#fear human

A friend of mine was leaving her siblings alone in their house for a few hours.

Her advice to her siblings as she left was this: “don’t open the door for anyone, don’t go outside and don’t trust any strangers.” She then took it a step further and expanded that advice to always. She justified this advice by telling them that people are sick and that there are a lot of bad people out there. Hearing this being taught to children struck me as curious but I wasn’t sure why. Looking back on it, I think I can now justify my reaction.

Fear is a binding emotion, it does very little other than limit us. It limits the way we think, the way we feel and the way we act. I can understand why she said such things to her young siblings, for the same reasons I may have. She was afraid that someone was going to hurt them and the naive children clearly didn’t share that fear. Fear is often perceived as a vigilant guardian so she tried to instill it in them by using anecdote to create an image of danger in relation to strangers. Surely protections of one’s self can be taught without fear mongering.

The advice had noble roots, a desire for security born out of her love for her siblings, but what is the cost? What is the cost of teaching children that strangers are dangerous, or bad? I can only imagine it skews their view of the human race towards the negative and perhaps leads to an anxiety that bears apathy. Learning about the danger of your fellow man is not particularly fun; if everyone is so dangerous and malicious, where are all of the good guys?

A negative view of humanity is certainly bad for humans, whether we like it or not we all associate ourselves with humanity,  and rightfully so. Every good person you’ve ever met and every good deed you’ve ever witnessed have been the effect of our fellow human. Good encourages good. Unfortunately, the report of good deeds seems to be on the decline; they still happen, we just don’t gossip about it as much as maliciousness. What’s exciting for us to see and hear about is shocking by definition. Not knowing how someone could kill another person in cold blood is shocking and thus exciting. This is why the news chooses to air such disturbing stories; it gets viewership.

Unfortunately, the more we focus on the bad actions of humanity, the less we realize the good. People are more apprehensive of helping one another if they’re suspicious of each other. Don’t teach children that strangers are bad, just teach them that there are, on occasion, bad strangers. That they need to be cautious because of the bad minority, not because of the good majority.