Andrew Gilhooley's Blog

When I wrote last week’s blog post about the need to think critically about the messages put out by the media, it got me thinking about the various moral panics that I have either encountered in my lifetime or have read about from the past.

The term “moral panic” was popularised by South African born British sociologist Stanley Cohen in his 1972 book Folk Devils and Moral Panics. He described a moral panic as occurring when an event, person or group emerges that is perceived as somehow being a threat to society’s stability or values. These moral panics, and people’s reactions to them, can often be manipulated by the press, politicians, religious leaders and other figures of influence or authority as a means of triggering social change or compliance by casting these things as society’s bogeymen.

It occurs to me that moral panics are like scams in that nobody is immune to them; it is merely a matter of finding one that plays into our own particular prejudices and / or fears.

I started to compile a list of all the moral panics I could think of from recent decades. This list is by no means exhaustive; you can probably think of others. Some of my examples reflect my UK-centric memories, others my years of living in the US or my reading about history.

The 1950s:

• Communism (mainly in the US)
• Homosexual men
• Beatniks
• Juvenile delinquency
• Inter-racial relationships
• Youth culture, e.g. Rock and Roll music

The 1960s:

• Hippies
• Drugs (cannabis, LSD)
• Communism (US)
• Civil Rights movement (US)
• Immigration (UK)
• Mods vs. Rockers (UK)

The 1970s:

• Crime / Urban decay
• Drugs (heroin, cocaine)
• Serial Killers
• IRA terrorism (UK)
• Punk Rock (UK)
• Solvent abuse (UK)

The 1980s:

• HIV / AIDS
• Communism / the USSR
• Nuclear War
• Drugs (heroin, cocaine, crack)
• Satanism / Ritual Abuse / Heavy Metal / Dungeons and Dragons (US) – the “Satanic Panic”
• “Video Nasties” (UK)
• Dangerous dogs (UK)

The 1990s:

• Gangsta Rap
• Violent crime
• Gang violence
• School shootings (US)
• “Trench Coat Mafia” / Goths (US)
• Drugs (crack, ecstasy, LSD) / Teen drug use
• Rave culture
• New Age travellers (UK)
• Paedophiles
• Homosexuality (the “gay agenda”)
• Violent video games

The 2000s:

• Islamic Terrorism – this was the major moral panic of this decade, eclipsing pretty much everything else.
• Online grooming of children by predators
• Violent video games
• Drugs (methamphetamine, synthetic drugs)

The 2010s:

• Jihadism / Muslims generally
• Incels
• Online radicalisation / grooming
• Drugs (prescription opioids, methamphetamine)
• Human trafficking
• Paedophile networks (e.g. “Pizzagate”)
• Identity politics (e.g. “Black Lives Matter”, white supremacists, LGBT rights)
• Various online-based panics e.g. “Elsagate”, Blue Whale Challenge, Momo Challenge
• Child abuse cover-ups, e.g. Jimmy Savile (UK)
• Communism / China

The 2020s:

• COVID-19 related conspiracy theories
• Artificial Intelligence and Robots
• Transgender people
• Muslims (again)
• Drugs (fentanyl)
• Mexican immigrants (US)
• Asylum seekers / “small boats” (UK)
• … and more to come

It is not my aim here to vouch for the validity or otherwise of any of the above. Clearly, some are long-standing social issues such as drugs and violent crime. Likewise, others are clearly scaremongering and relatively easy to debunk. My point is that while moral panics can often be difficult to quantify, they can equally often be built up into quite terrifying bogeymen and capture a lot of attention.

Exactly which bogeymen will frighten us and how depends upon a number of factors, including our political and other affiliations. This has been borne out by several research studies. As a generalisation, people of a more conservative bent tend to be sensitive to any threat to the established order, which they wish to conserve, as the word “conservative” suggests. Those of a more liberal persuasion tend to be sensitive towards the plight of others whom they perceive as weak, oppressed or disadvantaged.

For example, during the recent COVID-19 pandemic, those of a more conservative slant (here in the US at least) railed against masking and vaccine mandates, which they perceived as the government interfering in their lives and curtailing their freedom, while the more liberally-inclined embraced these same things as a way of protecting the elderly and others vulnerable to infection. The pandemic proved a bogeyman for both sides, but for different reasons.

Anything that is novel or unfamiliar has the potential to become a bogeyman, to induce a moral panic if we allow our emotions to run wild ahead of careful consideration. With the ever increasing rate of societal and technological change, it is important for all of us to be aware of our potential to get caught up in moral panics and outrages, fuelled as they are by social media and other sources. Looking again at my quickly-compiled list of past moral panics above, I am struck by how many they are, and how many more I could likely have added given a little more thought. The fact remains, though, that we got through all of them, and if we collectively keep a cool head, we can get through the next ones too.