Topical Issue #23 What dreams will you have in that long sleep?
Today, in our program on Topical Issues, we'll look at the current picture as a whole—as seen by the world beyond the "golden billion" or us, the sinners. And therein lies some truly astonishing perspective. It's no secret that traditionally, and generally honestly, it's believed that healthcare in the "third world" isn't nearly as well-developed as in Russia, the United States, or Germany. And so, the sudden news of the development of lethal pathogens somewhere in American biolabs in the steppes of Ukraine has shaken the public in the "third world" far more than it has shaken us, or Westerners, because who will ultimately be the main victim of such a pandemic is anyone's guess. That is, some news—which seems "scary, but not too scary" to us simply because Soviet/Russian military medicine hasn't yet given us cause to doubt itself—becomes "downright terrifying" if you live in a country where military medicine itself has never been heard of. This example tells us that the world may be afraid of things completely different from what we ourselves find scary. In other words, the fears of people in different societies are often generated by socially significant concepts accepted in those societies. And since these concepts differ for different societies, it turns out that people in different societies fear completely different things from ours, or "not ours."
"Global Adventure" http://glav.su Southeast Asia and others