by MotorSquirrel

Created on: May 06, 2008

Lessons In Fear-The Way We Are In America Today

We are a fearful nation.Turn on the television, read the front page headlines of the newspaper or your internet homepage of choice, and you will undoubtedly find a story on terrorism. Terrorism may be the most obvious fear that Americans have, but there are other underlying fears that are stripping our country of our forefathers hope that all of us would have "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". I do not believe they could have thought that America would turn out to be the way it actually is.

As a writer of female origin, I have seen a disturbing trend in the way our appearance is perceived among society. We fear that we will not be accepted by society if we do not look a certain way. God forbid we have cellulite, wrinkles or unwanted facial hair. More and more Women, as young as sixteen are having some kind of plastic surgery to improve their appearance. Plastic surgery is even replacing the car as an appropriate graduation gift of High School aged students. I recently questioned random RCCC students ranging in age from 16 to 62, every one of the female subjects answered that if they could afford it, they would have something done to enhance their looks. The most common answer to what would they have altered was their breasts, followed by having some kind of liposuction. Even men are being targeted about aging, mostly about grey hair, aching backs and erectile dysfunction. The men I questioned thought that it was acceptable for women to have plastic surgery, but were not comfortable having it themselves, unless medically necessary. All of the students agreed that plastic surgery is a great way for a person who has a medical dysfunction or disfigurement to have an opportunity to be normal.

We live in a society that is formed by the trends pushed on us from huge marketing campaigns by big corporations. Television is the easiest venue to pitch products to consumers. Billions of dollars are spent on research and development of commercials. Proctor and Gamble (a huge packaging company) is number one out of the top 100 companies, according to Advertising Age Data Center, having spent a reported $4.9 Billion dollars in 2007. Marketing firms have gone to great lengths to ensure a successful advertisement for their products. In a recent documentary on PBS called The Persuaders, it was revealed how corporations are using psychiatrists to target what emotional trigger will make the consumer buy the product being

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