Primal Fears, Primal Ambitions

The article is based on a lecture at RMIT University in November 2004. In Australia today, the author says, security has acquired a prominence in public policy debate that is unprecedented in most of our adult lifetimes. (p. 32) This debate draws on primal fears and is thus less rational and orderly. Primal fears have dominated since 9/11 in the United States with personalised responses due to a fear of attack on ones self and family, an exaggeration of the threat, militarised responses to a greater degree than was rational (war on terror, alliances) and moral tone (a battle against evil, attacks on us are because we are free). But the then recent absence of costly wars was a driver also, tending to make Australians more belligerent.