In our podcast Wait a minute!, we find our Thursday meeting “La Bulle”. Why are so many of us afraid of spiders? How to overcome this fear? To discuss the subject,
Christine Rollard, teacher-researcher at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris for 32 years, biologist, araneologist, that is to say specialist in spiders. She publishes The silky world of spiders (Bayard press, 12.90 euros), after several books, including I’m no longer afraid of spiders (Dunod, 2018) and 50 misconceptions about spiders (Quae 2020).
Where does the fear of spiders come from in the West?
Is the fear of spiders, with the 49,250 species recorded today, shared throughout the world? “No, that’s a misconception. We have the impression, especially in the West, that people are all afraid of spiders, ”replied the scientist. A widespread fear: “About 40% of people say they are afraid of spiders. But it is not the majority. Some have phobias, much more marked anxieties, disabling, [mais cela ne concerne] than 10% of people. It is quite symptomatic of Western countries. Elsewhere in the world, in some countries, spiders are not at all feared, ”recalls Christine Rollard. The scientist notes that the fear of spiders “is neither rooted nor ancestral in the human species”.
In many countries West Africa and the Caribbean, among
Australian Aborigines, spiders are viewed positively, even celebrated. They are attributed the virtues of patience, work, creative power … So where does this fear of spiders come from in Western culture? “We do not know the exact origin of this fear. It was then interviewed with negative associations (…), films, the media, ”laments the biologist in this podcast. From the monstrous spider of the Lord of the Rings, by JRR Tolkien, to that of Harry Potter, of JK Rowling, how many generations have been horrified by this figure? Ally, or almost, in this cultural battle, with the superhero Spider-Man … Note, in passing, that if the character looked completely like the spider, his silk threads would be expelled from his behind, not from his wrists …
How to overcome your fears?
What would be the consequences if we killed all the spiders that scare us? How to break away from the fear that these animals can inspire? How do you become a spider specialist? These are the other questions of this interview, to be found free of charge in the audio player above. Christine Rollard agrees to receive, in session and according to her availability at the Natural History Museum of Paris, people suffering from more or less marked fears of spiders.
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