ABSTRACT
In this chapter I focus on the construction of feelings and meanings that impede emotional reorientation. Instead of the SARS crisis fueling democratic sensibilities (respect for others, openness to difference and dialogue), Social Othering and catastrophizing discourses dominated, producing a surfeit of fear which exacerbated anti-Chinese feelings. Theories of Sigmund Freud and Julia Kristeva provide a psychological understanding of the mass media’s Othering narratives and the possibility of diminishing its negative effects. Fredrick Jameson, Sadi Ophir, and Antonio Y, Vázquez-Arroyo’s theories of catastrophization distinguish social-psychological condition (that exaggerates its unmanageability) from a more objective understanding that allows one to critically engage the past to confirm responsibility for the conditions that made suffering and loss possible. In the spirit of mitigating the socio-psychological sources of catastrophizing and cultivating an informed and resilient public (those able to tolerate real fears) I counter the Othering narratives with empirical and scientific understandings. Far from fostering democratic practices, the SARS event eroded existing democratic practices and deliberative sites.
