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Executive Times |
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2005 Book Reviews |
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State of
Fear by Michael Crichton |
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Rating: •• (Mildly Recommended) |
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Manipulation What genre provides fiction with
footnotes? We may have to call that the Crichtonian genre. Consistent with
readers’ expectations, Michael Crichton’s latest novel, State of
Fear, provides suspense, technical detail, and a new twist: footnotes to
support Crichton’s personal views. The subject matter is global warming, and
Crichton’s premise is that there are scientists with vested interests in
maintaining a perpetual state of fear. To achieve their goals, they
manipulate data. They maintain a constant media buzz, whether the facts are
in their favor or not. Here’s
an excerpt, all of the chapter titled, “ They were sitting on a
bench across the street from the conference hall, just beyond the milling
crowds near the entrance. It was a busy scene, but Hoffman ignored everything
around him. He spoke rapidly, with great animation, moving his hands so
wildly that he often slapped Evans in the chest, but he never seemed to
notice. “Ten years ago, I began
with fashion and slang,” he said, “the latter being of course a kind of
verbal fashion. I wanted to know the determinants of change in fashion and
speech. What I quickly found is that there are no identifiable determinants.
Fashions change for arbitrary reasons and although there are
regularities—cycles, periodicities, and correlations— these are merely
descriptive, not explanatory. Are you following me?” “I think so,” Evans said. “In any case, I realized
that these periodicities and correlations could be regarded as systems in
themselves. Or if you will, ecosystems. I tested that hypothesis and found it
heuristically valuable. Just as there is an ecology of the natural world,
in the forests and mountains and oceans, so too there is an ecology of the man-made
world of mental abstractions, ideas, and thought. That is what I have
studied.” “I see.” “Within modern culture,
ideas constantly rise and fall. For a while everybody believes something, and
then, bit by bit, they stop believing it. Eventually, no one can remember the
old idea, the way no one can remember the old slang. Ideas are themselves a
kind of fad, you see.” “I understand, Professor,
but why—” “Why do ideas fall out of
favor, you are wondering?” Hoffman said. He was talking to himself. “The answer
is simply—they do. In fashion, as in natural ecology, there are disruptions.
Sharp revisions of the established order. A lightning fire burns down a
forest. A different species springs up in the charred acreage. Accidental,
haphazard, unexpected, abrupt change. That is what the world shows us on
every side.” “Professor. . .“ “But just as ideas can
change abruptly, so, too, can they hang on past their time. Some ideas
continue to be embraced by the public long after scientists have abandoned
them. Left brain, right brain is a perfect example. In the 1970s, it gains
popularity from the work of Sperry at Caltech, who studies a specific group
of brain-surgery patients. His findings have no broader meaning beyond these
patients. Sperry denies any broader meaning. By 1980, it is clear that the
left and right brain notion is just wrong—the two sides of the brain do not
work separately in a healthy person. But in the popular culture, the concept
does not die for another twenty years. People talk about it, believe it,
write books about it for decades after scientists have set it aside.” “Yes, all very
interesting—” “Similarly, in
environmental thought, it was widely accepted in 1960 that there is something
called ‘the balance of nature.’ If you just left nature alone it would come
into a self-maintaining state of balance. Lovely idea with a long pedigree.
The Greeks believed it three thousand years ago, on the basis of nothing.
Just seemed nice. “However, by 1990, no scientist believes in the balance of
nature anymore. The ecologists have all given it up as simply wrong. Untrue.
A fantasy. They speak now of dynamic disequilibrium, of multiple equilibrium
states. But they now understand that nature is never in balance. Never
has been, never will be. On the contrary, nature is always out of
balance, and that means—” “Professor,” Evans said,
“I’d like to ask you—” “That means that mankind,
which was formerly defined as the great disrupter of the natural order, is nothing
of the sort. The whole environment is being constantly disrupted all the
time anyway.” “But George Morton.. .“ “Yes, yes, you wonder
what I discussed with George Morton. I am coming to that. We are not off
topic. Because of course, Morton wanted to know about environmental ideas.
And particularly the idea of environmental crisis.” “What did you tell him?” “If you study the media,
as my graduate students and I do, seeking to find shifts in normative
conceptualization, you discover something extremely interesting. We looked at
transcripts of news programs of the major networks—NBC, ABC, CBS. We also
looked at stories in the newspapers of “What did you find?”
Evans said, taking his cue. “There was a major shift
in the fall of 1989. Before that time, the media did not make excessive use
of terms such as crisis, catastrophe, cataclysm, plague, or disaster
For example, during the 1 980s, the word crisis appeared in news
reports about as often as the word budget. In addition, prior to 1989,
adjectives such as dire, unprecedented, dreaded were not common in
television reports or newspaper headlines. But then it all changed.” “In what way?” “These terms started to
become more and more common. The word catastrophe was used five times
more often in 1995 than it was in 1985. Its use doubled again by the year
2000. And the stories changed, too. There was a heightened emphasis on fear,
worry, danger, uncertainty, panic.” “Why should it have
changed in 1989?” “Ah. A good question. Critical
question. In most respects 1989 seemed like a normal year: a Soviet sub
sank in Norway; Tiananmen Square in China; the Exxon Valdez; Salmon
Rushdie sentenced to death; Jane Fonda, Mike Tyson, and Bruce Springsteen all
got divorced; the Episcopal Church hired a female bishop; Poland allowed
striking unions; Voyager went to Neptune; a San Francisco earthquake
flattened highways; and Russia, the US, France, and England all conducted
nuclear tests. A year like any other. But in fact the rise in the use of the
term crisis can be located with some precision in the autumn of 1989.
And it seemed suspicious that it should coincide so closely with the fall of
the Berlin Wall. Which happened on November ninth of that year.” Hoffman fell silent
again, looking at Evans in a significant way. Very pleased with himself. Evans said, “I’m sorry,
Professor. I don’t get it.” “Neither did we. At first
we thought the association was spurious. But it wasn’t. The Berlin
Wall marks the collapse of the Soviet empire. And the end of the Cold
War that had lasted for half a century in the West.” Another silence. Another
pleased look. “I’m sorry,” Evans said
finally. “I was thirteen years old then, and. . .“ He shrugged. “I don’t see where you are
leading.” “I am leading to the
notion of social control, Peter. To the requirement of every sovereign state
to exert control over the behavior of its citizens, to keep them orderly and
reasonably docile. To keep them driving on the right side of the road—or the
left, as the case may be. To keep them paying taxes. And of course we know
that social control is best managed through fear.” “Fear,” Evans said. “Exactly. For fifty
years, Western nations had maintained their citizens in a state of perpetual
fear. Fear of the other side. Fear of nuclear war. The Communist menace. The
Iron Curtain. The Evil Empire. And within the Communist countries, the same
in reverse. Fear of us. Then, suddenly, in the fall of 1989, it was all
finished. Gone, vanished. Over The fall of the Berlin Wall created a
vacuum of fear. Nature abhors a vacuum. Something had to fill it.” Evans frowned. “You’re saying
that environmental crises took the place of the Cold War?” “That is what the
evidence shows. Of course, now we have radical fundamentalism and post—9/l 1
terrorism to make us afraid, and those are certainly real reasons for fear,
but that is not my point. My point is, there is always a cause for fear. The
cause may change over time, but the fear is always with us. Before terrorism
we feared the toxic environment. Before that we had the Communist menace. The
point is, although the specific cause of our fear may change, we are never
without the fear itself. Fear pervades society in all its aspects.
Perpetually.” He shifted on the
concrete bench, turning away from the crowds. “Has it ever occurred to
you how astonishing the culture of Western society really is? Industrialized
nations provide their citizens with unprecedented safety, health, and
comfort. Average life spans increased fifty percent in the last century. Yet
modern people live in abject fear. They are afraid of strangers, of disease,
of crime, of the environment. They are afraid of the homes they live in, the
food they eat, the technology that surrounds them. They are in a particular
panic over things they can’t even see—germs, chemicals, additives,
pollutants. They are timid, nervous, fretful, and depressed. And even more
amazingly, they are convinced that the environment of the entire planet is
being destroyed around them. Remarkable! Like the belief in witchcraft, it’s
an extraordinary delusion—a global fantasy worthy of the Middle Ages. Everything
is going to hell, and we must all live in fear. Amazing. “How has this world view
been instilled in everybody? Because although we imagine we live in different
nations— Evans said nothing. He
knew it wasn’t necessary. “Well, I shall tell you
how,” he said. “In the old days—before your time, Peter—citizens of the West
believed their nation-states were dominated by something called the
military-industrial complex. Eisenhower warned Americans against it in the
1960s, and after two world wars Europeans knew very well what it meant in
their own countries. But the military-industrial complex is no longer the
primary driver of society. In reality, for the last fifteen years we have
been under the control of an entirely new complex, far more powerful and far
more pervasive. I call it the politico-legal-media complex. The PLM. And it
is dedicated to promoting fear in the population—under the guise of promoting
safety.” “Safety is important.” “Please. Western nations
are fabulously safe. Yet people do not feel they are, because of the PLM. And
the PLM is powerful and stable, precisely because it unites so many
institutions of society. Politicians need fears to control the population.
Lawyers need dangers to litigate, and make money. The media need scare
stories to capture an audience. Together, these three estates are so
compelling that they can go about their business even if the scare is totally
groundless. If it has no basis in fact at all. For instance, consider silicon
breast implants.” Evans sighed, shaking his
head. “Breast implants?” “Yes. You will recall
that breast implants were claimed to cause cancer and autoimmune diseases.
Despite statistical evidence that this was not true, we saw high-profile news
stories, high-profile lawsuits, high-profile political hearings. The
manufacturer, Dow Corning, was hounded out of the business after paying $3.2
billion, and juries awarded huge cash payments to plaintiffs and their
lawyers. “Four years later,
definitive epidemiological studies showed beyond a doubt that breast implants
did not cause disease. But by then the crisis had already served its
purpose, and the PLM had moved on, a ravenous machine seeking new fears, new
terrors. I’m telling you, this is the way modern society works—by the
constant creation of fear. And there is no countervailing force. There is no
system of checks and balances, no restraint on the perpetual promotion of
fear after fear after fear. . . .“ “Because we have freedom
of speech, freedom of the press.” “That is the classic PLM
answer. That’s how they stay in business,” Hoffman said. “But think. If it is
not all right to falsely shout ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater, why is it all
right to shout ‘Cancer!’ in the pages of The New Yorker? When that
statement is not true? We’ve spent more than twenty-five billion dollars to
clear up the phony power-line cancer claim.* ‘So what?’ you say. I can see it
in your face. You’re thinking, we’re rich, we can afford it. It’s only
twenty-five billion dollars. But the fact is that twenty-five billion dollars
is more than the total GDP of the poorest fifty nations of the world combined.
Half the world’s population lives on two dollars a day. So that
twenty-five billion would be enough to support thirty-four million people
for a year. Or we could have helped all the people dying of AIDS in He hardly paused for
breath. “At the very least, we are talking about a moral outrage. Thus we can
expect our religious leaders and our great humanitarian figures to cry out
against this waste and the needless deaths around the world that result. But
do any religious leaders speak out? No. Quite the contrary, they join the
chorus. They promote ‘What Would Jesus Drive?’ As if they have forgotten
that what Jesus would drive is the false prophets and fearmongers out of the
temple.” He was getting quite
heated now. “We are talking about a
situation that is profoundly immoral. It is disgusting, if
truth be told. The PLM callously ignores the plight of the poorest and most
desperate human beings on our planet in order to keep fat politicians in
office, rich news anchors on the air, and conniving lawyers in Mercedes-Benz
convertibles. Oh, and university professors in Volvos. Let’s not forget them.” “How’s that?” Evans said.
“What does this have to do with university professors?” “Well, that’s another
discussion.” “Is there a short
version?” Evans said. “Not really. That’s why
headlines aren’t news, Peter. But I will try to be succinct,” he said. “The
point is this: the world has changed in the last fifty years. We now live in
the knowledge society; the information society, whatever you want to call
it. And it has had enormous impact on our universities. “Fifty years ago, if you
wanted to lead what was then called ‘the life of the mind,’ meaning to be an
intellectual, to live by your wits, you had to work in a university. The
society at large had no place for you. A few newspaper reporters, a few
magazine journalists could be considered as living by their wits, but that
was about it. Universities attracted those who willingly gave up worldly
goods to live a cloistered intellectual life, teaching timeless values to the
younger generation. Intellectual work was the exclusive province of the
university. “But today, whole sectors
of society live the life of the mind. Our entire economy is based on
intellectual work, now. Thirty-six percent of workers are knowledge workers.
That’s more than are employed in manufacturing. And when professors decided
they would no longer teach young people, but leave that task to their graduate
students who knew much less than they did and spoke English poorly—when that
happened, the universities were thrown into crisis. What good were they
anymore? They had lost their exclusive hold on the life of the mind. They no
longer taught the young. Only so many theoretical texts on the semiotics of
Foucault could be published in any single year. What was to become of our
universities? What relevance did they have in the modern era?” He stood up, as if
energized by this question. Then abruptly, he sat down again. “What happened,” he
continued, “is the universities transformed themselves in the 1 980s.
Formerly bastions of intellectual freedom in a world of Babbittry, formerly
the locus of sexual freedom and experimentation, they now became the most
restrictive environments in modern society. Because they had a new role to
play. They became the creators of new fears for the PLM. Universities today
are factories of fear. They invent all the new terrors and all the new social
anxieties. All the new restrictive codes. Words you can’t say. Thoughts you
can’t think. They produce a steady stream of new anxieties, dangers, and
social terrors to be used by politicians, lawyers, and reporters. Foods that
are bad for you. Behaviors that are unacceptable. Can’t smoke, can’t swear,
can’t screw, can’t think. These institutions have been stood on their
heads in a generation. It is really quite extraordinary. “The modern State of He broke off and pointed
down the walkway. “Who is this fellow pushing toward us through the crowd? He
looks oddly familiar.” Evans said, “That’s Ted
Bradley, the actor.” “Where have I seen him?” “He plays the president
on television.” “Oh yes. Him.” Ted came to a halt in
front of them, panting. “Peter,” he said, “I’ve been looking everywhere for
you. Is your cell phone on?” “No, because—” “Sarah has been trying to
reach you. She says it’s important. We have to leave town right away. And
bring your passport.” Evans said, “We? What
does this have to do with you?” “I’m coming with you,”
Ted said. As they started to walk
away, Hoffman clutched at Evans’s sleeve, holding him back. He had a new
thought. “We haven’t talked about involution,” he said. “Professor—” “It is the next step in
the development of nation-states. Indeed it is already happening. You must
see the irony. After all, twenty-five billion dollars and ten years later the
same rich elitists who were terrified of power-line cancer are buying magnets
to strap to their ankles or put on their mattresses—imported Japanese magnets
are the best, the most expensive—in order to enjoy the healthful effects
of magnetic fields. The same magnetic fields—only now they can’t get
enough of them!” “Professor,” Evans said, “I have to
go.” “Why don’t these people just lie back
against a TV screen? Snuggle up to a kitchen appliance? All the things that
terrified them before.” “We’ll talk later,” Evans said, pulling
his arm away. “They even sell magnets in the health
magazines! Healthy living through magnetic fields! Insanity! No one
remembers even a few years ago! George Orwell. No memory!” “Who is that guy?” Bradley said, as
they headed off. “He seems a little wound up, doesn’t he?” * Estimate from the ‘White House Science
Office for all costs of the scare, including property devaluation and
relocation of power lines. Cited in Park, Voodoo Science, p. 161.
(Park was a participant in the controversy.) Crichton comes across as more preachy
than usual in State of
Fear, but his points about the manipulation of scientific data rang true.
For readers who want to come away from a novel thinking about issues, State of
Fear is a reasonable way to spend some time. Steve Hopkins,
January 25, 2005 |
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ã 2005 Hopkins and Company, LLC The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the February 2005
issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/State
of Fear.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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