What Fear Can Teach Us

https://www.ted.com/talks/karen_thompson_walker_what_fear_can_teach_us

This is a TED talk by Karen Thompson Walker, a fictional novelist, describing her connection between fear and the imagination. Her main point is that in American culture, fear is viewed in a bad light, and people are encouraged to conquer it by disregarding it, but in reality it can guide us and make us more successful. She claims that fear poses the burning question of "what will happen next?" which triggers the imagination to make up scenarios. She says that these scenarios are almost like stories, and that instead of thinking of them as fears we should think of them as stories. She emphasizes that these stories can be very vivid in our imaginations, and often times we only prepare for the most frightening and vivid stories, rather than what is more subtle in the imagination but more likely to actually happen. She closes by asserting that this can lead us astray and that we should use the more subtle but realistic fears as guides, because then we will be better off in the long run.

I feel that there is a need for this TED talk because first of all, society is taught to disregard fear instead of using it as a guide, which leads to us being unprepared in times of danger. Secondly, our emotion takes over and we prioritize more vivid but irrational fears instead of the more subtle but realistic ones. She uses examples to describe this from mainstream society today, including relevant examples of problems the world faces such as gradual climate change and heart disease, effectively appealing to her audience, which is 21st century Americans. She establishes ethos by using a real story of the whaleship Essex which inspired the world renowned book "Moby Dick." As a result she comes across as fairly knowledgeable because she critiques their situation and explains why they didn't survive. This gives her a certain authority that draws the listener in.

The point of this talk is to teach, hence the title "What Fear Can Teach Us." She wants us to look at fear in a different, more realistic way so that we will be better off in the long run. In a way, she is also dissuading the audience from thinking of fear as something to be disregarded, and from using our emotions when we're fearful to lead us to irrational conclusions. The intended audience is middle class America, and she is able to appeal to them in part by using a personal example of childhood fears (earthquakes in particular) to relate to the common American, as well as by using inclusive words like "we" and "us" to engage the audience and make the audience feel like they can relate to her situation (having irrational childhood fears). Karen Thompson Walker appeals to emotion in this way as well, and uses vivid descriptions of things like cannibalism and being stranded in the ocean to induce emotions of fear in the audience, which encourages them to take her advice in order to avoid and survive frightening situations. She appeals to reason by using "if... then" statements in explaining why pre-conceived notions of fear are wrong and giving a more realistic (in her opinion) way of viewing fears (she asserts that we should view our fears as stories).

She conveys her message by starting out telling the audience to imagine themselves in a terrifying scenario, and gradually telling more and more of this story as her talk goes on, giving commentary in between each piece of the story and thus building suspense in the audience. She speaks very sternly and seriously, pausing at times for dramatic buildup with the ultimate goal of evoking fear in the audience, which it does to an extent. In the end she provides relief by speaking in a more happy and optimistic tone and offering solutions to the problem, adding a touch of enthusiasm to her voice. I thought that this style and register was very effective, because it played on my emotions by inducing fear in me while at the same time building suspense, and at the end providing comfort and relief, making me feel as though if I apply her conclusion to my life, then I will continue to feel comfort and relief in dangerous or frightening situations.