Jefferies: See something, say something.
It's the 21st century's golden rule.
Because we're told danger lurks around every corner.
But in general, doesn't fear at least help to keep us safe?
Barry Glassner is a sociologist who wrote a book called
"The Culture of Fear:
Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things"...
and hosts a podcast called "Fear Not."
So after patting him down thoroughly for weapons,
I asked him...
What's wrong with being afraid of things?
It's not good for your health. It's not good for the world.
It's not good for your country.
It's bad in every possible way almost.
Give me a list of a few things that we're afraid of
that we shouldn't be afraid of.
Terrorism in the U.S.
But what do you mean?
We saw it happen. 9/11. We saw it.
You're much more likely to get killed or hurt
in all kinds of other ways.
You should be more afraid of your slippery bathtub...
rickety furniture in your house.
[ Laughter ]
They're much more likely to kill you.
So, is the furniture being put together
by Muslim fundamentalists?
[ Laughs ]
The [bleep] Swedes have been trying to get us.
It's IKEA, isn't it?
It turns out Barry's right.
There's loads of things
the U.S. should fear more than terrorism.
Lawn mowers mow down way more Americans
each year than Islam.
Driving, icicles,
getting struck by lightning, sharks,
choking, the flu.
But if logic tells us we should be less worried
about ISIS and shoe bombers,
why do we hear so much about them?
I mean, the reason is because there are all sorts of people
making a lot of careers off of this --
cable TV news, social media.
And the crazy think about this is,
this is about the safest time
and the safest place in the world in the U.S. right now.
What else should we not be afraid of?
We should not be afraid of almost anything
that Donald Trump tells us to be afraid of.
But do you think he believes any of the things that he says?
I know one thing he certainly believes --
it'll get him votes.
Donald Trump's formula is this, right?
Gets you afraid of something...
American carnage. They're rapists.
...and say that he can fix it...
This is so easy. We're going to fix it.
...and oftentimes that only he can fix it.
I alone can fix it.
That's a great thing to do when crime rates are going down.
-Right. -Because guess what.
You can say you fixed it.
Now, sure, it's easy to call Trump out,
but he didn't invent all this.
And it's a vicious cycle
with each side feeding off each other.
What's a more Democratic sort of fear-mongering thing?
They try to get you to write checks
by sending you these scary pictures of Donald Trump.
That's fear-mongering. Yeah, I feel like
the left fear-monger a lot more with the foods.
They get Whole Foods on you.
There's tons of fear-mongering about food
from the left and from liberals, absolutely.
Some trans fats comin' to get ya.
So politicians do it for power,
the media does it for ratings,
and then there are the people doing it purely for money.
The security industry, which is huge,
is constantly coming up with new products.
Now you can monitor your home,
watch your kids from every angle on your watch.
What that does is make you more fearful.
Yeah, and then when they get to 18,
you don't want to see your daughter being fingered
on the couch or anything.
Or maybe you do. [ Chuckles ]
We don't know each other that well. Um...
And fingering may not even be the worst of it.
In fact, when this fear thing really takes hold,
It can have some pretty dire consequences.
-Can you die from fear? -Oh, yeah.
Vaccine scare is a great example.
People stop vaccinating kids, and people die, yeah.
You're so obsessed with the thing you're fearful about
that you're not paying attention where you should be.
What's the easy fix? What do we do?
I mean, you have to learn who's selling you the fears.
Why are they doing it? What are they getting out of it?
Then once you recognize those, you can tune it out.
Right now at the start of the presidential election,
there's probably nothing more important
than learning to be skeptical of anyone who stands to gain
from making us all scared shitless.
But since Barry here is the expert,
I need him to rule on a few things once and for all.
Okay, I'm gonna rattle off some things.
You tell me if I should be fearful of these groups.
-Mexicans? -No.
"Mexicans storming the border" Mexicans. No.
-New Zealanders? -No.
Canadians?
-They can be -- -Yeah, they can be scary.
Can be -- Sneaky little dopey bunch, aren't they.
Weren't even thinking about that when I started my day.
-[ Laughs ] -Thanks, Barry.