In 1943, with the atrocities of World War II still lining the fields of Europe, the Walt Disney Company released a short cartoon titled Chicken Little. While slightly altered from the original fable in that Disney way, the tale of Chicken Little (named Chicken Licken in the original version) is similar to that which we know of today. An acorn falls on the head of Chicken Little, causing him to declare, “The sky is falling!” Somewhat spurred by the scheming of Foxy Loxy, Chicken Little goes on to become the leader of a henhouse full of hysterical animals. With the not-so-subtle shadow of Hitler and Nazi propaganda passing over the cartoon, American viewers caught a glimpse of the dangers of mass hysteria.

The saccharine 2005 reincarnation of the movie misses the point: What perhaps makes the 1943 version of Chicken Licken most interesting is how aptly it applies to the literature and art of the time – a time of confusion, hysteria and panic. The fruit of modernism was just beginning to ripen, and the seeds of postmodernism were just being sown in the ground.

With every book published in the last few years labeled as “post-Sept. 11,” it seems there are some lingering traces of Chicken Licken’s mass hysteria. While the sky may not be falling, people are running around as though it were about to. We are a culture of fear, one still haunted by the smoke of that September morning. We are a culture that, despite everything telling us otherwise, is at war with our own self-perpetuating terror and fear. What haunts us is not what has happened but the possibility of what could happen.

In his newly released book, Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear, Dan Gardner explains how fear is a natural reaction that stems from the good ol’ troglodytic days, when fear was necessary for survival. However, because our brain reacts more strongly to images and anecdotal evidence than it does to quantitative evidence like statistics, something as strongly visceral as an image of Sept. 11 now produces the same reaction as a dangerous situation from millennia ago.

Panic. Run. Survive.

We as individuals are in no more danger now – post-Sept. 11 – than we were on Sept. 10, 2001. Yet, we are all wandering around aimlessly like some Don DeLillo character, just waiting to kick up some dust once things hit the fan.

Right before the recent primary in Texas, Hillary Clinton released the now infamous “3 a.m. White House” ad. “It’s 3 a.m., and your children are safe and asleep,” the ad begins, panning over the quaint images of resting children. “But there’s a phone in the White House, and it’s ringing … Who do you want answering the phone?” While Clinton denies the charges, this ad reeks of the fearmongering and sensationalism that George W. Bush perfected in his 2004 campaign for president. And unsurprisingly, Americans ate it up.

As college students, we are as emotionally affected as anyone else. Whether it comes in the form of a noose or any one of the innumerable crime alerts, we are constantly barraged by images that reinforce this culture of fear. In fact, we are as much the co-creators of fear as we are participants in it.

Racism, sexism and the mammoth of terrorism are all very scary, very fear-inducing. Yet, when does reason take over and fear finally subside?

Only concerted thought and intelligence can protect us. What nearly five years of a costly and unsubstantiated war on “terror” have failed to provide – that is, a sense of security – we need to find within ourselves. As Gardner argues, the rational part of our brain is the only line of defense against the overwhelming panic that is daily whipped up by politicians and journalists. Perhaps we can all start using the millennia of advancement that we have over our primitive fear receptors and all calm down for a change. Stop waiting for the security alert to drop from orange to yellow – it may never happen. No matter how threatening they may be, an acorn is still an acorn, an image is still an image and a rope is still a rope. Just stop and think.

Matthew John Phillips is a junior English major. He can be reached at mjphilli@umd.edu.