WEBVTT 1 00:00:03.720 --> 00:00:08.640 Hi, You're listening to The Sociology Show, a podcast about absolutely anything to 2 00:00:08.679 --> 00:00:13.880 do with the wonderful world of sociology. Whether you're a teacher, a lecturer, 3 00:00:14.160 --> 00:00:18.000 a student, or just taking a passing interest. This podcast will look 4 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:22.719 at a range of issues from social casts, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, 5 00:00:22.839 --> 00:00:27.920 religion, crime, education, and anything else that sociology has to offer. 6 00:00:29.800 --> 00:00:33.000 My name is Matthew Wilkin. In each episode, I will speak to someone 7 00:00:33.039 --> 00:00:37.079 working in the field of sociology and let them explain all about their own interests, 8 00:00:37.240 --> 00:00:42.000 their research, and their experiences. So put your ear phones in, 9 00:00:42.280 --> 00:00:49.880 turn the volume up, and let's be sociology gigs together. Eh. Hello, 10 00:00:49.920 --> 00:00:53.320 and welcome to the Sociology Show podcast. My guest for this episode is 11 00:00:53.359 --> 00:00:59.640 Professor Frank Farreddi. Professor Frank Freddie talked to me about his book Paranoid Parenting, 12 00:00:59.640 --> 00:01:03.040 which is really really useful for families and households if you're studying that either 13 00:01:03.159 --> 00:01:07.159 GCSC or A level. And he also talked about his more recent book How 14 00:01:07.280 --> 00:01:11.239 Fear Works, which is really useful for a whole range of different topics, 15 00:01:11.280 --> 00:01:15.239 from crime to globalization and all in between. So, without further ado, 16 00:01:15.319 --> 00:01:22.680 let's go over to the interview with Professor Frank Freddie. Thank you very much 17 00:01:22.719 --> 00:01:25.040 for coming on the show. Would you like to start by telling us a 18 00:01:25.040 --> 00:01:26.760 little bit about who you are and what you do? Please? Well. 19 00:01:26.840 --> 00:01:33.519 My name is Frank Freddie. I'm a sociologist and an author, and I 20 00:01:33.680 --> 00:01:42.159 spent a long period of my life researching and dealing with sociological issues. I 21 00:01:42.200 --> 00:01:45.959 got entered by accident. It wasn't something I intended to do, because initially 22 00:01:46.519 --> 00:01:52.000 I did my PhD in African studies in the nineteen seventies. But then I 23 00:01:52.079 --> 00:01:57.599 became increasingly interested in issues to do with our own society rather than something that 24 00:01:57.719 --> 00:02:04.560 existed far away, and in particular, I became interested in the question of 25 00:02:04.680 --> 00:02:13.599 fear and risk and was really excited to have the opportunity to explore the way 26 00:02:13.599 --> 00:02:20.039 that fear impacted in our lives and the way that a lot of our everyday 27 00:02:20.080 --> 00:02:25.919 concerns were being increasingly framed through an inflated sense of fear and anxiety. So 28 00:02:25.960 --> 00:02:30.840 that's really how I kind of began to do my more serious sociological work, 29 00:02:30.879 --> 00:02:36.719 and I published a book called Culture of Fear in nineteen ninety seven, which 30 00:02:37.199 --> 00:02:42.039 then provided the starting point for a lot of my other work, a lot 31 00:02:42.039 --> 00:02:46.520 of other research in the subsequent twenty years. Thank you. I'm one of 32 00:02:46.520 --> 00:02:50.800 those areas of fear which we're going to talk about today is the issue of 33 00:02:50.879 --> 00:02:53.759 parenthood and childhood. And you wrote a book, was it two thousand and 34 00:02:53.759 --> 00:02:58.759 two, Paranoid Parentings around that period? Yeah, around then two thousand and 35 00:02:58.800 --> 00:03:00.680 one, I think, but I'm not hundred percent show. Yeah, yeah, 36 00:03:00.840 --> 00:03:06.199 and a full title paranoid parenting while ignoring the experts maybe best for your 37 00:03:06.280 --> 00:03:08.000 child? And so would you like to give us a little bit of an 38 00:03:08.039 --> 00:03:13.080 introduction into what your motivation was for the book and also what your sort of 39 00:03:13.120 --> 00:03:17.159 main findings are. Well, what happened was that I became a further leading 40 00:03:17.240 --> 00:03:23.520 life and I noticed that the way that children were regarded, babies were regarded, 41 00:03:23.199 --> 00:03:28.599 was very different than I had anticipated. And in particular, I noticed 42 00:03:28.599 --> 00:03:31.599 that there was a kind of a climate of fear in the bringing up of 43 00:03:31.719 --> 00:03:38.400 kids, and virtually every child would experience went with a health warning. And 44 00:03:38.439 --> 00:03:44.039 that was something that really concerned me because it also meant that parents became a 45 00:03:44.080 --> 00:03:50.879 considerable extent disoriented by the fact that they had to continually look after and watched 46 00:03:50.919 --> 00:03:55.120 their children twenty four hours a day, and therefore I felt that in particular, 47 00:03:55.360 --> 00:04:03.120 children's capacity to have an independent life without adulthood adults supervising them was being 48 00:04:03.159 --> 00:04:09.719 on demand. So my commitment to the freedom of children to basically have the 49 00:04:09.800 --> 00:04:14.759 space to grow up without being micromanaged was something that motivated me to write the 50 00:04:14.840 --> 00:04:17.959 book, and in the course of doing that, I think I found out 51 00:04:18.920 --> 00:04:26.959 to my surprise that parenting, which or child rearing, which historically has been 52 00:04:27.000 --> 00:04:31.199 seen as an accomplishment of a relationship, something that you do as a relationship 53 00:04:31.240 --> 00:04:35.519 as your child, was increasingly being redefined as a skill. So you have 54 00:04:35.600 --> 00:04:42.279 this term which never existed in the past, called parenting skill. And not 55 00:04:42.360 --> 00:04:46.560 only was the redefined as a skill, but parents were told that they were 56 00:04:46.560 --> 00:04:51.759 amateurs who lacked these skills, and therefore they had to find experts who apparently 57 00:04:51.839 --> 00:04:56.879 had the sophisticated understanding how to bring up a kid. And this, I 58 00:04:56.920 --> 00:05:01.680 think kind of created a dependency or a tempt to create a dependency of parents 59 00:05:01.680 --> 00:05:06.120 and experts, which further on the mind the confidence of parents, And I 60 00:05:06.240 --> 00:05:12.959 felt that what I called parent or parenting was really the product of these kinds 61 00:05:12.959 --> 00:05:19.279 of virus societal pressures where the problems facing children were being continually inflated, and 62 00:05:19.439 --> 00:05:24.360 because they were being continually inflated, parents were in a sense put on the 63 00:05:24.399 --> 00:05:29.160 defensive. But then in addition to that, parents capacity to bring kids up 64 00:05:29.560 --> 00:05:33.920 was being continually questioned. And do you think that sort of over cautiousness over 65 00:05:34.040 --> 00:05:38.120 protectiveness. Is there a moment in time where you think it really sort of 66 00:05:38.199 --> 00:05:41.839 there was a tipping point where that really became apparent. I think it very 67 00:05:41.920 --> 00:05:46.120 much kicked in in the late seventies, and there's a lot of evidence that 68 00:05:46.199 --> 00:05:49.759 shows that the amount of time that children spend on their own outdoors begins to 69 00:05:49.800 --> 00:05:56.240 diminish. The amount of time that moms and dad spends with their kids increases 70 00:05:56.279 --> 00:06:00.759 from the late seventies onwards. And I think it's interesting that as you kind 71 00:06:00.759 --> 00:06:04.879 of look at the world in the subsequent fifty years, it gets worse and 72 00:06:04.959 --> 00:06:11.199 worse all the time, so that every generation of parents is probably less confident 73 00:06:11.240 --> 00:06:15.000 than the one that preceded, and every generation of parents feels constrained to spend 74 00:06:15.040 --> 00:06:18.759 more time with their kids than the ones before. So you have a situation 75 00:06:18.959 --> 00:06:24.839 to just agree. An example that in the nineteen seventies, a mother who 76 00:06:24.920 --> 00:06:30.319 wasn't working in the nineteen seventies spent less time with their kids, you know, 77 00:06:30.399 --> 00:06:34.680 sort of than than what would happen kind of subsequently, and what happened 78 00:06:34.720 --> 00:06:43.959 what's happening increasingly is that there's less and less ability on the part of children 79 00:06:44.560 --> 00:06:48.480 to explore the outdoors and have that kind of freedoms, and kids therefore becoming 80 00:06:48.480 --> 00:06:57.120 increasingly focused and chained digitally, chained to their digital bedrooms. I mean it 81 00:06:57.279 --> 00:06:59.519 sort of guy's hand in hand with the argument. A lot of people would 82 00:06:59.519 --> 00:07:03.279 say that protectiveness is evidence of a more child centered, more caring society. 83 00:07:04.240 --> 00:07:08.319 Wait, does that sort of argument fitting with you, because that would suggest 84 00:07:08.319 --> 00:07:12.000 it's actually gone the other way. Yeah. I think there's a there's a 85 00:07:12.040 --> 00:07:17.680 fundamental flaw in the argument that we become more more child centered and more sensitive 86 00:07:17.720 --> 00:07:25.199 because it's not children who are demanding to be continually supervised by the apparentson like 87 00:07:26.040 --> 00:07:30.800 a massive movement on the part of young kids to say, we don't want 88 00:07:30.800 --> 00:07:33.800 to explore the outdoors, we don't want to be on our own. It's 89 00:07:33.879 --> 00:07:40.800 the adult world that has decided that it doesn't trust children to make their way 90 00:07:40.879 --> 00:07:46.600 and develop independently, and it's the adult world that decides that the world is 91 00:07:46.600 --> 00:07:53.920 so dangerous and so threatening that kids need to be insulated from being exposed to 92 00:07:54.360 --> 00:07:59.720 everyday life. And although this is often called child centered, I think it's 93 00:07:59.839 --> 00:08:05.279 very much adult centered. Is a result of adult obsessions which are being recycled 94 00:08:05.279 --> 00:08:11.959 through children. It must be really difficult, frank to piece together the disconnect 95 00:08:11.040 --> 00:08:16.199 between the threat that the media is telling us is out there for children in 96 00:08:16.240 --> 00:08:20.160 a whole manner of ways, from pedophilia to online of use, pulling, 97 00:08:20.199 --> 00:08:24.439 whatever it is, and the reality is the reality of threat actually much smaller 98 00:08:24.480 --> 00:08:28.759 than the media would have us believe. I think it is. But we 99 00:08:28.839 --> 00:08:35.399 have to remember that if we're told that something is dangerous and threatening, then 100 00:08:35.600 --> 00:08:41.919 we will perceive it as dangerous and threatening, and therefore our capacity to manage 101 00:08:41.960 --> 00:08:46.919 uncertain to manage risks diminishes. And one of the things that I have found 102 00:08:48.080 --> 00:08:52.360 was that if and in sort of the media, it's the entire parenting industry, 103 00:08:52.399 --> 00:08:56.679 it's very much the kind of cultural institutions that we inhabited. If they 104 00:08:56.679 --> 00:09:05.720 continually tell the world that, for example, putting pressure on children in schools, 105 00:09:05.519 --> 00:09:11.279 having exams in schools makes them ill, and they're going to be traumatized, 106 00:09:11.639 --> 00:09:16.000 and they're going to become unable to cope with life as a result of 107 00:09:16.080 --> 00:09:20.840 that, which is a relatively new development because there's been exams around for a 108 00:09:20.919 --> 00:09:24.879 very, very long time, for centuries. Then what will happen is that 109 00:09:26.360 --> 00:09:31.879 people will internalize, children will internalize the idea that exams are really scary, 110 00:09:33.000 --> 00:09:35.240 that exams are going to make you ill. I remember talking to my wife, 111 00:09:35.840 --> 00:09:41.320 who's roughly my age to be younger, and she tells me that when 112 00:09:41.360 --> 00:09:46.480 she did her ECSC exams back in the days, she was hardly even aware 113 00:09:46.480 --> 00:09:50.600 of the fact that these exams were consequential. She was hardly aware of the 114 00:09:50.600 --> 00:09:54.840 fact that this was a make or break moment in her life. She certainly 115 00:09:54.440 --> 00:09:58.159 didn't have anything more than the normal anxieties that you have when you're at an 116 00:09:58.159 --> 00:10:03.600 exam. Used to call that having butterflies in your stomach, and certainly nobody 117 00:10:03.639 --> 00:10:07.759 was traumatized by it. Whereas today, if you've been told that this is 118 00:10:07.799 --> 00:10:11.799 going to have a big psychological impact on your life, this is very potentially 119 00:10:11.879 --> 00:10:16.559 quite threatening that after a while that narrative will be something that you live by. 120 00:10:16.679 --> 00:10:22.000 You internalize and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. I think one of 121 00:10:22.000 --> 00:10:26.919 the things you mentioned in the book actually is that putting pressure on children is 122 00:10:26.159 --> 00:10:31.320 asking children to behave like adults, and vice versa. You've got the infantilization 123 00:10:31.360 --> 00:10:35.559 of adults. But what did you mean by that? Just for our listener, 124 00:10:35.559 --> 00:10:39.039 so could you just explain what you mean by those ideas? Well, 125 00:10:39.039 --> 00:10:43.399 There's two ideas that I've been developing and it's still in the process of developing, 126 00:10:43.440 --> 00:10:46.679 which is, on the one hand, the adultification of children and the 127 00:10:46.720 --> 00:10:52.039 infantilization of adults. These two things go hand in hand, and I think 128 00:10:52.039 --> 00:10:54.919 that one of the things that has occurred is that on the one hand, 129 00:10:54.480 --> 00:11:01.639 we treat children as like precious little babies that cannot come on a sort of 130 00:11:01.279 --> 00:11:07.799 coup on their own, and we treat them childishly rather than the way that 131 00:11:07.960 --> 00:11:11.720 children ought to be treated, So we don't really trust them to do the 132 00:11:11.799 --> 00:11:18.000 kind of things that were expected as normal throughout the centuries. But at the 133 00:11:18.039 --> 00:11:24.759 same time as we're doing that, we often sexualize them. We we kind 134 00:11:24.759 --> 00:11:31.759 of treat them as like little adults in the way that they're kind of expected 135 00:11:31.799 --> 00:11:37.200 to, you know, the way that for example, told about psychological issues 136 00:11:37.279 --> 00:11:43.080 and therefore they become adult to fight. I remember my own son, by 137 00:11:43.120 --> 00:11:48.279 the time he was nine or ten, he had a very sophisticated psychological vocabulary 138 00:11:48.320 --> 00:11:50.440 that he picked up from school. You know. He would say, oh, 139 00:11:50.440 --> 00:11:54.840 man, I'm really stressed out, you know, I'm I'm depressed, 140 00:11:54.919 --> 00:11:58.480 you know, and he sounded like a little fraud because that's what you learn 141 00:11:58.639 --> 00:12:03.240 in school. And he kind of a kind of absorbed all these hitherto adult 142 00:12:03.279 --> 00:12:07.159 problems. And at the same time, a lot of the adults, you 143 00:12:07.159 --> 00:12:11.919 know, because they've you know, sort of a variety of reasons, because 144 00:12:11.960 --> 00:12:18.159 they've become so confused about how to draw the line between themselves and their children, 145 00:12:18.200 --> 00:12:24.000 because they're so immerged in their everyday life, begin to act like children. 146 00:12:24.679 --> 00:12:28.960 And you have this this kind of weird situation where mothers go shopping with 147 00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:33.240 their daughters and it's their daughter stoves and what to wear rather than the other 148 00:12:33.240 --> 00:12:39.600 way around. And that kind of, you know, sort of shifting generational 149 00:12:39.639 --> 00:12:46.240 relationship is quite fascinating from a sociological point of view. The Sociology Show podcast 150 00:12:46.320 --> 00:12:52.159 relies on the kind contributions of sponsorship and donations. If you enjoy the show. 151 00:12:52.279 --> 00:12:54.679 Then you can help with the hosting costs by donating as little as five 152 00:12:54.720 --> 00:13:01.000 pounds on the go fund me page. Simply visit UK dot go fundme dot 153 00:13:01.000 --> 00:13:05.240 com and search for the Sociology Show. If you can donate, then you 154 00:13:05.279 --> 00:13:09.000 will be sent to Sociology Show pen as a small thank you for your continued 155 00:13:09.039 --> 00:13:13.600 support of the show. Just thinking as well to two decades on from when 156 00:13:13.639 --> 00:13:18.080 the book was first published, where do you think we are at the moment? 157 00:13:18.120 --> 00:13:20.679 Frank? Do you think the situations have got worse that they've been improvements? 158 00:13:20.840 --> 00:13:26.720 How do you see it? I think the situation has become far worse, 159 00:13:28.600 --> 00:13:33.279 and it's it's really accelerated, especially in the last decade, and in 160 00:13:33.360 --> 00:13:43.720 particularly it's excellent accelerated in relation to the way in which children and their personality 161 00:13:43.799 --> 00:13:48.279 has been redefined as one which is inherently powerless and vulnerable. And we don't 162 00:13:48.320 --> 00:13:54.840 see, completely deny in practice their capacity for resilience, and therefore we do 163 00:13:54.960 --> 00:14:01.720 not believe that children are likely to cope with the kind of normal pressures of 164 00:14:01.240 --> 00:14:05.960 everyday life, the existential difficulties that all of us have when we grow up. 165 00:14:07.440 --> 00:14:13.240 We see our hurdles are almost impossible for children to overcome, certainly overcome 166 00:14:13.399 --> 00:14:18.000 on their own. And in that sense, what we've done by this kind 167 00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:26.360 of parenting regime is we've created a sense of permanent identity crisis where a lot 168 00:14:26.399 --> 00:14:28.399 of young kids are struggling to know who they are, what they're about. 169 00:14:30.159 --> 00:14:33.159 You know, usually, historically, by the time you're eighteen or nineteen, 170 00:14:33.279 --> 00:14:37.759 even have resolved your identity crisis and got a sense of what you're all about. 171 00:14:39.080 --> 00:14:43.320 Whereas today, when you're eighteen or nineteen, you're still are in many 172 00:14:43.360 --> 00:14:50.399 cases dealing with issues that historically are pre adolescent issues. As I'm just thinking 173 00:14:50.440 --> 00:14:52.240 about that, I was always looking looking back over the book, I wondered 174 00:14:52.799 --> 00:14:58.840 how important cases such as the Madling mccan disappearance or the Manchester bombings. Do 175 00:14:58.840 --> 00:15:03.360 you think those of had even more impact on the other protectiveness of parents and 176 00:15:03.919 --> 00:15:09.279 sort of a cautiousness about what our children are doing to some extent, Yes, 177 00:15:09.360 --> 00:15:13.000 I mean, you know, the media does play a role, and 178 00:15:13.159 --> 00:15:16.159 you know there are all these symbols of dangers. You know that one one 179 00:15:16.240 --> 00:15:22.039 can look back over the twenty years and there are several cases that highlights the 180 00:15:22.080 --> 00:15:26.639 precarious state of childhood but I think that I think that there is much greater 181 00:15:26.720 --> 00:15:33.159 problems than that. I think those amplify rather than are responsible for creating the 182 00:15:33.720 --> 00:15:37.759 cultural conditions for these kinds of attitudes. And I think what I see as 183 00:15:37.759 --> 00:15:46.080 being a far bigger problem is the loss of confidence in adults who the depletion 184 00:15:46.919 --> 00:15:50.240 of what it means to be an adult, the moral content of being grown 185 00:15:50.320 --> 00:15:54.679 up of maturity has been underman to the extent that a lot of mothers and 186 00:15:54.840 --> 00:16:03.080 fathers lack the confidence to be able to do the job and know the tremendous 187 00:16:03.080 --> 00:16:07.919 pressure, and that further on the mind that and they're being continually told that, 188 00:16:08.039 --> 00:16:11.320 you know, parenting is the most difficult job you will ever face. 189 00:16:12.039 --> 00:16:17.799 That's what they always say, that parenting is the is the most the greatest 190 00:16:18.480 --> 00:16:22.399 sort of challenge that you will encounter. Whereas for thousands of years, you 191 00:16:22.440 --> 00:16:26.360 know, parenting or child rearing was the norm. You didn't need to have 192 00:16:26.360 --> 00:16:30.080 a PhD. In psychology to be a good mother or father. In fact, 193 00:16:30.480 --> 00:16:34.120 you didn't have to go to school at all to be a caring mother 194 00:16:34.279 --> 00:16:41.440 and a good father. These things were abilities that evolved with maturity, whereas 195 00:16:41.440 --> 00:16:47.960 today they are in a sense called into question, and their importance as a 196 00:16:48.000 --> 00:16:55.440 result of that diminishes their importance, their sense of you organically becoming a moment 197 00:16:55.440 --> 00:17:00.519 of dad, especially when the experts quite often contradicted each other. Right, 198 00:17:00.559 --> 00:17:04.359 there's a sort of a mind field of information coming towards parents where they're probably 199 00:17:04.359 --> 00:17:07.240 feeling a little bit lost themselves as to what is the correct thing to do 200 00:17:07.279 --> 00:17:11.359 in any given situation. You're right, I mean, that's so confusing because 201 00:17:11.799 --> 00:17:15.880 you know, one day you're told that carrying parents sleep with their babies. 202 00:17:17.359 --> 00:17:21.359 Next day you're told that if you sleep with your baby that can create cod 203 00:17:21.440 --> 00:17:26.519 debt and it's very dangerous. So you're getting your conflicting advice on everything from 204 00:17:26.519 --> 00:17:32.279 the food you to a variety of what other experiences all the time, and 205 00:17:32.400 --> 00:17:36.480 just linking that idea up with your more recent book, How Fear Works. 206 00:17:37.119 --> 00:17:41.319 One of the key aspects of that book is that we are experiencing fear differently 207 00:17:41.359 --> 00:17:45.839 today than we used to. So do you mind just explain what you mean 208 00:17:45.960 --> 00:17:51.039 by that. Well, I think that the problem is not fearing, because 209 00:17:51.079 --> 00:17:55.880 fearing is a is a natural, normal state, and sometimes fearing is a 210 00:17:55.920 --> 00:18:00.799 good thing because there are some genuine threats out there. I think that the 211 00:18:00.839 --> 00:18:10.680 problem that we're faced with is when our understanding of uncertainty it becomes one that 212 00:18:11.240 --> 00:18:15.759 almost paralyzes us. I mean, historically, uncertainty can be seen as an 213 00:18:15.799 --> 00:18:19.920 opportunity, something you kind of look forward to. You don't know what the 214 00:18:19.920 --> 00:18:23.680 outcome will be, but you you think this is an exciting quest and exciting 215 00:18:23.720 --> 00:18:30.400 adventure. And there are moments in human history where the sieity is really, 216 00:18:30.759 --> 00:18:33.920 you know, sort of reveled in that and thrive. They're flourished on that. 217 00:18:33.519 --> 00:18:38.240 And there are times like today when uncertainty is seen not as an opportunity 218 00:18:38.359 --> 00:18:44.240 but as a problem because we don't think we can manage it, and we 219 00:18:44.359 --> 00:18:49.480 become so wary of uncertainty that we end up inflating problems and turning them into 220 00:18:49.519 --> 00:18:55.559 threads, but not just turning them into threats, but increasingly into existential threads. 221 00:18:56.079 --> 00:19:00.839 So a lot of issues become redefines the problems of existence, and under 222 00:19:00.920 --> 00:19:06.759 those circumstances, the way we fear and the meaning of fear is one that 223 00:19:06.920 --> 00:19:11.559 is much more corrosive. It's less helpful than it would be under kind of 224 00:19:11.599 --> 00:19:15.480 circumstances. And the book what I try to do is to try to look 225 00:19:15.519 --> 00:19:19.799 at the way the way that fear works and tries to explain some of the 226 00:19:19.839 --> 00:19:27.440 cultural drivers and that makes us in a sense so fearful and allowing in the 227 00:19:27.519 --> 00:19:34.920 capacity to manage the uncertain dimensions of our daily lives. And what would you 228 00:19:34.960 --> 00:19:40.160 say are the current main fears that are driving let's even take it to British 229 00:19:40.160 --> 00:19:42.759 society, what are the underlying sort of risk factors people live in fear of. 230 00:19:44.759 --> 00:19:48.440 Well, the interesting thing is is that we talk far more about fear 231 00:19:48.480 --> 00:19:52.359 than we really fear because we're encouraged to do that. So I'm involved in 232 00:19:52.359 --> 00:19:57.160 a project at the moment where we're looking at what people fear in different parts 233 00:19:57.200 --> 00:20:02.240 of Europe. And the interest thing thing is is that when you look at 234 00:20:02.279 --> 00:20:07.559 all the services that are being carter carried out, what people fear are not 235 00:20:07.599 --> 00:20:15.200 the headline fears that are from the media. It's not like global terrorism or 236 00:20:15.200 --> 00:20:19.680 global warming, or it's not like you know, sort of pedophilia or you 237 00:20:19.720 --> 00:20:25.839 know sort of or or crime. What people fear at the end of the 238 00:20:25.920 --> 00:20:30.720 day is what they've always feared in modern times, particularly from the twentieth century 239 00:20:30.720 --> 00:20:36.160 onward, which is their economic security, which is their old ege pension, 240 00:20:36.680 --> 00:20:41.039 which is the question, you know, is my child going to have a 241 00:20:41.119 --> 00:20:45.039 job when when they kind of grow up, So what their fear is actually 242 00:20:45.079 --> 00:20:47.720 quite constant, And that's that's the good news the end of the day, 243 00:20:47.720 --> 00:20:52.480 that's that's that's what occurs. But the problem is is that at the same 244 00:20:52.519 --> 00:20:56.920 time, and as as as we kind of have these kinds of fears, 245 00:20:56.559 --> 00:21:07.960 we become and inserted into culture that continually tells us to be anxious, to 246 00:21:07.079 --> 00:21:12.680 continually incites us to be fearful, continually tells us that at the end of 247 00:21:12.680 --> 00:21:18.640 the day, will we are far less able to deal with many of these 248 00:21:18.640 --> 00:21:22.319 problems, many of these threats, and that they've basically presented to us, 249 00:21:22.359 --> 00:21:26.359 then we imagine and that's really what I think is particularly damaging. And then 250 00:21:26.400 --> 00:21:37.720 that creates sometimes the kind of hysterical or or or reactions that are not warranted 251 00:21:37.759 --> 00:21:45.160 by the kind of threats that we kind of confront And if I could make 252 00:21:45.200 --> 00:21:49.119 this perhaps the last question, just despite that hystoria, our kind of current 253 00:21:49.279 --> 00:21:55.680 capacity to think about talk about mental health mental well being is is probably big 254 00:21:55.680 --> 00:22:00.240 than it's ever been. So is that not working? Then if they if 255 00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:03.400 the risk and theorem worry is higher than it's everything. I'm just working how 256 00:22:03.440 --> 00:22:07.319 that balances itself out. Well. I think there is a very interesting question, 257 00:22:07.400 --> 00:22:11.480 because the way that it works, I think is that, you know, 258 00:22:11.559 --> 00:22:17.640 we're often told that we don't talk about mental health enough, and we 259 00:22:17.839 --> 00:22:21.559 need to talk about mental health, But it seems to me that all that 260 00:22:21.680 --> 00:22:25.039 we ever do at the moment is constantly talk about mental health. If you 261 00:22:25.640 --> 00:22:32.160 listen to the media or newspapers, and we've basically medicalized everyday alivee to the 262 00:22:32.240 --> 00:22:37.119 point at which that virtually every problem that you will have comes with a psychological 263 00:22:37.160 --> 00:22:40.079 diagnosis. You know, you can be shy, but you know, I 264 00:22:40.079 --> 00:22:44.160 have sociophobia. If you're a little bit active, you know, sort of 265 00:22:44.200 --> 00:22:45.519 in the way that I was when I was a child, then you have 266 00:22:45.920 --> 00:22:52.920 attention deficit syndrome of some sort. So there's a variety of different syndromes that 267 00:22:52.000 --> 00:22:56.880 attach themselves to just about anything. And I think that what that does is 268 00:22:56.920 --> 00:23:03.759 it actually makes us even more disoriented than we already were. And I actually 269 00:23:03.960 --> 00:23:11.599 think that the promotion of mental health as a principal problem our times creates its 270 00:23:11.599 --> 00:23:21.000 own demand for mental health intervention. And the more you have counseling facilities available. 271 00:23:21.000 --> 00:23:23.960 The more you tell people to come in and tell us about your problems, 272 00:23:25.480 --> 00:23:30.799 the more mental health issues are highlighted, the more it actually becomes a 273 00:23:30.880 --> 00:23:36.960 public health problem. And that's the perverse effect that mental health intervention and the 274 00:23:37.000 --> 00:23:41.759 industrialization of mental health is actually turned into into a public health problem for which 275 00:23:41.799 --> 00:23:48.039 we are responsible. It wasn't the fact that somehow people became sort of less 276 00:23:48.079 --> 00:23:52.039 able to deal with with their mental well being then before. It's a cultural 277 00:23:52.079 --> 00:23:57.359 accomplishment which incites us, which reminds us continually that our mental state is in 278 00:23:57.440 --> 00:24:03.079 need or repair. It's created the fear in itself through the promotion. Yeah, 279 00:24:04.400 --> 00:24:07.839 thank you very much, Thank you very much. Just finally, if 280 00:24:07.839 --> 00:24:11.400 people want to find out more about your work, read some of your books, 281 00:24:11.680 --> 00:24:14.160 how can they go about that? Please? But there's a number of 282 00:24:14.160 --> 00:24:18.920 ways that I've got a website Frank Furedi dot com. But probably the most 283 00:24:19.039 --> 00:24:23.440 interesting thing that people might find is that I got what's called a sub stack, 284 00:24:23.519 --> 00:24:30.240 it's called the Roots and Wings, where I write cliessays on different issues 285 00:24:30.319 --> 00:24:36.079 or sociological significance and which they might want to check out. And of course, 286 00:24:36.160 --> 00:24:37.920 if you look at Amazon. My books are there as well, so 287 00:24:38.559 --> 00:24:41.359 right, and they can follow you on Twitter as well. Absolutely, you 288 00:24:41.359 --> 00:24:47.480 can follow you on Twitter and you can criticize me. I react to my 289 00:24:47.480 --> 00:24:51.599 my posts. Thank you so much for your time. I really really appreciate 290 00:24:51.640 --> 00:24:56.000 it pleasure. Thanks very much for having me here. Thank you. The 291 00:24:56.160 --> 00:25:02.759 Sociology Show podcast relies on the kind contribution of sponsorship and donations. If you 292 00:25:02.839 --> 00:25:06.319 enjoy the show, then you can help with the hosting costs by donating as 293 00:25:06.359 --> 00:25:11.799 little as five pounds on the gofund me page. Simply visit UK dot GoFundMe 294 00:25:11.079 --> 00:25:15.519 dot com and search for the Sociology Show. If you can donate, then 295 00:25:15.519 --> 00:25:19.359 you will be sent to Sociology showpen as a small thank you for your continued 296 00:25:19.400 --> 00:25:23.960 support of the show. 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