Julien - 09:41am Feb 28, 2006 (#1 of 10)
Pourquoi
lorsqu'on demande de donner les plus grandes peurs, certains donnent
leurs plus grandes phobies? La plupart de mes camarades français ont
compris par "peurs" leurs angoisses. L'angoisse, c'est un sentiment qui
s'il nous fait pas hurler de peur, nous pince le coeur à chaque fois
qu'on y pense. Les français ont peur de la mort dans le sens angoisse
face au néant. Les américains ont peur de la mort comme acte, comme on
peut avoir peur des serpents ou des insectes. Mais cela suit une
certaine logique, puisque n'oublions pas que les Etats Unis sont un
pays très croyant. Est-ce pour ça que vous n'avez pas peur de la mort
en tant que disparition? Autres questions à tout ceux qui ont parlé de
leurs phobies comme les araignées ou les insectes: n'avez vous pas peur
de la mort? N'avez vous pas peur de perdre les gens que vous aimez plus
que des cafards? Parce que voilà mon hypothèse: si on a pas peur de la
mort, ni de l'isolement, ni du rejet, ni de l'échec, alors la plus
grande peur devient quelque chose de banal comme peur du noir, ou des
araignées. Est-ce que je me trompe?
Je suis d'accord avec toi Julien, je trouve le fait que l'on se réfugie dans les phobies très humaines, c'est comme un voil (a curtain) qui cache ce qui plutu grand et plus imminant: la mort. Je sens la présence de la mort partout dans les réponses, avec la solitude qui n'est autre que la mort sociale de l'homme.
L'aspect frappant qui ressort aussi du tableau: mes camarades se font beaucoup plus de soucis des fléaus qui pourraient frapper toute la société ou toute la Terre, c'est peut-être parce que, la France, n'étant pas LA super puissance, elle se sent plsu vulnérable au malheurs qui peuvent frapper la planète Terre.
Une chose que j'ai constaté aussi, c'est l'absence du mot
"terror", terrorisme, dans vos réponses. Est-ce que le danger du
terrorisme est tellemnt présent, que ce n'est pas la peine d'en parler?
Ma théorie est différente. Les personnes qui se sentent bien moralement ( en français, il y a une expression : se sentir bien dans sa peau) n'ont de fait aucune raison d'éprouver la peur.
En effet, avoir peur de la mort ou de perdre un proche trahit une faiblesse morale voir un désequilibre psychique. On peut éprouver des émotions MAIS pas avoir peur de la Vie!
Finalement, il est naturel de parler de ses phobies! C'est le gage d'un esprit saint!
Qu'en pensez vous?
Ok guys, hold your horses. Everyone is afraid of death. And more afraid of it than they are of spiders or snakes.
One factor that I think influenced the difference between our responses is purely semantic. We use the same word for being afraid of "dark random cooked vegetables" as we do for fear of torturous death. There is the word "phobia" to describe specific fears, such as that of water or heights, but it is vastly less commonly used.
But that still doesn't explain why several MIT students put these things as their "greatest" fears. To address that, I would say that some of us were being flippant and others simply wrote down the first thing that came to mind that we commonly associate with fear--things we encounter regularly.
As for those of us who wrote something other than phobias but
not death, I would guess again that we wrote down things that we think
about often, rather than something of potentially greater threat that
we hardly ever think of.
Hello, I'm glad we are in agreement.. all fear is natural and stems from uncertainties. When there is no guarantee of a safe outcome, fear of what is unsafe dominates our thoughts. When classifying certain fears as the greatest, we consider the things most difficult to dismiss.
As Ashley stated, what we encounter often is also hard to dismiss. The brain functions by recreating the world arond it using limited inputs. Fears that are inescapable are much more present in the "world" that the mind creates, which begins to explain how phobia have such an impact.
I suggest that one can fear physical things more than death.
This is true because people make associations. For example, a young
child may associate an event with the death of a parent. Then, in the
future the child could possibly fear this event by association.
I found it interesting also that we didn't find terrorism or the destruction of planet Earth in the responses from MIT, considering those two subjects seem to inspire a lot of Hollywood movies. I think those fears exist undoubtedly, yet somehow they didn't show up, which I will try to reason here.
One thing I gathered from the responses was the difference between the first things that came to mind for the students at MIT and at Polytechnique. (I think all of us fear the things that are addressed by all of you too, such as death, loss of family members or friends. The difference is simply what comes to mind first). When the MIT students heard the word 'fear', the immediate responses were reflecting on one's personal fear. However the responses from Polytechnique reflect the fear of humanity, the fear of one person in terms of society. I think that had more time been given to answer this question, the responses from MIT will probably turn into those categories also. For example, if the students were given an assignment to write an essay on 'the Greatest Fear', writing about one's phobia is quite unlikely. I think people would write about humanity's fear in that case.
I hope I'm getting my point across, that the differences are simply the reflexes of our minds, our first responses.
Another thing I observed was the appearance of loneliness in the
responses from MIT, which didn't really appear in your responses. Could
this be a result of individualism? Because each one is kind of a
man/woman of their own, that loneliness becomes one of the fear people
have. Again and again I see this feature coming up in different
responses. The responses from MIT always take the subject into one's
personal life (e.g. culture, religion, individualism), but the
responses from Polytechnique are always in terms of society, community
and humanity in general. Do you see the same thing? (I'd like to also
hear responses from MIT on my previous point)
Pour te répondre Josephine, je dirais qu'il est intéressant de constater que la peur de la solitude est particulièrement présente outre atlantique.
En effet, dans un monde plus individualiste comme les Etats
Unis, le revers de la médaille c'est peut-être de sombrer dans la
solitude! Pour beaucoup d'entre vous, vous affirmez que le bonheur
c'est le succès professionnel... mais un succès ne prend toute sa
dimenssion que s'il est reconnu par ses collègues, sa famille, son
patron. Conclusion, la solitude, ou la non reconnaissance de son
travail(pour moi, c'est similaire) nuit à votre bonheur de façon
dramatique... d'où peut-être vos craintes?
Hi
to all, I found the responses and the differences between the two sets
of responses very interesting. I agree with josephine- I think MIT
students thought first of personal fears while Polytechnique students
were much more inclined to give responses that related to soceity as a
whole. I also agree with Josephine that, if given more time to think or
asked to give a more lengthy response, most MIT students would give a
response more related to soceity. However, I think the first response
shows a really fundamental difference. I am wondering if anyone has any
ideas as to why our first reations to this question are so different.
Is it semantics? I would agree, Hatim, that the fear of loneliness
really does play an important role in our lives. Despite our value of
individualism, we are still human and still have a need to be loved and
connected to a soceity. I think that because individualism is valued so
much, the fear of being alone as an idividual is a very big factor in
our lives. I don't know if everyone else would agree with this and
would love to hear what other people think. I am also curious what your
more "petty' fears or phobias are- are you afraid of the dark and
things like that too?
Salut
Teodora, personellement j'ai peur des chiens. Oui, on pourait croire
qu'ils sont gentils et affectueux, mais en fait ils sont bêtes et
méchants. Les chiens sentent ma peur et ils prennent un malin plaisir à
l'agrémenter... De manière générale, les phobies ont un côté féminin.
Ainsi, l'homme qui n'a peur de rien peut protéger sa dulciné des
méchantes araignées qui préparent un plan pour la manger. Les hommes
ont l'air faible lorsqu'ils avouent leurs phobies (mais les chiens ça
fait vraiment peur), même si beaucoup d'hommes utilisent la carte
sensible pour séduire les femmes en s'inventant des phobies. En résumé,
il est rare qu'un homme soit franc quand il s'agit de parler de ses
phobies, heureusement il y a ce forum et ta question, et je suis sûr
que mes camarades du sexe fort vont me repondre franchement et qu'on
saura enfin tout sur les phobies des hommes (je le répète: les chiens
sont des animaux très très méchants...)
to continue on the subject of greatest fear being terror...
Truthfully, there is no reason to constantly be in fright of it.
I am from new york city and I live in the closest residential building
to ground zero i.e. across the street. Being constantly afraid
accomplishes nothing. Unfortunately, Bush was able to manipulate that
paranoia and fear that people held onto and dragged us into a senseless
war, as well as pass an act that steps on people's liberties. What's
more ridiculous is that you would have these people living in the
middle of nowhere, who were scared of being attacked by terrorists.
Because of this fear, racist acts began occuring: racial profiling, and
in one extreme case, the murder of an innocent individual. I don't mean
to be a total geek, but we should seriously heed yoda's words. Fear
leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering...ok. I am
officially a dork now. But his words are true. I shall have to see
Munich soon.
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