Risk takers.
A SOFREP editorial on Americans’ attitudes toward refugees spun me into contemplating the whole concept of risk as it is manifested in modern America. The citizens of the land of the free and the home of the brave have become almost pathologically risk averse.
Soccer moms bubble-wrap their kids and scrub their little hands with anti-bacterial hand sanitizer the moment they hit dirt. “Presidential” candidates pander to fear of attack. The media goes absolutely nuts over the latest “epidemic of — fill in the blank.” Far too many people who derive their sense of purpose — or gain power and wealth — through convincing everybody else that they need to be fearful.
It works in part because we humans have distorted perceptions of risk.
Paul Slovic of the Decision Research Institute in Oregon has done groundbreaking research on flawed risk-perception. Slovic’s research shows that people overestimate risk when it is associated with certain triggers (courtesy USA Today):
Catastrophic potential: Lots of people affected at once, rather than in small numbers over time.
Familiarity: A risk that isn’t common knowledge.
Understanding: A sense that something isn’t well understood by experts.
Personal control: A sense that danger is outside your control.
Voluntariness: Something can do harm even when you don’t voluntarily put yourself in danger.
Children: Mention the word children, and panic multiplies.
Victim identity: As Joseph Stalin said: “One death is a tragedy; one million deaths is a statistic.”
Origin: Man-made risks are viewed as more dangerous than natural disasters.
My wife and I went to London back in 1996. A friend of mine — a very intelligent person, too — was fretful that we’d get caught up in an IRA terrorist attack. The perception was that London was a dangerous place. Wow. Really? The likelihood of getting blown up by the IRA was so vanishingly small that it couldn’t even register statistically. We were in infinitely more danger negotiating traffic with everybody driving the WRONG WAY!
But that’s how risk perception works.
The men whom I’ve spent a lifetime studying and trying to understand lived lives of very high risk — far higher on a day-to-day basis than the lives we lead today. Just the real possibility of dying from disease or an infected tooth made life a riskier proposition then than now.
(Wonder what Warren Zevon would say about that?)
Life’ll kill ya
That’s what I said
Life’ll kill ya
Then you’ll be dead
Life’ll find ya
Wherever you go
Requiescat in pace
That’s all she wrote
The Long Hunters who filtered through the Appalachians in search of new hunting grounds, the Mountain Men that pushed up the Missouri River into the Rocky Mountains, the explorers of Africa, the men who worked cattle in the outback from the American West to Australia, or went down into the mines to hew out precious metals — they all lived lives of enormous risk.
An accident, a broken leg, likely meant death. A grizzly attack could rip you to ribbons and leave you crushed and broken along the trail. An overturned canoe in fast-flowing water could be all she wrote. So could getting thrown from a horse. You could starve, freeze to death or fall off a cliff. Mines caved in or blew up. Loggers were crushed by falling trees. In Africa, a black mamba strike was 100 percent fatal, and everything bit, scratched, stabbed and clawed. And if you escaped them all, blackwater fever could take you down.
And then there was the (much smaller) threat of attack by pissed off natives, or robbery and murder at the hands of brigands of any mash-up of race or creed.
The Frontier Partisans undertook the risks in order to reap the rewards — gold, ivory, deerskins, land, beaver pelts, an untrammeled life. But they also knew how to shave the odds so that they were a little less daunting.
The saying that there are old pilots and bold pilots but no old, bold pilots applies in spades to the Frontier Partisans. Recklessness would get you killed. But so would hesitation when action was required. The only way to survive and thrive was to prepare as well as possible, to be exceedingly careful and watchful of danger when moving through the country, and when the time came to act — whether it be fending off an attack or fording a river — to act decisively, with no holding back.
Allen W. Eckert said of Kentucky frontiersman Simon Kenton that he contained a potent mixture of cold daring and cold caution. That is the sweet spot right there.
It can and should be applied in modern life. To the topic of Webb’s editorial — take in refugees we helped to make, those tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free. And keep an eye on ’em, especially the young men. Take that trip to Out There — but get the lay of the land, learn enough language to communicate. Prepare. Have contingency plans for an emergency. Focus on real threats and how to mitigate them; don’t get bamboozled by the packaged freakout of the day.
There are many, many folks who aren’t buying into this fear-mongering stuff — but too much of the mainstream is.
I have to think that the ghosts of Al Sieber and Simon Kenton, of Frederick Russell Burnham and Frederick Courteney Selous are looking down from Valhalla and wondering what the hell happened.
Greg Marshall says
Good piece.
I grew up on a farm, with LOTS of opportunity for self-destruction: falls, perforations, involuntary amputation, being crushed by large animals, food poisoning etc. Fortunately my mother was a nurse and trained us to avoid unacceptable risk. (ok to play in the hayloft, but make sure the pitchforks were in the rack etc).
I like Dan Gardner’s book:
http://dangardner.ca/book/risk-the-science-and-politics-of-fear/
Personally, I don’t worry about random external events that are less probable than being struck by lightning.
Sometimes it is not the nanny state that is the problem. It is our nanny selves.
JimC says
That’s GREAT stuff. My great-grandfather was a South Dakota rancher. Lost his arm in an accident then years later broke his back in a fall. That’s what sent the Ginters to California.
I would posit that we have a nanny state because of our nanny selves. We need a culture shift. Pushing that stone.
John says
I am pretty sure that our grandfather Ken’s older brother drowned saving him from a pond in South Dakota, too. I know that he hated open bodies of water all of his life.
On the extreme other hand, our niece wouldn’t let her daughter eat beef for several years, because of Mad Cow Disease. Now there is a microscopically small risk, blown way out of proportion. When Sabrina came to our house without her mother, we usually had hamburgers, because she craved some good beef.
Go figure.
John C.
JimC says
That’s right. Forgot about that.
Mad Cow — yes, another freak-out-of-the-month flavor.
Pat_H says
There’s a book entitled “Risk” that details people’s perceptions of acceptable risk over the ages. It’s changed massively.
An example that always comes to my mind is early sea voyages in the age of sail. On long voyages, somebody died a catastrophic death, usually several somebodies, every single time. That was just the accepted risk. Think of how people’s mindsets were different. “I”m going on the ship. . . somebody is going to die. . .might be me. . . let’s go.”
Working in the law as I do, I can see first hand how concepts of risk evolve even in our own time, in part because the law pushes it. I joke to my kids that I grew up “before the invention of safety” as parents today worry about stuff that my parents didn’t seem to worry about at all.
While I’m rambling, I will note that even risky things of old were much less risky than we like now to suppose. The Corps of Discovery didn’t lose a single man. Not one. That’s amazing, but it says something about risk. In most US wars, which are undoubtedly very risky, the percentage of combat deaths compared to service numbers is much smaller than we’d suppose based on popular depictions of them. Which leads me to the next comment, not only are our calculations of past risk often flawed, but we are also fascinated with risk.
I frankly think that’s why people are fascinated with space travel right now. People often cite discovery of the unknown, and related things, and that is a factor. But part of our fascination is that it sure seems risky, but not risky in a pointless way.
Greg Marshall says
I thought they lost one guy, to untreated appendicitis, relatively early (at the Mandan Villages?). My memory fails and my Stephen Ambrose library is not ready to hand.
Amazing accomplishment, all told.
Although Alexander Mackenzie preceded them to the Pacific overland by 10 years. (Scottish chauvinism, eh?)
JimC says
Think you’re right on the one man.
As for Mackenzie — the Scots went EVERYWHERE, man.
JimC says
I joke to my kids that I grew up “before the invention of safety”…
Love that. Now young people are raised to think they should be kept safe from having their feelings hurt. This is called “progress.”
Craig Rullman says
The obsession with “safety”, and “keeping us safe” drives me absolutely nuts. Exploited by every company and politician with access to media, they have also been instrumental in creating the “Nice Nazis” and other cultural ills. As a young man, my father strapped me into the open front cockpit of his Pitts Special with a hardware store chain. Then we took off and went up for an hour of loops, Split-Ss, Immelman turns and a fantastic pass upside down over the runway at Susanville airport. He would be in jail if he did that today, probably for a long time. Sad how far we have slipped.
JimC says
Add to the wanted poster the evil of the contingency-fee lawyer. There was horrible time in the early 90s when rifles came stock with an eight-pound trigger pull (exaggerating, but you take my point) that we referred to as the lawyer-proof trigger. Gave Pachmayr’s gunsmiths endless work orders. The French, who take an unreasonable amount of shit from know-nothing Americans, frown heavily on contingency fee lawyers and thus crazy-ass Frenchmen do crazy-ass things, especially in the Alps, at their own risk and the whole society gives an insouciant shrug. There is no valor without risk, so returning risk to its proper role in life is on the agenda for the Great Reset.
Wayne says
The accident, the mistake, the fleeting lapse in judgement – these have resulted in some of my most memorable experiences.
JimC says
Oh yes, that fleeting lapse of judgement… whole relationships are built o those.
john roberts says
I’ve seen this defined as “the American inability to process danger”: not that we’re over-frightened, but that we’re scared by the wrong things. People obsess over catching STDs from a public toilet seat, then they go out and have unprotected sex with strangers. They’re terrified about getting e. coli from the burger, when it’s eating burgers that’s going to kill them. They fear incredibly rare diseases like hantavirus, but take no precautions at all against catching flu. Everyone fears immediate, catastrophic diseases but are oblivious of the bad habits like eating junk food, smoking, drinking too much (guilty there) and all the other things that take many years to kill you but kill you just as dead. Some think this is because we evolved to handle immediate risk (gotta kill that sabretooth quick before he eats you) but didn’t live long enough to understand long-term risk. Modern humans are really good at taking care of immediate dangers but we ignore long-term dangers.
JimC says
Case in point: I once had a woman come into the newspaper quite exercised about chem trails and the chemicals the government is spewing on us. She reeked of cigarettes.
Breaker Morant says
I also was born before the invention of safety. Born in 1966-High School grad 1985. One of my favorite stories about that era is from a friend a year older. He got home from his FIRST day of kindergarden and his parents were not home. He figured correctly that they had gone to an auction sale which was a common activity for them.
He headed down to the dairy barn and started chores by himself after his FIRST day of K-Garden,
JimC says
Kidlets are plenty resilient.
Eccentric Cowboy says
I’d wager that I’m the youngest fella here reading this stuff, and even I’ve noticed a massive shift in attitudes over the years. I was somehow blessed or cursed with an almost uncanny lack of fear regarding dangerous things. Might’ve hit my head as a youngin. I spent my young times playing with knives, hatchets, scampering around in the bush trying to ferret out whatever dangerous critters I could lay my hands on and heaven forbid when I was finally old enough to handle long guns. I got hurt from things, sure, but I learned from my mistakes and didn’t make them again later. I still bear the scar from a poorly aimed hatchet stroke when splitting wood. You can bet I wasn’t as casual with my aim after that! I didn’t even go to the hospital for that one though.
Even now the idea of someone breaking into my home with violent intent or being attacked by a dangerous animal doesn’t arouse any more anxiety in me than if you mentioned that we were out of chips.
That’s part of the problem with the ninnies today in cities. They don’t have any contrast to know what’s actually dangerous and what isn’t. To those who had to take personal responsibility for themselves and understood what real danger is, they have no real fear or anxiety. They are familiar with danger and are confident in dealing with it. But for those who have never actually callused their hands the everyday seems fraught with danger, often things that are very unlikely to actually happen. I’m always appalled when I see people wringing their hands over a shooting where three people died, when in the last week twenty people were killed in traffic accidents and don’t bat an eye! I can’t believe people are raising such a fuss over ingredients in milk and meat that might or might not be unhealthy when Yellowstone is due any year now to explode.
I believe part of the problem also stems from rapid communication. In a matter of minutes a freak accident can spread over the internet like wildfire and give people the impression that such tragedies are infinitely more common than they are. The Twitter Effect.
This is actually one of the themes I’m exploring in one of my upcoming books. The idea that “civilized” people, as REH would call them, without contrast from the danger that nature presents are unprepared to deal with actual peril and those who have long been accustomed to it, while their life expectancies are shorter, are far better prepared to deal with such problems, both mentally and physically.
I choose to live my life without constant fear. Everyone dies sooner or later, and it’s better to live rather than simply to exist.
JimC says
Think you’re right on all points. Life lived in fear is no kinda life. Awareness of danger is not the same thing as fear. One is exhilarating and the other is debilitating.
Eccentric Cowboy says
As Chief Aupumut of the Mohicans once said “When it comes time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.”
Lane makes a good point too, about men separated from nature. I’d suggest that lack of nature makes one’s heart both harder and yet softer. Harder in that living in a jungle of cement and steal can breed apathy to the world around them, focusing all on the day to day and never knowing what takes place beyond their walls. Softer because they never know the hardships of true hunger, building things with your own two hands and unable to comprehend bringing death to plants or animals for survival. They don’t know how to lift a hand in defense of their own lives or those they love like the Eloi in The Time Machine.
I was flabbergasted when I heard of some extreme animal rights activists actually advocating to genetically change lions and other carnivores to eat plants so that they wouldn’t have to eat other animals anymore. They insist on imposing their ideals on a world that simply can’t stomach them. They want a world without pain or challenge. But without opposition to struggle against there can be no progress. Inevitably such people will fade into obscurity, washed away when true challenges of reality face them while those who understand the ways of the world will survive. Such is the way of nature. While the cities may grow the spirit of Frontier Partisans will always survive. That’s what they do after all.
JimC says
Yep EC — the pacifist spirit does not exist in nature and can only exist among the protected of mankind.
lane batot says
Yeah, I read some of the same, ridiculous, completely ignorant Animal Rights rants about predatory animals(another suggestion from these radicals, is to JUST LET endangered predator-types like Tigers go extinct, because, well, they EAT MEAT! And KILL THINGS!)–urban stupidity(and ignorance) at its ultimate! They obviously have no idea the overall(not to mention total environmental destruction) animal suffering they would CREATE with this notion! And this STOOOOPID notion that vegetarian animals are all innocent and kindly creatures–hell, when I was in Africa, it was the damn PLANT EATERS who were FAR more likely to kill yer arse! Not to EAT you, of course, just because they didn’t much like yer presence! We never worried as much about lions, leopards, hyenas, etc.(well okay, you DID havta watch yer arse near water because of crocs….) as we did about bumping into Cape Buffalo, Elephant, Rhino, or especially Hippos! Vegetarians all! Well, I suppose those folks, after eliminating the carnivores by trans-diet operations, would want to have mandatory Aggression Therapy classes for the big meanie hoofed critters……..
lane batot says
I definitely was one of those–what is referred to now as “free range kids”– but far more feral than even most kids growing up during the same period!(when the majority were “free rangers”). I think the above comment hit it right on the head referring to city folks being the ones with all these anxiety issues–they never really learn to fend for themselves and learn self sufficiency(and the confidence that comes with that automatically) in a “wilder” more natural environment. The Lakota Standing Bear once said, “Man’s heart, away from nature, grows hard”. I agree, but I would add to that–“Man’s brain, away from nature, grows STOOPID!” Most urbanized people without any regular contact to the REAL real world–generations worth–have become as “domesticated” as many overly domesticated, helpless animals kept and bred in captivity for generations. Yet these are the ones, by their sheer stupid herd mentality, that dictate policy to everyone else!
JimC says
We are living in the era of the rule of the herd.
Wayne says
Luther Burbank wrote about 100 years ago,
“Every child should have mudpies, grasshoppers, waterbugs, tadpoles, frogs, turtles, elderberries, wild strawberries, acorns, chestnuts, trees to climb, animals to pet, hay fields, pine cones, rocks to roll, lizards, huckleberries and hornets. Any child who has been deprived of these has been deprived of the best part of their education.”
I love that he included hornets.
JimC says
Love this.
lane batot says
…….AND we live in a world now(First World countries, anyway), where most people PAY MONEY to get others to do almost everything for them, so they never learn to do for themselves. Excepting, perhaps, those of us that are FINANCIALLY poor, and have no other choices BUT to figure out how to do stuff on our own! No truer saying than “necessity is the mother of invention”. I have worked for ultra-wealthy people in the past, who grew up in wealth(money-wise)–as opposed to those who got wealthy later on in life by their own efforts. The born-in-wealth folks were some of the most helpless, PITIFUL people I’ve ever been around. It is indeed a sort of curse to be brought up in great financial wealth…..
JimC says
Some wise person said that one should never handicap their children by making their lives easy.