Watch Yourself: Why Safer Isn't Always Better - Softcover

Hern, Matt

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1554200210 ISBN 13: 9781554200214

Publisher: New Star Books, 2007

Synopsis

From warnings on coffee cups to colour–coded terrorist gauges to ubiquitous security cameras, our culture is obsessed with safety.

Some of this is drive by lawyers and insurance, and some by over–zealous public officials, but much is indicative of a cultural conversation that has lost its bearings. The result is not just a neurotically restrictive society, but one which actively undermines individual and community self–reliance. More importantly, we are creating a world of officious administration, management by statistics, absurd regulations, rampaging lawsuits, and hygenically cleansed public spaces. We are trying to render the human and natural worlds predictable and calculated. In doing so, we are trampling common discourse about politics and ethics.

Hern asserts that safer just isn’t always better. Throughout Watch Yourself, he emphasizes the need to rethink our approach to risk, reconsider our fixation with safety, and reassert individual decision–making.

About this title

About the Author:

Matt Hern is the director of the Purple Thistle centre, an alternative youth program in Vancouver, BC. He holds a a PhD in Urban Studies from the Union Institute. An accomplished writer and public speaker, he has written three books: Deschooling Our Lives, Field Day: Getting Society Out of School and Watch Yourself: Why Safer Isn't Always Better. He lives with his partner and two daughters in East Vancouver.

About this edition

• Publisher: New Star Books
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1554200210
• ISBN 13: 9781554200214
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 182