Interestingly, de Becker has a book out now specifically about parental fear, and how to tell the difference between useful caution and not useful paranoia. I wonder if it'll get into my deeper question. Which, better thought out, is about how to tell the difference between useful fear and not useful fear. I agree about the media portions -- they were excellent. But he didn't do a very good job of distinguishing the kinds of fear he was talking about, and I have a strong suspicion if you really pressed him on how to tell the difference, he'd eventually come out with something like, "you'll just know." Which...well...no. Some of this stuff -- ike racism -- is just so far down there, you really won't.
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