Inverted Quarantine Analysis

American consumers are buying “safety” products to keep threatening social and environmental hazards of the world away. This is an act of “inverted quarantine”, which the healthy and wealthy Americans have created to keep themselves safe, and far from the dangerous situations of the outside world. As we keep buying more “defense” from these hazards, society has less of an urgency to create change.

Americans have developed a sense of vulnerability, risk and awareness of toxins in their daily social and environmental interactions. This feeling, however, did not compel the millions of Americans to generate political action aimed at reducing the possibility of that risk. Instead, it lead to individualized acts of self-protection, isolating themselves individually from these threats. Andrew

Szasz recognizes it as a combination of push and pull motives from the behavior of Americans. They were moving because the threat of urban conditions continued to grow ever larger and needed something to provide a sense of security for them. The hazards of city life, feeling overcrowded, congested traffic and rising crime rates contributed to the reaction. Gated communities were effective ways for individuals to control their own interactions with the social world. “Walls and gated entries promise control, a life with no surprises. You can buy separation, control, protection. You can buy security” (Szasz, 2007, 76). In early and mid-1900s, there was no infrastructure for collecting, sorting garbage and processing it in landfill. No closed sewer systems to carry sewage caused wastewater to being poured out in the streets. Everybody, especially the rich feared for their safety and health. Those who had the means and ability to leave the city for a peaceful, predictable suburban neighborhood left. These were the motives that “pushed” people to insulate themselves and their families from the