Crichton's new book. Page 455:
"Has it ever occurred to you how astonishing the culture of Western
society really is? Industrialized nations provide their citizens with
unprecedented safety, health, and comfort. Average life spans increased
fifty percent in the last century. Yet modern people live in abject
fear. They are afraid of strangers, of disease, of crime, of the
environment. They are afraid of the homes they live in, the food they
eat, the technology that surrounds them. They ar in particular panic
over thins they can't even see -- germs, chemicals, additives,
pollutants. They ar timid, nervous, fretful, and depressed. And even
more amazingly, they are convinced that the environment of the entire
planet is being destroyed around them. Remarkable! Like the belief in
witchcraft, it's an extraordinary delusion -- a global fantasy worthy of
the Middle Ages. Everything is going to hell, and we must all live in
fear. Amazing."
Prof. Hoffman to Peter Evans, esq.
