Against Security: How We Go Wrong at Airports, Subways, and Other Sites of Ambiguous Danger
Harvey Molotch
The inspections we put up with at airport gates and the endless warnings we get at train stations, on buses, and all the rest are the way we encounter the vast apparatus of U.S. security. Like the wars fought in its name, these measures are supposed to make us safer in a post-9/11 world. But do they? This book explains how these regimes of command-and-control not only annoy and intimidate but are counterproductive. The book takes the reader through the sites, the gizmos, and the politics to urge greater trust in basic citizen capacities—along with smarter design of public spaces. The book crit ... More
The inspections we put up with at airport gates and the endless warnings we get at train stations, on buses, and all the rest are the way we encounter the vast apparatus of U.S. security. Like the wars fought in its name, these measures are supposed to make us safer in a post-9/11 world. But do they? This book explains how these regimes of command-and-control not only annoy and intimidate but are counterproductive. The book takes the reader through the sites, the gizmos, and the politics to urge greater trust in basic citizen capacities—along with smarter design of public spaces. The book criticizes a range of security structures and protocols: airport security that requires body searches while generating long lines of queuing people; New Orleans water projects that precipitated the Hurricane Katrina flood, and the militarized disaster response that further endangered residents; even gender-segregated public restrooms. The book recommends simple improvements, from better structural design and signage to assist evacuations to customer-service procedures that help employees to spot trouble. More so, it argues for a shift away from command and control toward a security philosophy that empowers ordinary people to handle crises. The result is a far-reaching re-examination of the culture of public fear.
Keywords: U.S. security, command, control, airport security, body search, Hurricane Katrina, disaster response, public restrooms, crises, fear
Published to Princeton Scholarship Online: October 2017 DOI:10.23943/princeton/9780691163581.001.0001
Harvey Molotch, author
Preface to the Paperback Edition
Chapter 1 Introduction: Colors of Security
Chapter 2 Bare Life: Restroom Anxiety and the Urge for Control
Chapter 3 Below the Subway: Taking Care Day In and Day Out
with Noah McClain
Chapter 4 Wrong-Way Flights: Pushing Humans Away
Chapter 5 Forting Up the Skyline: Rebuilding at Ground Zero
Chapter 6 Facing Katrina: Illusions of Levee and Compulsion to Build
Chapter 7 Conclusion: Radical Ambiguity and the Default to Decency