Friday’s Oxford Circus scare shows why terrorism is a problem

Video from the scene showed hundreds of people running away from the station and stores in the area. Unhelpfully, the singer, Olly Murs then contributed to the panic by sending out a series of idiotic tweets to his 7 million followers.

It was a false alarm. According to the police, no shots were fired in Sefridges or the station. Nevertheless, the panic that followed the false alarm does speak to something important.

Namely, that even if unfulfilled, the very potential for terrorism harms societal well-being.

The issue here is that people are not Vulcans; they cannot totally constrain their emotions and thus they respond to fear. In turn, in an environment of hightened terrorist threat such as Britain’s, any misunderstanding can render the same psychological effect as a terrorist attack. Just consider what happened today at Oxford Circus: The panic spread and fed upon itself.

This explains the fallacy of argument from those who say we shouldn’t worry about terrorism because car accidents, etc., cause more casualties. These claims sound plausible, but they fundamentally ignore the fact that terrorism’s ultimate target is the human mind. Terrorists want to cause enough fear that populations will petition their government to yield to the terrorists’ demands. Moreover, the “cars are more dangerous than terrorists” crew always neglect to realize that without the skill and capabilities of our counter-terrorism services, we would face terrorist attacks on a much more regular basis.

And the more regular attacks, the more impact each attack has in fostering a sense of cumulative fear and a degraded sense of happiness. This matters, because the pursuit of happiness is an existential quality of our democratic societies.

One final point here is the economic issue. After all, consider that the panic today in Oxford Circus would have cost the businesses in that area millions in lost sales.

Ultimately, we should try to go about our lives with a prudent sense of proportion as to the threat we face. Still, we should not lose sight of the fact that terrorism, by its very existence, represents a threat our society.