I asked an 8-year-old friend what she likes about her (public) school. It is in a prosperous Manhattan neighborhood.
“We have really good security,” she responded. “They don’t let anybody in.”
Are there really that many criminals who want to knock over an elementary school?
“We have a lot of lock-down drills,” she said enthusiastically.
The concern is a Sandy Hook Elementary type scenario. The odds of this happening are quite small but not zero. Lanza shot his way past the locked door to the building and began shooting before anyone could have implemented a lockdown drill, so all the rehearsals, locked doors, etc. are mostly in the nature of security theater.
People’s sense of risk is not rational – they are afraid of flying on a commercial jet but unconcerned about the cab ride to the airport, even though the cab ride is much more dangerous. People get killed in cabs by the ones and two’s every day, but a plane going down with hundreds on board once every few years make the headlines, so that’s what people remember.
Maybe security was the one thing the school was really good at.
I think the risk averse attitude of modern society came about through improved health and safety conditions. In the post World War 2 years, for the first time, normal people could expect to live to their 70s if they didn’t do anything too stupid. The reason this changed attitudes towards risk, is before, the marginal likelihood of being killed in youth or middle aged by doing risky stuff wasn’t much greater than for playing it completely safe -there was just too much random things out there that could kill you. Once people could reasonably expect to live to their 70s, they really wanted to make sure they got their 70 plus years. Lifestyles (basically drug use, including tobacco use) that meant you would die in your late 50s and early 60s instead of your 70s became looked down upon. And the normal puritanism and conformity meant that even people who still wanted to take the risks were prevented from taking the risks.
I don’t think this is necessarily a bad attitude, just like with many things associated with the post-World War 2 era its probably not sustainable.
This is connected to the culture of fear:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Culture-Fear-Americans-Minorities/dp/0465003362
And it is extremely unfortunate, since we are creating fearful, helpless children that grow into fearful, helpless adults. More parents need to be free range.
http://www.freerangekids.com/
@Ed
Will there be a point when the (decreasing?) marginal utility of additional years at the end of life causes people to be willing to take more risks throughout? Also, doctors have gotten better at patching people up (haven’t they?) – shouldn’t that make people more willing to take risks?
Sad that when asked about her school an 8-year-old says, “We have a lot of lock-down drills.” I graduated high school June 1966. All through grammar school we had civil defense drills (duck and cover) to mitigate the effects of a nuclear attack. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_and_cover] Although if I were asked about my school in 1957, I would not say “We have lots of air raid drills.” Because we didn’t have lots. Maybe 2 a year.
Mitch, I think people are too risk adverse now in the US. People seem to overestimate the quality of life they will have once they get to their late 70s.