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What swine flu reveals about the culture of fear
When Margaret Chan, head of the World Heath Organisation, raised the pandemic threat alert from four to five in response to the swine flu outbreak, she had no qualms about using the language of fear. ‘All of humanity is under threat’, she declared.

When, in the future, historians look back on this performance of fear, and on the swine flu panic more broadly, they will surely ask themselves: was Chan speaking as a public health official or as a moral entrepreneur? It is striking that Chan, like most fear entrepreneurs, does not perceive her behaviour as being in any way illegitimate or unduly alarmist. Indeed, she, like other fearmongers, qualified her warning with a reassuring statement: ‘Don’t panic.’ ...

...Experts, particularly scientific experts, play a uniquely important role in today’s culture of fear. Many of our anxieties are provoked by the statements and predictions of experts. Experts warn about the potential devastating impact of global warming, impending food and energy shortages, or of an asteroid striking Earth. They warn us of dangers far (or near) in the future that cannot be seen by ordinary human beings. And their dire predictions about an impending flu epidemic and various other ‘super bugs’ frequently capture the public’s imagination.

Expert warnings usually begin with the statement ‘research shows…’, and conclude with a demand for resources to be devoted to the task of preventing some future dreadful scenario from becoming a reality. Expert warnings are taken seriously because they are underpinned by the most influential form of twenty-first century authority: the authority of science. Consequently, the support of experts is continually sought out by other scaremongers – both religious and secular – who want to add some moral authority to their campaigns.

In recent decades, the status of experts has increased exponentially. Experts claim to have insights that ordinary people could never possess. Their views are looked upon as far more important and profound than the public’s. Expert opinion is more than just an opinion: the statement ‘an expert warns…’ now gives great force and influence to a campaigner’s claims. Expert witnesses are, in many ways, the new demonologists: numerous children have been taken away from their parents after expert witnesses claimed to have detected physical signs of abuse. Fortunately, in some cases children have been returned to parents once the courts realised that the expert’s opinion was just that: the opinion of yet another scaremonger. Yet although experts often contradict one another, society finds it difficult to ignore what they have to say. ...