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The dangers of safety
One week it's beef, the next it's road rage. Why is society obsessed
with discovering new risks to personal health and safety today?
Frank Füredi examines the roots of contemporary risk-consciousness,
and suggests that it is creating a victim culture in which humans are seen
as fragile creatures in need of protection from life
Safety has become the fundamental value of the nineties. Passions that were
once devoted to a struggle to change the world (or to keep it the same)
are now invested in trying to ensure that we are safe. The label 'safe'
gives new meaning to a wide range of human activities, endowing them with
unspoken qualities that are meant to merit our automatic approval. 'Safe
sex' is not just sex practised 'healthily'--it implies an entire attitude
towards life. And safer sex is only the most high profile of the safety
issues today.
Personal safety is a growth industry. In a trend which took off in the United
States but has swiftly crossed the Atlantic to Britain, hardly a week now
passes without some new risk to the individual being reported, and another
safety measure proposed. A wide network of charities and organisations has
grown up with a view to offering advice on every aspect of personal safety,
and the same concerns are echoed in the programme of every major political
party.
Every public and private place is now assessed from a safety perspective.
Hospital security has emerged as a central concern of health professionals.
Concern for protecting newborn babies from potential kidnappers indicates
that a preoccupation with safety can never begin too soon. In the USA, a
scare about violent baby-sitters has led to a massive expansion of the nursery
security business. In British schools, too, safety is a big issue. The comprehensive
range of cameras, swipe cards and other security measures that are now routine
make many schools look more like open prisons. Meanwhile car phones are
sold as safety devices to protect women who fear violent attacks on their
vehicles, and the electronics industry speculates that it is only a matter
of time before cctvs become a standard household item.
Trade unions rarely organise industrial action over jobs or pay any more.
The main focus of their energies is lobbying management to improve safety
at work and protect their members from abuse or harassment. On campus, students
are regularly briefed about safety issues, as student unions dish out rape
alarms and advice on safe drinking. Even drug-taking has become associated
with the safety issue. Many now justify their preference for Ecstasy on
the grounds that it makes them feel safer.
Through the media, we are all continually reminded of the risks we face
from environmental hazards. When the survival of the human species is said
to be at stake, then life itself becomes one big safety issue. And almost
from day to day, the catalogue of new risks confronting us expands further.
One day it is thrombosis-inducing contraceptive pills, the next day we are
threatened by flesh-consuming super bugs. In the meantime we cannot
trust the food we eat. Beef and peanuts are only the latest items to be
declared unsafe. Nor can we expect to be able to drink the water out of
our taps.
Recent panics about falling sperm counts, baby milk and beef, none of which
was supported by the known facts of the matter, led some observers to ask
a few questions about the contemporary obsession with the alleged risks
facing society. But even those who react sceptically to a particular panic
tend to underestimate the breadth of safety concerns. Public panics about
the health risks supposedly linked with beef or electricity cables are only
the tip of the iceberg. Indeed such panics often have little to do with
the specific issues involved. They are made possible by the way in
which safety consciousness has been institutionalised in every aspect of
life today.
Once a preoccupation with safety has been made routine and banal, no area
of human endeavour can be immune from its influence. Activities that
were hitherto seen as healthy and fun--such as enjoying the sun--are now
declared to be major health risks. Moreover, even activities that have been
pursued precisely because they are risky are now recast from the perspective
of safety consciousness. In this spirit, a publication on young people and
risk takes comfort from the fact that new safety measures were introduced
in mountain-climbing:
'Nobody is going to prevent young men and women from taking risks. Even
so, it is obvious that the scale of such risks can be influenced for
the better. During recent years rock-climbers have greatly reduced their
risks thanks to the introduction of better ropes, boots, helmets and other
equipment.' (M and M Plant, Risk-Takers: Alcohol, Drugs, Sex and Youth,
1992, pp142-43)
The fact that young people who choose to climb mountains might not want
to be denied the frisson of risk does not enter into the calculations
of the safety-conscious profes- sional, concerned to protect us from ourselves.
The evaluation of everything from the perspective of safety is a defining
characteristic of contemporary society. When safety is worshipped and risks
are seen as intrinsically bad, society is making a clear statement about
the values that ought to guide life. Once mountain-climbing is linked to
risk-aversion, it is surely only a matter of time before a campaign is launched
to ban it altogether. At the very least, those who suffer from climbing-related
accidents will be told that 'they have brought it upon themselves'. For
to ignore safety advice is to transgress the new moral consensus.
A consciousness of risk
Risk has become big business. Thousands of consultants provide advice on
'risk analysis', 'risk management' and 'risk communications'. The media
too has become increasingly interested in the subject, and terms like 'risk
society' and 'risk perception' now regularly feature in newspaper columns.
Indeed there are so many apparently expert voices trying to alert us to
new dangers that their advice often seems to conflict, and confusion
reigns over exactly what is safe and what is a risk. Is the occasional glass
of wine beneficial or detrimental to health? Should men take an aspirin
daily to avoid heart attack, or should it be avoided for fear of bleeding
ulcers and other side-effects? Women are told to diet and exercise to stay
healthy, but they are also warned that, later in life, this may increase
their risk of osteoporosis.
There may be different interpretations about the intensity and quality of
different threats to our safety. But there is a definite anxious consensus
that we must all be at risk in one way or another. Being at risk has become
a permanent condition that exists separately from any particular problem.
Risks hover over human beings. They seem to have an independent existence.
That is why we can talk in such sweeping terms about the risk of being in
school or at work or at home. By turning risk into an autonomous, omnipresent
force in this way, we transform every human experience into a safety situation.
A typical pamphlet by Diana Lamplugh, a leading British 'safety expert',
advises the reader to assess the risks in every situation. For instance,
it invites passengers on public transport to keep alert:
'The wise passenger never loses sight of the fact that public transport
is still a public place. There is open access to stations. No-one is vetted,
everyone is acceptable as a passenger. Moreover when we travel we are often
unable to move easily and avoid trouble.' (D Lamplugh, Without Fear,
1994, p51)
Here, the word 'public' is equated with risk; the presence of other, unknown
people is presumed to be a problem. When even such a routine experience
as commuting to work becomes associated with fears about safety, then being
at risk becomes the overriding determinant of the human condition.
Every good bookshop is now stacked high with volumes devoted to analyses
of risk and risk-perception. One of the assumptions which influences
this risk literature is the belief that we face more risks today than in
the past. The advance of science and technology is assumed to have damaged
the environment in such a way as to store up new and potentially catastrophic
risks. According to the cruder versions of this thesis, the problems we
face are so severe that it cannot be too long before humanity becomes extinct.
Books with jolly titles like The End of the World: The Science and Ethics
of Human Extinction have begun appearing in the bookshops--and on the
best-sellers lists.
Most serious contributors have to accept that in real terms people live
longer than before, and that they are more healthy and better off than in
previous times. But many argue that the social, economic and scientific
advances which made these improvements possible have only created new and
bigger problems. Influential writers and thinkers now argue that new
technological hazards have given risk a boundless character. They suggest
that it is no longer possible to calculate the dangers involved in scientific
developments. Because of the fast pace of events today and the global forces
that are now at work, it is argued, human actions have more far-reaching
and incalculable consequences than ever before. Consequently, it is not
just a question of not knowing. The outcome is not knowable.
From this perspective, where every new technological process is suspected
of causing unseen damage to the environment, the experts and academics insist
that a heightened consciousness of risk is a rational response to the dangers
of modern living. Even many sociological accounts of risk believe that an
awareness of the destructive consequences of technology and science provides
the basis for the wide-ranging concern with safety today. Disasters such
as the nuclear accident at Chernobyl or the oil tanker spillages of recent
years are said to have helped to alert the public to the dangers around
us. Many theorists of risk regard the heightened public concern with safety
as a sign of a responsible citizenry, newly and personally aware of the
problems of pollution and environmental damage. According to Ulrich Beck,
author of the widely discussed Risk Society, 'damage to and destruction
of nature no longer occur outside personal experience in the sphere of chemical,
physical or biological chains of effect; instead they strike more clearly
our eyes, ears and noses' (quoted in THES, 31 May 1996).
The emphasis on the dangers now posed by technology and science is surprisingly
narrow in its focus. In reality, public perceptions of and anxieties about
risk today cannot be understood as reactions to a particular incident or
technology. Nor does such anxiety have much to do with the real scale and
intensity of the danger. For example, far more people die from an inadequate
diet than from the widely publicised presence of toxic residues in food.
Clearly the risks that kill you are not necessarily the ones that provoke
and frighten you. Disasters and catastrophes have happened throughout history.
But the reaction to these events has varied according to the mood that prevailed
in society at the time.
The different public reaction to the destruction of the first Apollo
spacecraft in January 1967, and of the space shuttle Challenger, 19 years
later, is instructive in this respect. When Apollo caught fire and
three astronauts were killed, America was shocked and horrified. However,
despite widespread anguish and concern about the incident, the future of
the prestigious moon project was not put to serious question. In contrast,
the response to the destruction of Challenger turned into a full-scale panic
that led to a loss of nerve. For many this tragedy was proof that technology
was out of control. The US space agency Nasa was itself so badly traumatised
that it took almost three years to launch another space shuttle.
Two comparable tragedies, two very different reactions. Why? Because public
perception and response to any event are subject to influences that
are specific to the time and place. Such responses are likely to be
shaped not so much by the disaster itself, as by a deeper consciousness
which prevails in society as a whole at that moment.
A perspective which situates events more in their historical and social
context would suggest that today's increased concern with safety and risk
has little to do with the advance of technology and science. After all,
it is not just the outcome of technological and scientific developments
which provoke anxiety and fear.
An intense sentiment of risk-aversion now prevails in virtually every domain
of human activity. Unfortunate incidents which in the past would have been
shrugged off as bad luck are now interpreted as indications of a major danger.
The murder of a young British woman in Thailand in January 1996 led to the
explosion of advice about 'safe travel'. Here a rare personal tragedy was
recast as a risk facing all British tourists. 'Don't let "chance in
a million" happen to you' was the title of one advice column in the
Daily Telegraph (20 January 1996). The obvious question--why worry
about a chance in a million?-- was, of course, not raised. Instead backpacking
was reinterpreted as a general safety issue.
As the issue of 'safe travel' suggests, the contemporary concern with security
has little to do with any new or technologically manufactured risks. The
demand for safety and a growing sensitivity to risk are just as obvious
in relation to personal and individual experiences as to environmental and
more general matters. In practice, society acknowledges this. When, for
example, attention is drawn to 'children at risk' or 'women at risk', the
danger in question is neither technology nor science. It seems that the
consciousness of risk is likely to have more to do with something in everyday
life than with a fear that technology might blow civilisation away.
The worship of safety
So how to account for the worship of safety? It is generally acknowledged
that we are living through insecure times and that as a result people are
more anxious and predis-posed towards fearing risks. In an interesting contribution,
Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky have argued that modern societies are confronted
with an increased awareness of risks because more decisions are now taken
in an atmosphere of uncertainty. This approach has the merit of interpreting
the sense of risk as a social construct, related to the prevailing subjective
consciousness of society, rather than a reflection of increased real
dangers. But what is the connection between insecurity and risk-consciousness?
Insecurity is useful as a descriptive but not as an analytical category.
Insecurity as such does not necessarily lead to risk-aversion or a fear
of science and technology. In some cases, societies that feel insecure may
well look to science and technology to provide security. Today, by contrast,
insecurity is bound up with a strong, conservative sense of caution.
The importance of the so-called Precautionary Principle suggests that we
are not merely concerned about risks, but are also suspicious of finding
solutions to our predicament. According to the Precautionary Principle,
it is best not to take a new risk unless its outcome can be understood in
advance. Under this principle, which is now widely accepted as sound practice
in the sphere of environmental management, the onus of proof rests with
those who propose change. Since the full consequences of change are never
known in advance, the full implementation of this principle would prevent
any form of scientific or social experimentation. By institutionalising
caution, the Precautionary Principle imposes a doctrine of limits. It offers
security, but in exchange for lowering expectations, limiting growth and
preventing experimentation and change.
Although the Precautionary Principle is usually discussed in relation to
environ-mental management, it now provides a guide to life in many other
spheres--health, sexuality, personal safety or reproductive technology.
What seems particularly striking about the contemporary period is not its
insecurity, but the profoundly conservative manner in which this condition
is experienced. Yet most commentators on risk do not make a connection between
the preoccupation with safety and the impulse of conservatism. Indeed many
of the supporters of the Precautionary Principle, or advocates of the different
safety campaigns, would see themselves as critics of the system rather than
as conservatives. Consequently safety and the attitude of caution are now
treated as inherently positive values across the entire political spectrum.
The cautious individual
The main reason why today's insecurity has created an intense consciousness
of risk has to do with the changing relationship between society and the
individual. Many observers have commented on the relentless process of individuation
that has occurred in recent decades in Western societies. Changing economic
conditions have created an insecure labour market, while the transformation
of service provision has increasingly shifted responsibility from the state
to the individual. The individuation of work and the provision of services
have made survival much more of a private matter. As a recent report by
Mintel showed, adults in Britain now tend to look at the future with fear
(see Independent, 16 May 1996). For most adults (61 per cent), health
was the greatest worry. This emphasis on health is important. It is through
the issue of health that a peculiarly individuated concern with survival
acquires shape.
Changes in the labour market alone can- not account for the process of individuation.
Economic change has been paralleled by the transformation of institutions
and relation- ships throughout society. The decline of participation in
political parties and trade unions points to the erosion of traditional
forms of solidarity among people. This has been most clear with the demise
of traditional working class organisations. Many mainstream commentators
have interpreted this trend through what they call the decline of community.
Even as fundamental an institution as the family has not been immune to
this process. The changes in family ties and relations have had a deep impact
on people's lives. Today, one out of three children is born outside of wedlock.
Among those who marry, the rate of divorce is very high. In these circumstances,
the security of family life is an ideal that is rarely realised.
The mutually reinforcing combination of economic dislocation and the weakening
of social institutions has accentuated the tendency for society to fragment.
This problem of social cohesion has implications for the daily routine of
individuals. Many of the old routines and traditions of life can no longer
be taken for granted. Even the role of the family as a system of support
is put to question. Under these circumstances, expectations and modes of
behaviour inherited from the recent past cannot be effective guides to future
action. Relationships between people 30 years ago may not tell us very much
about how to negotiate problems today.
The sense of fragmentation is reinforced by a lack of consensus about what
society's values should be. Many traditional norms are now strongly contested.
When British newspapers reported that one out of three children were born
out of wedlock, some used the traditional term 'illegitimate' while others
took strong exception to this pejorative appellation. One Guardian columnist
accused the Times of superstition and prejudice (3 June 1996). Such
disputes over fundamental questions of what is right and wrong have always
existed. The difference is that today issues to do with morality and basic
norms are contested far more often and more intensely. This lack of consensus
on elementary norms of behaviour fuels uncertainty about life. The lack
of agreement about basic matters like the relationship between children
and the family helps to generate confusion about every aspect of human conduct.
When social roles are continually subject to modification and when
what is right and what is wrong is far from settled, people are entitled
to feel unsure about the future. All of these processes strengthen the process
of individuation. What emerges is a decidedly cautious individual.
Diminished sense of control
Probably the most important consequence of the changes described above is
a diminished sense of individual control. Since so many aspects of everyday
life can no longer be taken for granted, many activities that were once
routine have become troublesome. This leads us to the main thesis of this
article: that when attitudes and ways of behaving can no longer be taken
for granted, experiences which were hitherto relatively straight-forward,
now become seen as risky. This is the key to understanding the obsession
with risk and safety in society today.
Take the uncertainty which now prevails over the so-called crisis in parenting.
This insecurity is in part due to the changing character of the family;
but it is also due to the shift in relationships between parent and child
and between men and women, coupled with a lack of clarity about what is
acceptable behaviour today. Parenting and the conduct of family life, long
taken for granted as something you just got on with, have now become far
from self-evident. Nothing seems straightforward. It is as if parenting
has become a minefield. The diminished sense of control which results
from these developments exacerbates insecurity and the sense of being at
risk. Not surprisingly, the family becomes seen as a dangerous site where
many of the participants are held to be continually at risk. The family
home is no longer portrayed as a refuge--but as a jungle where children
are at risk of abuse and where women are at risk of domestic violence.
In the same way, changing practices at work mean that relationships between
colleagues can no longer be taken for granted. The new preoccupation with
harassment and bullying indicates that work is now seen as a place where
you are at risk. Changing relations between men and women certainly mean
that little can be assumed. A look or gesture may now be interpreted as
either a routine sign of affection or as a mild form of harassment. Debates
about the definition of rape and of abuse show how an explosion of
risks follows from a situation where nothing can be taken for granted.
The decline of old conventions creates a situation in which individuals
feel that they have less control over their lives. This in turn inevitably
helps to consolidate a sense of insecurity. We feel exposed and unsafe.
It is this experience, rather than any fear of technology running out of
control, which makes us so preoccupied with personal safety today. As a
result, being at risk itself comes to be portrayed and accepted as a way
of life.
The notion that being at risk is the same as being alive is clearest in
the case of children. In discussion of childhood today, one threat seems
to give way to the next. Children are assumed to be at risk not only from
abusing adults, but from bullies and abusers among their peers. During the
past decade, the issue of safety has also dominated discussions on the position
of women, who are presumed to be at risk--permanently--from male violence.
Even men are now said to face new risks. The recent literature on masculinity
has argued that those who have a strong 'masculine orientation' are risking
their health, since the rigidity of male gender roles prevents men from
asking for the help they need. (See M Kaplan and G Marks, 'Appraisal of
health risks: the role of masculinity, femininity, and sex', Sociology
of Health and Illness, Vol17, No2, 1995, p207)
The diminished sense of control turns even the most basic of human activities
into an issue of safety. We are continually warned of the risks posed by
sex and by the food we eat. Is it surprising that such preoccupations increase
our suspicions of strangers, and make us vulnerable to panics about crime,
road rage and other dangers to our personal safety?
Can't cope
The difficulty that individuals appear to have in controlling their
lives today has strengthened the conviction that people are not up to much.
Indeed the contemporary preoccupation with playing safe and avoiding risks
is related to the belief that human beings are not really capable of overcoming
the problems that confront them.
Those who insist upon the Precautionary Principle, do so largely on the
grounds that humanity is not able to anticipate the consequences of its
innovation. Many theorists of risk society argue that human knowledge does
not so much provide solutions as create problems. According to Beck, 'the
sources of danger are no longer ignorance but knowledge'. The equation of
knowledge with danger suggests that human beings are not capable of controlling
the consequences of their own action. The model of Frankenstein serves to
highlight the horror lurking behind the pretensions of knowledge and science.
From this perspective, people are portrayed not so much as problem-solvers,
but as the problem itself.
The end result of the obsession with risk is to endorse a diminished sense
of humanity and of the human potential for improvement. The individual that
emerges from this discussion is quite a pathetic creature. Human failures
are treated not as errors of judgement or as experiments that can be learned
from, but as natural conditions which are inevitable for a species that
cannot cope with the everyday trials of life. In turn, the assumption that
humans will fail to cope increases the range of possible risks. These days
human failure is made comprehensible by reference to the many medical or
psychological conditions or syndromes that are said to afflict people.
There is a clear correlation between the invention of new risks and the
'discovery' of new conditions. People who are declared 'at risk' are often
also diagnosed as suffering from a new medical or psychological condition.
The contagion of new disorders has particularly affected children. The number
of children defined as having special needs or suffering from some
disorder or instability has accelerated at furious speed. In New York public
schools, approximately one in every eight pupils has now been classified
as 'handicapped'. A growing number of children are diagnosed as hyperactive,
suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, post-traumatic
stress or dyslexia. Under such circumstances, it is hardly surprising that
bad school grades can be ascribed not to a lousy education system, but to
Academic Achievement Disorder.
Adults are not spared. According to some estimates, 20 percent of Americans
suffer from some form of diagnosable disorder. Depending on the definition
used, almost half of all Americans can now be described as obese or suffering
from an 'eating disorder'. People who have difficulties negotiating
relationships are said to suffer from Adjustment Disorder. Those who show
a pat- tern of 'perfectionism and inflexibility' are said to suffer
from 'obsessive-compulsive dis- order'. Those who are shy have 'social phobia'.
Then there are the new addictions. The National Association on Sexual Addiction
has estimated that between 10 and 15 per cent of Americans are addicted
to sex. According to some 'food addiction deserves to be taken just as seriously
as alcoholism' (see Addiction Letter, July 1995). The invention of
new addictions is by no means a uniquely American phenomenon. British academics
have been quick to jump on the bandwagon and now ominously hint at the risks
of hitherto unknown dependencies. One academic is being funded by the Economic
and Social Research Council to study shopping addiction. And two academics
from the University of Plymouth have concluded that children obsessed with
computer games show symptoms of addiction, since they 'appear to enjoy the
same euphoria as do smokers and heavy drinkers' (quoted in Alcoholism
and Drug Abuse Weekly, 10 March 1994).
Through the construction of new conditions, syndromes and addictions, more
and more social problems have become medicalised--that is, recast as medical
problems over which people can have little or no control. This tendency
serves to highlight the many flaws of the human being, and offers a
rather sad representation of people's potential. We are simply not expected
to cope. The fact that so many people are suffering from traumas, disorders
and syndromes reinforces the view of the fragile individual who constantly
needs monitoring and protection from the risks of everyday life.
Our uncertain society has increasingly adapted to the standards of its most
'fragile' members. The outcome of this process has been the emergence of
a culture of victimhood. Since everybody is at risk, everybody is
a victim. People are now routinely offered counselling throughout their
lives to help them get through the experience of victimisation. The effect
of such therapeutic intervention can only be to reinforce the consciousness
of risk, by raising your 'awareness' of the dangers surrounding you. Any
attempt to control the direction of your life is discouraged. In the United
States, people who attempt to over-come their 'condition' and get on with
their lives are diagnosed as suffering from a 'perfectionist complex'. Instead
the cautious pursuit of safety becomes a goal in its own right.
Diminished humanity
The celebration of safety alongside the continuous warning about risks constitutes
a profoundly anti-human intellectual and ideological regime. It continually
invites society and its individual members to constrain their aspirations
and to limit their actions. The call for restraint can now be heard everywhere,
be it in discussions on science, school results or living standards. Such
continuous lowering of expectations can be justified through an exaggerated
presentation of the destructive side of science, or through the projection
of people as fragile individuals, who cannot be expected to cope.
The advocacy of safety and the rejection of risk-taking has important implications
for the future. If experimentation is dis-credited, society effectively
acknowledges its inability to tackle--never mind to solve--the problems
which confront it. The restrictions being placed on experimentation, in
the name of protecting us and our children from risk, actually represent
the dissipation of the human potential.
The paradox is that the search for safety is bound to backfire. Throughout
history, greater safety and security have always been the by-products of
innovation and experimentation. Life has become safer as human society has
progressed and mastered nature. Safety was not something that could be acquired
just by wanting it. Those who propose to avoid risks and gain safety will
invariably find that what they acquire instead are obsessions. On the
contrary, it is the extension of human control through social and scientific
experimentation and change that has provided societies with greater security
than before.
Today the fear of taking risks is creating a society that celebrates victimhood
rather than heroism. We are all expected to compete, like guests on Oprah,
to prove that we are the most put-upon and pathetic people in the house,
the most deserving of counselling and compensation. The virtues held up
to be followed are passivity rather than activism, safety rather than boldness.
And the rather diminished individual that emerges is indulged on the grounds
that, in a world awash with conditions and crises and impending catastrophe,
he or she is doing a good job just by surviving.
Frank Füredi is
convening the course Redrawing the Boundaries of Humanism at The
Week conference in July.
Reproduced from Living Marxism issue 92, July/August 1996
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