Change, change the form of man

Etrigan the Demon was mystically bound to his human host, Jason Blood, in an uneasy arrangement and they eventually made a compact to become more like each other. Blood became more like Etrigan and Etrigan, true to his demonic nature, became more like Etrigan as well. Etrigan believed men were little more than chariots of wrath by demons driven but were he more keenly aware of human nature, he might have known that men, when driven to fear, could transform each other into demons without resorting to magic.

 

In sociology, the term "folk devils" refers to people demonised by society for their deviant ways. Stanley Cohen described in his book how they may change their forms dramatically over time -- "the Mod, the Rocker, the Greaser, the student militant, the drug fiend, the vandal, the soccer hooligan, the hippy, the skinhead" -- but folk devils are always deemed by society to be "visible reminders of what we should not be". The naming and condemnation of the folk devil is part of the social control that takes place during a moral panic.

 

"Moral panics are expressions of disapproval, condemnation, or criticism, that arise every now and then to phenomenon, which could be defined as deviant," Cohen explained in an interview. "The moral part is the condemnation and social disapproval, and the panic is the element of hysteria and over reaction."

 

The moral panic label is earned when the controversy is blown all out of proportion in two ways: the incident itself is exaggerated and it is relatively minor in comparison with the major issues of the day. Cohen used the Mods and Rockers incident in England as a case study and the fact most would be blissfully unaware of that Sixties moral panic serves to illustrate just how overblown these short-lived incidences can be.

 

Cohen identified the three key elements necessary for a successful moral panic. "First, a suitable enemy: a soft target, easily denounced, with little power and preferably without even access to the battlefields of cultural politics." Next, "a suitable victim: someone with whom you can identify, someone who could have been and one day could be anybody." And finally, "a consensus that the beliefs or action being denounced were not insulated entities ('it's not only this') but integral parts of the society or else could (and would) be unless 'something was done'."

 

Once in the grip of a moral panic, the public and press bring such immense pressure upon the authorities to do something that previously unthinkable measures are considered acceptable.

 

Proposed solutions usually include casting out the folk devils (e.g. "… we must get rid of the Mods and Rockers by either driving them out, or by not letting them in the first place; we don't care where they go …"). Cohen wrote, "These demands echo the sanction of banishment used in tribal and other simpler communities, the same primal in-group aggression towards the deviant enshrined in our folklore by Westerns in which the outlaw is 'ridden out of town'."

 

But the primary danger during moral panics is legislative overreaction after the government is implored to take action. The Fifties panic over comic books serves as the perfect example.

 

"Comic books were an adaptable demon," wrote David Hadju. "While American patriots rallied to stop them from spreading unconventional and probably Communist ideas, a leader of the Socialist movement in the UK lead the English in a campaign to banish American comics" because "crime and horror comics served as tangible evidence of the monstrous vulgarity of American popular culture; they represented the sociopolitical plague of cultural imperialism."

 

The widespread disapproval of comic books made it easier for lawmakers to take action. A Gallup poll in 1954 revealed "some 70 percent of American adults said they believed that comic books deserved to be blamed for juvenile delinquency."

 

Laws were hastily proposed on both sides of the Atlantic to deal with the menace. "The legal engineering was wondrous in its variety, yet simple in its intent: to do something--anything--about those nasty comic books," Hadju wrote. "In January 1955, the British cabinet announced support for legislation to ban horror comics, ostensibly to reduce a potential impetus to crime, despite the fact that juvenile arrests were in decline throughout the UK. The resulting bill, called the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act, would prohibit the sale or the publication of 'horror comics' explicitly; in addition, it would bar all publications which 'would tend to incite or encourage to the commission of crimes or acts of violence or cruelty, or otherwise to corrupt, a child or young person into whole hands it might fall.'"

 

On the same day the British law passed, teachers at a Catholic school in Illinois had their students burn comics featuring those dangerously subversive characters, Superman and Captain Marvel.

 

"The comics business was collapsing under pressure not only from the schools, the churches, and the legislatures, but also from the distributors and the industry's own desperate, overzealous attempts to regulate itself. There were fewer and fewer comics to purchase, and those available were so bowdlerized that they were losing their idiosyncratic appeal to young people," Hadju noted. "Between 1954 and 1956, more than half the comic books on the newsstands disappeared; the number of titles published in the United States dropped from about 650 to some 250."

 

National/DC artist Carmine Infantino recounted, "It was like the plague. The work dried up, and you had nowhere to go, because comics were a dirty word. You couldn't say you were a comics artist, and you had nothing to put in your portfolio. If you said you drew comic books, it was like saying you were a child molester."

 

Cohen made it plain moral panics over deviant behaviour caused by new and therefore suspect media forms are mainly driven by more traditional media in the business of highlighting deviance e.g. "sensational crimes, scandals, bizarre happenings and strange goings on."

 

Cohen wrote, "It is largely created by the media: no media – no moral panic. The media are carriers of moral panics, which they either initiate themselves, or they carry the message of other groups."

 

However, he also noted, "The media play a disingenuous game. They know that their audiences are exposed to multiple meanings and respond differently to the 'same' message. They use this knowledge to support their indignation that they could have any malignant effect; they forget this when they start another round of simple-minded blaming of others. The powerful, increasingly homogenized and corporate news media blame other media forms. But their own effect is the most tangible and powerful, shaping the populist discourse and political agenda-setting."

 

A classic example of the press playing this disingenuous game of blaming other media forms could be seen in the aftermath of Orson Welles's War of the Worlds radio broadcast. This was a minor incident which was exaggerated by a press threatened by a new medium competing with it for attention and advertising.

 

W. Joseph Campbell wrote, "… by 1938, radio's immediacy in bringing news to Americans had become all-too apparent, and troubling, to newspapers." The newspapermen had a very low opinion of radio and an even lower opinion of its listeners. The Chicago Tribune sniffed, "Perhaps it would be more tactful to say that some members of the radio audience are a trifle retarded mentally, and that many a program is prepared for their consumption." The newspaper trade journal Editor and Publisher dispensed with 1930s tact and simply warned "the nation as a whole continues to face the danger of incomplete, misunderstood news over a medium which has yet to prove, even to itself, that it is competent to perform the news job."

 

The irony is incompetent newspaper coverage of the War of the Worlds panic was accepted credulously for decades. Campbell wrote, "Inaccurate reporting gave rise to a misleading historical narrative and produced a savory and resilient media-driven myth." As a measure of just how resilient this media myth was, The New York Times repeated the radio panic narrative in 2019 -- a mere 10 days after pointing out it was a media-driven myth.

 

Although it's generally assumed moral panics are bad, Cohen suggested it was sometimes desirable to foment a moral panic over serious issues to call public attention to them. Yet the typical moral panic detracts from more serious concerns.

 

"The pathetic ease and gullibility with which the mass media are lured into conventional moral panics may be contrasted to the deep denial behind their refusal to sustain a moral panic about torture, political massacres or social suffering in distant places," Cohen wrote.

 

"This is why moral panics are condensed political struggles to control the means of cultural reproduction," he explained. "It also allows us to identify and conceptualize the lines of power in any society, the ways we are manipulated into taking some things too seriously and other things not seriously enough."

 

Matters aren't helped in this regard by the involvement of moral crusaders -- "the Mary Whitehouses, the Lord Longfords, the Cyril Blacks". They share in common a "single-mindedness, dedication, self-righteousness, a tendency to exaggerate grossly and over-simplify even more so."

 

According to Cohen, "The crusader is moved by righteous indignation as well as self-interest. Unlike the pragmatist, he sees the action as a 'cause' or a 'mission' and he sees the enterprise as continuing even after the short-term goals are achieved. Indeed, objective evidence means little to him …" It's very much in the interests of the moral crusaders to perpetuate the moral panic in order to raise their profile and justify their own actions.

 

Although Cohen did not address it in his book, it's also possible moral panics could be used as a cynical political strategy. For instance, political operatives and their media accomplices could turn supporters of a rival political candidate into folk devils to smear that candidate by association. One imagines this approach could well succeed in a political contest but might backfire spectacularly in a later election. Moral panics tend to benefit demagogues who thrive in a climate of fear.

 

If there's a tendency by the media and moral crusaders to overreact and turn minor incidents into moral panics, there is also a tendency by their critics to dismiss any issue as a moral panic to downplay its seriousness. Cohen wrote, "For cultural liberals (today's 'cosmopolitans'), this was an opportunity to condemn moral entrepreneurs, to sneer at their small-mindedness, puritanism or intolerance; for political radicals, these were easy targets, the soft side of hegemony or elite interests."

 

Cohen noted "the term has been used by left liberals (and their sociological cronies) to undermine conservative ideologies and popular anxieties by labelling their concerns as irrational." He added, "We cannot expect to find conservatives trying to expose liberal or radical concerns as being 'moral panics.'" That failed to anticipate the possibility the far-left might turn puritanical once it wholeheartedly embraced politics as a substitute for religion and would go on to police culture with all the zeal of the new convert. The modern moral panic is just as likely to be driven by the "small-mindedness, puritanism and intolerance" of the left as it is of the right.

 

"Between 1984 and 1991 (inclusive) there were about 8 citations of 'moral panic' in the UK newspapers; then 25 in 1992, then a sudden leap to 145 in 1993. From 1994 to 2001, the average was at 109 per year," Cohen wrote.

 

This increased awareness doesn't mean the public is going to be any less susceptible to moral panics. Indeed, there might be more of them as the economic, geographical and cultural separation of the haves and the have-nots grows ever greater. "As long as there is not one single set of moral values across a whole society, there will always be these episodes of moral panic," Cohen concluded.

 

It doesn't necessarily have to be that way. If moral panics are primarily caused by media-amplified fearmongering campaigns, the solution is to overcome that fear by refusing to give in to it. When confronted by a media-constructed folk devil, simply place it in proper context to diminish its exaggerated power. The final step is to swallow your fear. It may be easier than it seems. As Etrigan once observed, "Fear, no matter how small it has grown, retains a certain flavor of its own."

Done