Have you heard the term \u201cmoral panic?\u201d A moral panic is a widespread fear, most often an irrational one, that someone or something is a threat to the values, safety, and interests of a community or society. Moral panics are often centered on people who are marginalized in society due to their race or ethnicity, class, sexuality, nationality, or religion. It often draws on and reinforces stereotypes. It exacerbates differences and divisions between groups of people. Stanley Cohen developed a theory of moral panic identifies five stages.
\n1. Something or someone is perceived as a threat to social norms.
\n2. Society depicts the threat in simplistic ways that quickly become recognizable to the public.
\n3. Public concern is aroused by the way news media portrays the representation of the threat.
\n4. New laws or policies are created as a way to respond to the threat.
\n5. The actions by those in power results in social change within the community.<\/p>\n
An example of moral panic is the Salem witch trials that took place throughout Massachusetts in 1692. This moral panic was a threat to the authority of religious leaders and was perceived as a threat to Christian values, laws and orders. It was also called Satanic Panic. The War on Drugs in the 1980’s and 1990’s is another example of moral panic. Media attention linked crack cocaine to urban Black people and associated it with delinquency and crime. Laws and policies left white middle and upper classes untouched. \u201cWelfare queens,\u201d \u201ccocaine babies\u201d and the \u201cgay agenda\u201d are more examples.<\/p>\n
According to Goode and Ben-Yehuda, In order to be a moral panic, there must be characteristics of the following:
\n1. Concern that the group is deemed deviant and is likely to have a negative effect on society.
\n2. Hostility toward the group increases as do divisions of \u201cus\u201d and \u201cthem.\u201d
\n3. Concern does not need to be nationwide, but there is enough of a consensus to be thought to be a threat to society.
\n4. Laws and policies are disproportionate to the actual threat posed by the accused group.
\n5. Moral panics are highly volatile and tend to disappear as a new story catches media attention.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s take a recent example of undocumented immigrants. President Trump casts Mexican immigrants as deviant, causing harm to America. He remarked “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” He fans the flames of hostility and creates divisions between \u201cus\u201d and \u201cthem.\u201d \u201cThese aren’t people. These are animals. You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are.” Many would say that immigration laws, policies and proposals (border walls) are disproportionate to the actual threat.<\/p>\n
Goode and Ben-Yehuda say \u201cthe fears and concerns underlying moral panics are said to be part and parcel of the human condition as expression of human frailty. All societies have them. We\u2019ve seen them before and we\u2019ll see them again. Let\u2019s learn from history and avoid irrational and unjustified responses. The women of Salem were not witches. Crack cocaine is not better or worse than other substances of abuse, and people who use it should not be punished with longer sentences than other groups of people. We now know that \u201ccrack babies\u201d are most often indistinguishable from babies not born to women who used crack during their pregnancies. \u201cWelfare queens\u201d are a myth. And there is no \u201cgay agenda\u201d.<\/p>\n
We can be alarmed, be concerned, and be cautious. But let\u2019s not panic. Panic produces outcomes such as separating children from their parents. I\u2019m confident that Americans will deeply regret this policy, and their complicity, one day.<\/p>\n
\u201cMoral panic\u201d tends to create immoral outcomes. Don\u2019t get swept up by irrational fear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Have you heard the term \u201cmoral panic?\u201d A moral panic is a widespread fear, most often an irrational one, that someone or something is a threat to the values, safety, and interests of a community or society. Moral panics are often centered on people who are marginalized in society due to their race or ethnicity, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/interactionstherapycenter.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/interactionstherapycenter.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/interactionstherapycenter.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interactionstherapycenter.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interactionstherapycenter.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/interactionstherapycenter.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1430\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/interactionstherapycenter.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interactionstherapycenter.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interactionstherapycenter.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}