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Against Security: How We Go Wrong at Airports, Subways, and Other Sites of Ambiguous Danger
How security procedures could be positive, safe, and effective
Remember when an unattended package was just that, an unattended package? Remember when the airport was a place that evoked magical possibilities, not the anxiety of a full-body scan? In the post-9/11 world, we have become focused on heightened security measures, but do you feel safer? Are you safer?
Against Security explains how our anxieties about public safety have translated into command-and-control procedures that annoy, intimidate, and are often counterproductive. Taking readers through varied ambiguously dangerous sites, the prominent urbanist and leading sociologist of the everyday, Harvey Molotch, argues that we can use our existing social relationships to make life safer and more humane. He begins by addressing the misguided strategy of eliminating public restrooms, which deprives us all of a basic resource and denies human dignity to those with no place else to go. Subway security instills fear through programs like "See Something, Say Something" and intrusive searches that have yielded nothing of value. At the airport, the security gate causes crowding and confusion, exhausting the valuable focus of TSA staff. Finally, Molotch shows how defensive sentiments have translated into the vacuous Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center site and massive error in New Orleans, both before and after Hurricane Katrina. Throughout, Molotch offers thoughtful ways of maintaining security that are not only strategic but improve the quality of life for everyone.
Against Security argues that with changed policies and attitudes, redesigned equipment, and an increased reliance on our human capacity to help one another, we can be safer and maintain the pleasure and dignity of our daily lives.
Remember when an unattended package was just that, an unattended package? Remember when the airport was a place that evoked magical possibilities, not the anxiety of a full-body scan? In the post-9/11 world, we have become focused on heightened security measures, but do you feel safer? Are you safer?
Against Security explains how our anxieties about public safety have translated into command-and-control procedures that annoy, intimidate, and are often counterproductive. Taking readers through varied ambiguously dangerous sites, the prominent urbanist and leading sociologist of the everyday, Harvey Molotch, argues that we can use our existing social relationships to make life safer and more humane. He begins by addressing the misguided strategy of eliminating public restrooms, which deprives us all of a basic resource and denies human dignity to those with no place else to go. Subway security instills fear through programs like "See Something, Say Something" and intrusive searches that have yielded nothing of value. At the airport, the security gate causes crowding and confusion, exhausting the valuable focus of TSA staff. Finally, Molotch shows how defensive sentiments have translated into the vacuous Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center site and massive error in New Orleans, both before and after Hurricane Katrina. Throughout, Molotch offers thoughtful ways of maintaining security that are not only strategic but improve the quality of life for everyone.
Against Security argues that with changed policies and attitudes, redesigned equipment, and an increased reliance on our human capacity to help one another, we can be safer and maintain the pleasure and dignity of our daily lives.
280 pages, Hardcover
First published August 26, 2012
6 people are currently reading
124 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 2, 2018
Whew, took me a while! This was a worthwhile book, even though I don't agree with all of it. It was good to see some thought go into a lot of the discomforts I have with security and friends.
April 4, 2013
As someone who travels enough to be firmly against current security protocols, I picked this book thinking it would be aid and comfort to all who find the "security theater" perpetrated by TSA to be frustrating, depressing, and ultimately useless (to say nothing of expensive for taxpayers). Perhaps those frustrations are better sated by "Ask the Pilot" and other insider blogs about airport security.
Instead, the author talks about the unintended consequences of government actions to respond to threats and protect the populace. Air travel was a big part of the discussion, but subways, ground zero, and hurricane Katrina also featured prominently (and while the federal government's response was criticized, the critique was far more broad, and more damning, on local officials, the culture of fraud, and a growth-at-any cost mentality).
Focusing on air travel, everything that has been put in place has stopped exactly zero terrorists. Guards treat each traveler as a potential offender, and focus on making sure everyone follows the ever-expanding "rules." This degrades travelers and blocks the guards themselves from interacting in ways that would allow all of their senses to work together and feel when trouble might be coming. And yet beyond all this waste, the author (and I) have heard far too many people in the security queue who embrace the indignity as "doing their part" - "It almost seems that the more humiliation they are put through the better."
Two parting thoughts. In all of the discussions, I am struck by the role that design can play in improving our interactions - the fact that TSA engaged the design firm IDEO in 2009 and yet changed nothing is just awful. Finally, the author would urge us to "default to decency." It is worth considering that more good may come from empathy than trying to neutralize that emotion. Ironically, for someone that I assume comes from the far left of the ideological spectrum, this means less intrusion by government in many areas of life.
Instead, the author talks about the unintended consequences of government actions to respond to threats and protect the populace. Air travel was a big part of the discussion, but subways, ground zero, and hurricane Katrina also featured prominently (and while the federal government's response was criticized, the critique was far more broad, and more damning, on local officials, the culture of fraud, and a growth-at-any cost mentality).
Focusing on air travel, everything that has been put in place has stopped exactly zero terrorists. Guards treat each traveler as a potential offender, and focus on making sure everyone follows the ever-expanding "rules." This degrades travelers and blocks the guards themselves from interacting in ways that would allow all of their senses to work together and feel when trouble might be coming. And yet beyond all this waste, the author (and I) have heard far too many people in the security queue who embrace the indignity as "doing their part" - "It almost seems that the more humiliation they are put through the better."
Two parting thoughts. In all of the discussions, I am struck by the role that design can play in improving our interactions - the fact that TSA engaged the design firm IDEO in 2009 and yet changed nothing is just awful. Finally, the author would urge us to "default to decency." It is worth considering that more good may come from empathy than trying to neutralize that emotion. Ironically, for someone that I assume comes from the far left of the ideological spectrum, this means less intrusion by government in many areas of life.
December 24, 2013
This is an excellent example of a sociologist who can write well and puts his sociological imagination to work even while he waits in line at the airport or tries to understand the trouble with public bathrooms.
His argument is that if we trust most people to be mostly helpful, especially during crises we will design differently and likely end up with a more resilient material culture in the toughest times and a more pleasant set of surroundings the rest of the time. Bad things will still happen to good people, but we don't have to go around living under the shadow of that unfortunate truth all the time. Better to have cities, airports, and bathrooms that assume the best than those that assume the worst, especially given the small amount of supporting evidence that assuming the worst functions as a deterrent.
His argument is that if we trust most people to be mostly helpful, especially during crises we will design differently and likely end up with a more resilient material culture in the toughest times and a more pleasant set of surroundings the rest of the time. Bad things will still happen to good people, but we don't have to go around living under the shadow of that unfortunate truth all the time. Better to have cities, airports, and bathrooms that assume the best than those that assume the worst, especially given the small amount of supporting evidence that assuming the worst functions as a deterrent.
January 19, 2013
The author took an interesting topic (the rise of the "security" state, and the unquestioned primacy that security gets over other issues and turned it into a boring mess of a book. Some of the chapters (public bathrooms, hurricane preparation) deal with security in only the broadest sense, and not in a way that was at all interesting. Even the chapters on interesting, relevant topics were so full of sociological jargon as to be almost unreadable. Very disappointing.
May 18, 2013
Molotch offers a fresh, provocative perspective, absent the diatribes we almost always hear whenever security is the topic. He successfully explains the problems with our current approach, starting with a foundation about the real trade-offs we need to understand. More security might, at best, mean more safety. It also means other type of risk can increase, as our very way of life is eroded in the process. I've read a number of commentaries with similar arguments, but none were this thoughtful.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews