Why is this? Europeans still recall and tremble at the thought of the catastrophes between 1939 and 1945. Despite the American obsession with terrorism on its soil, Europeans are profoundly conscious of the fact that all subsequent major terror events have taken place in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, and despair at their possible repetition. Moreover, a long history of political protest and communitarian politics, whether on the right or the left, has made Europeans more willing to allocate blame and responsibility toward the state and its apparatus for perceived threats. But across the Atlantic, middle-class Americans have been relatively sheltered from truly fearsome dangers. The threats that induce the most anxiety in Americans are to wealth and social status, to their individual place in society. And when society does find itself under attack, America’s therapeutic culture of psychoanalysis is quick to respond, first and foremost, by preparing for the expected psychological trauma to individuals.
This divide plays out in the media, where the emotional legacy of disasters attracts greater attention than its physical effects. Two years after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, one fifth of children living 100 miles away were diagnosed as suffering from “bomb-related difficulty functioning.” More recently, media attention on psychological trauma from the New Orleans floods outweighed reportage of the physical devastation. Rather than being interpreted as a political or moral event through which to ponder communal ties, tragedy is viewed through the lens of a “psychic wound,” language rarely employed in Europe, even after attacks on the scale of the terrorist bombings in London and Madrid.
Even the rupture of 9/11 was rapidly subsumed under the language of anxiety. The terrorists demonstrated the ease with which the great symbol of technological prowess, the airplane, could kill and maim thousands of Americans, while petrifying millions more. The “new” warfare, which had provoked terror in the Middle East, Africa and former Soviet republics for decades, now threatened American society. But unlike reactions elsewhere, politicians and the mass media transformed this very real danger into a free-floating, ever-present, malleable threat. Suspicions of terrorism attached itself to everyday events. Without any specific security warning, citizens were encouraged to regularly consult the level of alert.
The increasing uncertainty over the identity of the threat or the probability of the risk has vast social implications. The states of fear draw people together, either for comfort or to defend themselves against the danger. The stoic camaraderie and high morale experienced by Londoners during the Blitz was explicitly drawn upon by Londoners after July 7, encouraging them to adopt a more collective response to the attack. Anxiety states, by contrast, make people withdraw. People plagued by anxiety prove less dependent upon associative groups and are more prepared to adopt individualistic solutions. Thus, in contrast to a more collective ethos of European business, the American business ethos glories in individualism.
It is perhaps not surprising, then, that discussions about danger in America and Europe have diverted since 9/11. While governments and the media in both places warn that further attacks are inevitable, the European response has been to increase dialogue. Human rights are given a central role and the democratic credentials of Islam are emphasized. American foreign policy has focused on containment and military intervention. To contain American anxieties, fear is exported overseas. The category “terrorist” has provided many Americans with a coherent narrative with which to make sense of irrational, free-floating risks. The figure of the terrorist has become the scapegoat for the ills of modernity, and anxiety has become the emotion through which public life is administered. Overseas victims of American foreign policy cease to attract attention, and the emphasis on trauma and the emotional devastation it brings threatens to render many American citizens passive and introverted.
Although a lack of trust in political leaders remains strong throughout the West, Europeans at least remain committed to the possibility that protest will have an impact on policy, forcing politicians to confront some of the most frightening aspects of 21st-century life. In both geopolitical regions, public commitment to democratic institutions, ideologies and rituals give cause for optimism. Our future depends on the way we choose to manage this two-horned specter of fear and anxiety.
