Real risks and fake pathos

It is a funny thing with collective risk awareness. Human existence is full of perpetual risk, but our awareness of various risks differ. Even if different risks are equal in frequency and magnitude, some are perceived emotionally and with great and immediate personal involvement, while others only in intellectual terms, distanced from one’s existential core. For example, outcries over the risks of war tend to be highly emotional and gripping to the extent that songs about it can transcend the conflict they were originally about. There are scores of anti-war songs which, like 1960s ballad Eve of Destruction by Barry McGuire, are passionately replayed by several generations. They always have the same sad message of impending doom and lack of progress in defeating war. By contrast, there are very few songs on capital risk, stock market fluctuations, or anything for that matter that is seriously related to economics – Hank