Anticipatory Snow Days

Being from North Carolina, snow is something that we are not used to, and if there is a high enough percentage, then the city panics and does whatever they can to prepare, overwhelmed and anxious for the potential coming snow. Parents will swarm the grocery to get the basics, kids will flood Target for sleds, principals will make the call to cancel school, and the city will send out all their trucks to dump salt on the roads. Many times, it ends up being just light dusting because the odds of getting snow in North Carolina are so small.

The fear of terrorism has spread across the nation like the apprehension of coming snow hits North Carolina. Jeffery Victor notes how this panic became nationwide since 9/11 out of fear that a terrorist could strike anytime. However, Charles Kurzman and John Mueller discuss how this fear has been blown out of proportion because the chance of any individual dying from a terrorist attack is microscopic. Although Al Qaeda makes the threat seem big, “most Muslims oppose terrorist violence” (Kurzman, 63).

The moral panic that has resulted is actually more harmful to Americans and benefits the terrorists groups by inciting fear, alarmism, and overreaction. The widespread panic reflects power struggles within the society, in the way that those outside the “norm” are consider suspicious (Victor, 11). A better way to react to these reactions would be to respond reasonably and look upon the given facts skeptically, in order to avoid spending all of our time and resources on an issue that is not most prevalent.