Fear Itself

I’ve noticed a sort of complacency about the 21st century. We’re in the midst of one of the worst economic disasters in recent history, yet the world around us looks pretty much the same. Financial despair isn’t really visible, and when we walk out onto Broadway, things look more or less the way they did a year ago. To many students, the events happening on Wall Street are still, on a superficial level, just headlines in a newspaper—they can’t see them, so it’s difficult to process that they’re actually happening. My pockets are tightening just like anyone else’s, but until I see them setting up Hoovervilles on South Lawn, I don’t think it’s really going to sink in the way it probably should.

Nor have I perceived the kind of change in attitude that I would expect to accompany such a crisis. People seem to be talking more often about the economy, complaining about stock prices and mortgage difficulties—but has it really altered too many Columbia students’ way of life? From a sociological standpoint, the Great Depression seemed to define the lives of the people who lived through it—a state that I’m not sure we’re anywhere close to.

But at what point do isolated incidents become the status quo? When does fear of the economic status make us go from just tightening our pockets to changing our ways of life and our perceptions of the world around us? Fear has the power to become a paralyzing force—in the case of the economic crisis, fear of losing one’s house, one’s job, one’s savings. Obviously, financial matters are consuming in a very serious, very unavoidable way—people need money to survive, and without it, lifestyles change—but I think there’s something more to think about in terms of the way we accept the events happening around us.

Consider a different serious issue. In the past several days, there has been a bit of a surge in crime around Columbia’s campus. Last Saturday, an unidentified student was robbed near 123rd Street and Amsterdam Avenue; a few days later, someone was stabbed at the 110th Street subway stop. It’s too early to tell whether or not these presumably separate incidents are part of a pattern of increased violence. But certainly, they have played out much in the same way that the early stages of any crisis might play out—complete with the administration’s treating them with extra levels of precaution. After last month’s spree of assaults, Public Safety already seemed to be increasing its presence around campus. Barnard Public Safety’s recent announcement that it will begin patrolling residence halls only added credence to this notion.
In much the same way that I’m not sure about when people are supposed to start acknowledging a shift in the status quo with regards to economic status, I’m not sure when we’re supposed to start acknowledging a shift in the safety of Columbia’s campus.

At what point should we begin to feel unsafe in this neighborhood? And at what point does feeling unsafe begin to define—or at least influence—our lives here? How many more of these incidents would it take to have a serious impact on how we behave on a daily basis?

I would be lying if I were to say that, after that string of assaults a few weeks ago, I didn’t catch myself looking over my shoulder more than I had before in my time at Columbia. But did I ever curtail my late-night runs to Koronet? Did I ever opt out of a trip to 1020 because I feared for my own safety? Absolutely not. But that doesn’t mean that if the pattern were to continue I wouldn’t consider some of these alternatives—it just means that I haven’t yet.

So when do these large events in the newspaper—whether it be the Spectator or the New York Times—go beyond being distant and begin to impact our everyday experience? The public safety incidents have a more direct impact on our lives than the financial crisis, but both situations are ones in which Columbia students have (or will soon have) some large vested interest. I’m not exactly sure how major world events transition to the personal level and seep into people’s everyday lives, but unless we come into direct contact with them, the removal seems to make it difficult for us to recognize what exactly is going on.

Right now, these events are just numbers, statistics telling us about one more attempted robbery, just like graphs telling us about rises in unemployment. Certainly, if these crises escalate or even just continue, that might change. But for now, unless you’re directly affected, they’re still just numbers. And as long as they stay that way, we’re going to go about our daily lives as if nothing has changed. Even when incidents are happening in our own backyard to people just like us—people just as vulnerable—the human mind has difficulty accepting its own vulnerability. This mechanism allows us to function as normal, but perhaps—from the most cynical standpoint imaginable—it’ll make us a little late to the game in preparing for whatever comes next.

Dan Blank is a Columbia College senior majoring in political science. That Is the Question runs alternate Wednesdays. Opinion@columbiaspectator.com">Opinion@columbiaspectator.com