Frank Furedi

Forget Scrooge, it’s the scaremongers who ruin Christmas
One of the most unattractive features of our culture of fear is that it encourages pressure groups to make us scared about people we love and experiences that we cherish.

The most unremarked but for all that a very significant target of scaremongers is Christmas.

It is not surprising that Christmas has been repackaged so that it now often comes with a health warning.

For millions of people it is a deeply meaningful event in their life. It is one of those rare occasions when for many folks the family really means something unique.

Parents know that for young children Christmas is a very special moment and they make great sacrifices to ensure it becomes a memorable one.

Fear entrepreneurs understand the significance of Christmas for the public and use it as an opportunity to influence people. Scare stories gain people’s attention. That is why so many advocacy organisations and pressure groups try to turn season’s greetings into a call for alarm.

Virtually everything to do with the celebration of Christmas has been turned into a threat to the Australian way of life.

The National Electrical and Communications Association has warned people to buy only rights that comply with Australian standards, and apparently you need to follow the association’s seven safety tips. If you disregard the tips you are reminded by Dominic Feenan, the association’s media and communication manager, that “it’s always better to be safe than sorry”.

The Australian Federal Police has issued a press release warning parents about the risks associated with gaming consoles. “To ensure Australian children remain safe online leading up to Christmas” it says it “wants to alert parents, carers and children to the possible risks gaming consoles may pose.”

A disproportionate number of the fear appeals are directed at parents, but you don’t need to have a child to be a target.

Warnings directed at pet owners possess a strange resemblance to the ones communicated to parents.

“Christmas is an exciting time for the family but it always pays to take some extra precautions with our pets”, warns the website Cat World. It provides an extensive list of the perils facing a pet owner, which include such insightful statements as “any toy that is small enough for your cat to swallow is dangerous and should be avoided”.

Pregnant women have always been a favourite target, so it is not surprising that they receive their fair share of alarmist messages.

They are fully briefed about the risks of enjoying their favourite Christmas treats.

“If you’ve been taking care over what you’ve been eating while pregnant you may be worried that the festive season has all sorts of hazards lying in wait,” observes an expert on the web page of BabyCentre.

It notes that if “someone offers you a slice of homemade Christmas cake you may want to check whether the icing has been made with raw eggs” .

And that’s not all. “Be extra careful with buffet salads too” it advises. “Only eat leafy green salads at home or at friends’ and relatives’ houses, where you can be sure they have been washed thoroughly.”

Better still, have a risk-free Christmas and avoid eating at all.

In and of themselves, these banal warnings are relatively harmless attempts to gain our attention for a particular message. They are simply a variant of the normal scaremongering that characterises the culture of fear.

But there are other more insidious forms of fearmongering that seek to diminish people’s confidence in their humanity and in their intimate relationships.

Such messages have the destructive consequence of turning Christmas into an experience that is likely to make us emotionally unwell, depressed, suicidal and violent towards one another.

For some time now, advocacy organisations have used these alleged risks associated with Christmas to create a demand for their services.

Is it really helpful for Richard Kidd, president of the Australian Medical Association in Queensland, to inform the world that the traumatic legacy of Queensland’s natural disasters could lead to a spike in suicides during the Christmas season?

Although the message was packaged as a reminder that the first anniversary of last January’s floods was approaching, it also communicated a wider story about the risk that Christmas poses for people’s mental health.

“There is a very dark side to the festive season, sadly, and we see an increase in suicides this time of year” Dr Kidd warned earlier this month.

During the past two decades, the concept of the “dark side” of Christmas has gained considerable force through the work of misanthropic moral crusaders.

So the website of Family Relationship Services helpfully informs us, “research suggests that family violence increases in warmer months and at Christmas”. It claims that “increased alcohol consumption, more family contact and financial pressures all appear to be factors, combined with access to children and the higher incidence of relationship breakdown that occurs around Christmas time”.

Numerous other advocacy groups reinforce the message that suspicion towards those closest to you is the sensible way of negotiating the perils of the festive season.

Using a less alarmist formula, the Better Health Channel instructs its audience that since “stress, anxiety and depression are common during the festive season” you might as well “reassure yourself that these feelings are normal”.

But the pathologisation of Christmas is no more normal than its deification. The normalisation of this pathology is the accomplishment of scaremongering.

How we experience this event depends on the way society chooses to regard people’s humanity, their capacity to deal with the pressures of everyday life and to give meaning to community rituals. Don’t let them turn you into a wreck.

First published by The Australian, 24 December 2011

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