From Fear to Guns
Article name: “Why Do Some Brains Enjoy Fear?”
Article by: Allegra Ringo from The Atlantic
Commentary by: Sam Smathers 4th
Due to it
being the season of fear, reading this article seemed fitting. Allegra Ringo
talks to a fear specialist, Dr. Margee Kerr about why people enjoy being afraid
and analyzed the doctor’s responses in this article. Keer says that not
everyone enjoys the feeling of fear; this has to do with how your individual
brain deals with the increasing amounts of dopamine and adrenaline created
during fearful experiences. People tend to enjoy the feeling of being scared
without a legitimate scary situation at hand, hints haunted houses, scary
movies, and roller coasters. They want to be safe, but feel afraid. What is
considered to be scary varies across different cultures, a culture tends to
shape what people consider to be “scary” based off of the principals of what is
not natural, or the undead. The obsession with the un-dead can be explained by
the human fascination of the afterlife. There have been people since the
beginning of recorded history that have enjoyed scaring themselves, hints the
early emergence of story tellers. Ringo concludes by saying that you will have
a higher connection to someone if you undergo a scary experience together or a
super happy experience.
This
article was interesting in the way that its purpose was to inform people about
fear, instead of persuade an audience. I am not a fan of scary stuff and
Halloween, for me at least, is just a time where I can show up looking ratchet
to school for a week and say it’s a costume. Fear is simply hormones, and if we
could control our hormones, theoretically we could never be afraid, or we could
be afraid all the time. When technology becomes advanced enough, I think that
this knowledge of how to manipulate fear may be used in the battlefield by
creating fearless soldiers. Religion acts as a substitute now, but soon I think
it will be replaced with something with fewer loopholes, such as science. This would
be one of the worst things to happen to humanity, people that forget about
their mortality and only know of nationalism handed guns in a country that isn’t
their own, but I have an inkling that it is in our clouded future.
source: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/10/why-do-some-brains-enjoy-fear/280938/
I totally agree with you 100%, although I hate feeling scared and I never look forward to it, but every once in a while I don't mind a few scares. I usually find scary stuff funny for some odd reason, especially when it is stupid. It is our brains responsibility to be scared or not so I agree with you.
ReplyDeleteInteresting connection made between the research and how it may effect our future. Honestly that future kind of scares me. A world without fear or eternal fear is frightening. The manipulation that people could use to force others to carry out dangerous orders or to live in fear of someone such as a dictator. I don't like the sound of that...
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you. I am a total scaredy-cat and if I could control that I could, which this article makes seem possible. Fear just incites fear into me, not excitement, and hopefully one day it won't be so scary.
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