Crisis and Terror in the Age of Anxiety: 9/11, the Global Financial Crisis and ISIS

251 Pages·2017·7.09 MB·English

by  Luke Howie

Crisis and Terror in the Age
of Anxiety
Luke Howie (cid:129) Perri Campbell
Crisis and Terror
in the Age
of Anxiety
9/11, the Global Financial Crisis and ISIS
LukeHowie PerriCampbell
SchoolofSocialSciences CollegeofDesignandSocialContext
MonashUniversity RMITUniversity
Melbourne,Victoria,Australia Melbourne,Victoria,Australia
ISBN978-1-137-51628-2 ISBN978-1-137-51629-9(eBook)
DOI10.1057/978-1-137-51629-9
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2016963102
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Acknowledgements
This book, and the research within it, are a product of a long journey
involving research into the impact of 9/11 on people in diverse parts
of the world that included places like Melbourne, Geelong, Sydney,
Los Angeles, Auckland, Mosul, Baghdad and Kabul. Soon we were
witnessing similar consequences emerging as a result of other threats
and risks such as the simultaneously ubiquitous yet hidden Global
FinancialCrisis(GFCorsub-primemortgagecrisisortheforeclosure
crisis) and the supposed threat posed by criminals, people from
ff
di erent religions, bullies, social networking websites, tainted food,
to name a small few. What they had in common was an exaggerated,
often incredible, human, decision-making based, response. That
response can be broadly called anxiety. Anxiety itself is then, in
ff
turn, made subject to further anxieties which include the e ects of
stress on the body, on the mind, and on our abilities to maintain
relationships, employment, and well-being in an increasingly com-
plex, and doubtful, 21st century. People we learn, when one spends
time with them, are anxiety seeking machines. Anxiety, you see is
–
bothdevastatingandprotecting anxietymakesusfeelbad,butifwe
’
concentrate on our anxiety then we can avoid confronting anxiety s
cause, impetus, or its hard, resistant, kernel. This book is our modest
attempt at confronting some of these things. We do not necessarily
feel better for having done so.
v
vi Acknowledgements
fi –
Assuch,our rstacknowledgementsaretothosepeople manyofthem
–
young, disadvantaged to some degree, often marginalised who were the
respondentsinourresearch.Youareforeverwithus,andwehopewehave
donejusticetoyourwordsasweunderwentprocessesofturningtheminto
our words to write this book. The stories we heard are both haunting and
full of hope. They promise a future of rage but also love.
Our research would not have been possible without a host of
colleagues that have assisted us throughout. The following people
ff
have o ered feedback and advice at many stages in the research and
writing process: Peter Kelly, Chris Hickey, Christine Trost, Lynn
’
Harrison, Kerry OBrien, Pete Lentini, Craig Hollis, Lucas Walsh,
Ros Black and Ben Wellings. We also want to thank our colleagues in
the School of Education at Deakin University, School of Social
Sciences at Monash University with special acknowledgement of the
Politics and International Relations department, and the Institute for
theStudyofSocietalIssuesattheUniversityofCalifornia atBerkeley.
Our thanks also go to our undergraduate and postgraduate students,
fi
with whom ongoing debates on these and related matters signi cantly
aided our ability to crystalize many of the phenomena we explore in
these pages. In particular, students in the Politics of Identity course at
ff
Monash University o ered deep insights into possible anxious eco-
nomic futures.
Ourthankstofriendsandfamilythathaveputupwithusthroughoutthe
process of researching, writing and travelling in Australia and the United
Stateswherewevisitedsomediverselocationsforourresearchthatincluded
Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, Orange County, Boston,
Manhattan, Lincoln and Omaha. Our thanks to Margaret and Craig
Campbell,HamishCampbell,Chantelle,KentandOllieHodgson,Maree
Luckman, Maddi Howie, Elle Howie, Margaret Luckman, Lawrence and
Kathryn Obaldo, Kaine and Jaci Leonard, Chris Henderson, Sarah Craig,
Shan Hyder and Kerri Coomber, Nick Hyder, Apollo, Christine Trost,
PeterKellyandChrisHickey.Ourthanksalsotothededicatededitorsand
employeesatPalgraveMacmillan.
Thefollowingchaptersarerevisedversionsofarticlespublishedelsewhere,
andtheyareusedherewithpermission.Chapterfouroriginallyappearedas
‘ ’ ’
GuerrillaSelfhood:ImaginingYoungPeoplesEntrepreneurialFutures,in
Acknowledgements vii
–
theJournalofYouthStudies,volume19,issue7,pp.906 920.Partofchapter
‘“
sixoriginallyappearedas WearaNecklaceofH(R)opeSidebySidewith
” ’
me : Young Peoples Neo-Liberal Futures and Popular Culture as Political
’
Action, in the collection of essays edited by Peter Kelly and Jo Pike titled
’
Neo-LiberalismandAusterity:TheMoralEconomiesofYoungPeoplesHealth
–
and Well-Being (2017, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 53 68). Chapter eight
‘
originally appeared as Security Guards and Counter-terrorism: Tourism
’
andGapsinTerrorismPrevention,intheInternationalJournalofReligious
–
Tourism and Pilgrimage, volume 1, issue 2, pp. 38 47, available in open
accessatArrow@DIT(arrow.dit.ie).
Contents
1 Imagining a Future of Crisis, Terror and Anxiety 1
2 Anxiety, Violence and the Social World 23
3 Precarious Futures: Young People and the Global
Financial Crisis 47
4 Guerrilla Selfhood: Imagining Entrepreneurial Futures 73
5 Responsiveness and Re-imagining the Future
with Occupy and Black Lives Matter 95
6 The Global Financial Crisis in Pop-Culture 123
’
7 Iraqi Womens Stories of Anxiety and Unrest
from the Blogosphere 153
8 Security Guards and Counter-terrorism:
Gaps in Terrorism Prevention 177
9 The Politics of Anxiety 193
ix
x Contents
References 211
Index 239
1
Imagining a Future of Crisis, Terror
and Anxiety
‘ ’ ff
The world needs tranquillity, was the advice o ered by Nathan Kline,
fi
theresearchdirectorofRocklandStateHospitalandseminal gureinthe
history of psychopharmacology. At a Manhattan dinner attended by
fi ’
Kline and fellow seminal gure Frank Berger the course of the worlds
–
relationshipwithanxietywasaltered(Stossel2014:161 162).Bergerwas
–
the creator of the psychoactive drug meprobamate better known as
fi
Miltown. Miltown was the rst mass-marketed psychiatric drug
(Herzberg 2009). Its arrival to the pharmaceutical marketplace was
initiallymetwithlittleinterest.Inthemonthsfollowingitsintroduction
in May 1955, its manufacturer Carter Products only sold about $7500
worthpermonth.InDecember1955Americansbought$500,000worth
‘ ’
of Miltown and soon they were buying tens of millions worth of
Miltown a year (Stossel 2014: 162). As a measure of its popularity, its
–
use began to saturate popular culture as the use of psychoactive drugs
saturates our culture today. It was even praised by Aldous Huxley; the
grandfather of our fears of a drug-addled, hellish, dystopian future. It
seemedtobethecure.Thiswasthebirthofantianxietymedication,and
‘ ’ ’
foratimethereseemedtobeasolutionto todayspressureliving anda
perilous 1950s world that provided daily reminders of danger and
© The Author(s) 2017 1
L. Howie, P. Campbell, Crisis and Terror in the Age of Anxiety,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-51629-9_1