scary 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:45.760 very fast. Have you ever been in an interesting or 0:17:45.800 --> 0:17:48.960 memorable emergency scenario and what did you do? Did you 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:51.920 did you panic or did you did you have your 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:56.360 wits about you? What happened? I had a very strange 0:17:56.400 --> 0:18:00.520 one that seemed very scary and turned out to be 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:03.320 someone being a jerk, Which is that many many moons ago, 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:05.440 I used to manage a hair salon that was inside 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:08.639 of a um A department store, and we would have 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:10.720 outpost days where you would actually go and set up 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:13.360 like a table out in the store and sell product there. 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:15.679 And it was many moons ago, so it was not 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:18.399 the day of like being able to process square payments 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:20.280 on a smartphone like. It was all cash in hand, 0:18:20.320 --> 0:18:22.760 and if people wanted to charge, we would have to 0:18:22.800 --> 0:18:24.680 send them directly to the salon. And at one point 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:26.800 I was standing there doing this blah blah blah talking 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:32.000 to people about product and I feel something in my 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:37.800 back and a guy say, don't scream, just walk with me, 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:41.600 and I said all right, and I did, and we 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:43.640 got about twenty feet and then he started laughing and said, 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:46.359 I'm just messing with you. And after I wanted to 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:48.359 take my shoe off and shove it down his throat, 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:51.080 I gave him a very stern and unkind lecture with 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:53.440 a lot of swear where it's about being a poor citizen. 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:58.879 But I was shaking in my boots and darn near 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:01.600 urinating myself because I really didn't know what was going 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:03.919 to happen, and you can't see what's behind you, and 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:07.000 it was a person much larger than me, so it 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:09.359 was just But then I was like, you're so sick? 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:18.040 Who does that for fun? That is massed? There is 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:23.560 a strange feeling of being afraid that you would be 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:27.440 a coward? Do you ever have that, Like, like I 0:19:27.680 --> 0:19:29.520 would hope that I would be that I would be 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:33.000 courageous and selfless in a in a dangerous situation, But 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:35.920 it's hard to know what you would do, you know, 0:19:36.240 --> 0:19:38.840 So I think courageous is different than smart, though, right, 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:43.399 it can be. I mean it can be. Yeah. I 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:45.119 mean the whole thing, like you were talking about, is 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:48.240 that like you don't like you sort of go on autopilot, 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:51.679 And I guess what I fear is that what if 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:55.040 my going on autopilot reveals some side of me that 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:57.359 I wouldn't be proud of. I would hope that's not 0:19:57.400 --> 0:19:59.480 what would happen, But I guess you can't really know 0:19:59.520 --> 0:20:03.840 what happened when you go on autopilot. Yeah, I think 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:05.679 that's true. I mean I think we all want to 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:08.880 think of our best selves coming out, you know, being courageous, 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:12.240 and then I picture myself just running for that side 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:15.080 door and be like audios, we touches, come on with 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:18.400 me if you can't. But otherwise about I don't know. 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:21.920 I think about who I would reach for first, you know, say, 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:24.520 like my air like an airplane was going down, you know, 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:27.439 my kids were not sitting next to me, Like okay, 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:30.040 you know, go for my kids first, and then see 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:31.879 who else is in trouble or get them off the 0:20:31.920 --> 0:20:33.879 plane and then come back in Like how would it? 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:36.760 How would that work out? But yeah, I would like 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:38.359 to think that I would do those kinds of things. 0:20:38.359 --> 0:20:41.520 But who knows. I mean, really, who knows. It's a 0:20:41.560 --> 0:20:44.200 strange kind of thing about how fear has this double 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:47.199 power over us. It has the power to you know, 0:20:47.240 --> 0:20:50.160 of course frighten us, to make us coward, to change 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:53.000 our behavior, but also the power to make us ask 0:20:53.000 --> 0:20:55.920 all these questions about ourselves and like question who we are, 0:20:56.680 --> 0:20:58.720 and not only who we are, but how much of 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:01.280 who we are is determined by the glow contained within 0:21:01.359 --> 0:21:04.560 those jars of fears? What happens when we take them 0:21:04.560 --> 0:21:08.239 off the shelf and we unscrew the lids? Is it 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:11.040 like Pandora's Box? Do they bombard us? Or do they 0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:13.960 float off into the ether, never to be worried over again? 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:20.680 And can we really ever know how much fear defines us? Now? 0:21:21.119 --> 0:21:26.159 Granscribe to Night's presentation of Radio's outstanding Theater of Thrill. 0:21:31.200 --> 0:21:33.879 Not much has changed between now and that bit of 0:21:33.920 --> 0:21:39.280 audio from yesteryear. The subject the frightened City remains front 0:21:39.359 --> 0:21:43.320 and center in the American psyche, and Dr Edward Day 0:21:43.400 --> 0:21:47.080 of Chapman University can tell us why. But first let's 0:21:47.080 --> 0:21:51.679 find out what's inside the jar on his shelf. I 0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:56.080 am absolutely petrified of height. Put me on one of 0:21:56.080 --> 0:21:59.280 those swinging foot bridges and I get vertigo immediately, and 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:02.920 there's no there's no rationale behind that. I'm at Day. 0:22:03.040 --> 0:22:06.200 I'm chair of the Department of Sociology at Chapman University 0:22:06.240 --> 0:22:08.760 and director of the Earl Babby Research Center, which is 0:22:08.840 --> 0:22:12.320 the home for the Chapman Survey of American Fears. Chapman 0:22:12.440 --> 0:22:16.680 University recently released the second wave of survey comparing results 0:22:16.720 --> 0:22:20.320 from Wave one and two thousand and fourteen, Let's find 0:22:20.359 --> 0:22:27.400 out what ranked as the number one fear on americans minds. Yeah, 0:22:27.440 --> 0:22:29.399 the number one fear we had in this survey was 0:22:29.440 --> 0:22:32.600 walking alone at night. It just gets at people's fear 0:22:32.720 --> 0:22:35.480 of this idea of the country's going to hell in 0:22:35.480 --> 0:22:38.120 a handbasket, and then then the crime is out of control, 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:39.840 and that you may not even be safe in your 0:22:39.840 --> 0:22:43.919 own neighborhood, becoming the victim of identity theft, safety on 0:22:43.960 --> 0:22:46.800 the internet, being the victim of a mass or random shooting, 0:22:47.160 --> 0:22:50.920 public speaking. These are all ranked on the top five 0:22:51.200 --> 0:22:53.760 fears of Americans, and it's easy to see why even 0:22:53.800 --> 0:22:57.360 the public speaking one can be terrifying. Right, So, were 0:22:57.400 --> 0:23:01.040 there any outliers that Dr Day didn't expect to see. 0:23:01.720 --> 0:23:03.600 I was a little surprised at nine percent said they 0:23:03.600 --> 0:23:08.639 were afraid of zombies. Um uh, one of you know, 0:23:08.840 --> 0:23:11.920 just the pop culture seems to affect people's fear, whether 0:23:11.960 --> 0:23:14.200