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{ Tag Archives } fear

MONSTERS

The fear of an alien presence invading the body, nourishing itself from its cells and harming it before departing to become a detached (and sometimes alien) entity, is often attached to the anxiety of pregnancy. In films like Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby or Lynch’s Eraserhead, this anxiety is represented by the horror of the parent who [...]

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2009 08 19 meta Comments (0)

ALIENs

What are the psychological consequences of seeing oneself as a vehicle hosting selfish genes that would eventually destroy the body? Does that make one see a pregnancy as the gene’s victory? Or the host’s free will? Can a “vehicle” even claim to have a free will or have reproductive desires been confiscated by these little [...]

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2009 08 19 meta Comments (0)

actual / imaginary threat

Where does our perception of danger come from? Fear as an evolutionary instinct exists to assist survival. Some fears are often viewed as instinctual, such as the fear of the dark or of predatory animals. These fears are no longer attached to the actual threat that inspired them, but seen as ‘evolutionary fears’ written into [...]

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2009 07 30 responsibility Comments (0)

the fear industries

Business ventures such as umbilical cord blood banks and genetics diagnosis services target parental fears and establish new familial duties. The decision to reproduce is culturally linked to an array of responsibilities: financial, emotional, psychological. When we believe it is in our power to determine the unborn’s future health we are told we must also [...]

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2009 06 23 Knowledge Comments (0)