Conceptualizing Moral Panic Through a Moral Economy of Harm
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Conceptualizing Moral Panic through aMoral Economy of Harm SEAN P. HIER (Queen’s University) ABSTRACT This paperexplicates acritical theory ofmoral panic, ar- guingthat there is an afnity tobe discerned between the sociologyof moralpanic and the sociologyof moralregulation. It isdemonstratedhow effortsto distance sociologicalinvestiga- tionsof moralregulation from studies of moralpanic have been foundedon a narrowtreatment ofthe ways in which the lat- ter have conceptualizedpanics uncritically as irrationalsocietal overreactions stemming fromsome variantof ‘ social anxiety.’ Advocatinga conceptualizationwhich attends tothe complex- ity ofways in which human conduct is governed,explanatory importanceis situatedin Valverde’s formulationof ‘moralcapi- tal,’showing how her modelnot only enables afusionbetween apoliticaleconomy ofthe state andethical subjectivity,but morecrucial between panics andregulatory projects through the productionof a moraleconomy ofharm. Introduction Over muchof the pastdecade, it has becomecommonplace in studies of moralpanic to problematize the factthat, far from the restrictivecon nes ofacademe, ‘ moralpanic’ has entered the lexicon ofmainstream society aswell asthe media.In fact,so dispersed is the conceptualimagery of the conceptthat, once purported to be the unintendedoutcome of journalistic practices,McRobbie and Thornton (1995) declare that moral panic has becomea goal.The falloutof the increasingly uidand eclectic usage Critical Sociology, Volume 28,issue 3 also availableonline Ó 2002Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden www.brill.nl 312 Hier ² ofthe languageand referent of moral panic has been thatsociologists have cleaved ontheir endorsement of the analyticutility of the concept. Whilst thosewho have soughtto employ the referentof moral panic primarilyin the contextof empirical investigation have tendedto do so inan uncriticaland indiscriminate manner (cf. Goode and Ben-Yehuda 1994;Thompson 1998; Goode 2000; Doyle andLaCombe 2000; Tavener 2000),the resulthas been thatthose concerned with the wider eld of moralregulation have rejectedthe utilityof the moralpanic concept on the groundsof its purported tendency toimport a negative normative judgementpertaining to irrational societal responses stemming from some variantof ‘socialanxiety’ (Hunt 1999; Moore and Valverde 2000). In lightof the conceptualin ation characterizing the sociological literatureconcerned with moral panic, and in responseto the inhospitable receptionof moral panic in scholarly research concerned with moral regulation,this paper conceptualizes moral panic as aformof moral regulation.Morespeci cally, moralpanic is formulatedin terms of acritical conceptionof ideology which allows for the discursive[re]production of asense ofphenomenal securitythrough a ‘moraleconomy of harm.’ Conceptualizingmoral panic as an ideologico-discursiveformation neither negates the factthat it may vary inits speci c contents,nor that it may serve tostimulate a variety of‘ moralactions’ or facilitate a range of‘ socialfunctions.’ Taking care to explicate whatis understood as the afnity betweenmoral panic and moral regulation, an approximationof the conceptualfoundation from which moral panics derive is sought, but noattempt is made to reveal anything aboutthe uniquefeatures of specic instancesof moral panic. Expressions of the latter,it is maintained, are loggedin the spatialand temporal parameters of variegated governmental congurations, susceptible to elucidationthrough the analyticinterrogation ofthe socialand political circumstances surrounding each panic’s inception andhistoricity. TheSociology of Moral Panic In hisclassic study, Stanley Cohen(1972:9) explains that Societiesappear to be subject,every now andthen, toperiods of moralpanic. Acondition,episode, person or group of persons emerges tobecome de ned as athreat tosocietal values andinterests; its natureis presented in astylized andstereotypical fashionby the mass media : : : Sometimesthe objectof the panicis quitenovel andat other times itis something which has been in existence longenough, but suddenly appears in the limelight.Sometimes the panicpasses overand is forgotten,except in folkloreand collective memory; atother times ithas moreserious and long-lasting repercussions andmight Conceptualizing Moral Panic 313 ² producesuch changes as those in legaland social policyor even in the way society conceives itself. ForCohen, every moralpanic requires the delineationof a scapegoator ‘folkdevil,’ an identiable objectonto which social fears and anxieties may beprojected.As the personication of evil, he conceptualizesfolk devils as susceptibleto instant recognition as ‘ unambiguouslyunfavorable symbols’ (p.41) which are stripped of all positivecharacteristics and endowed with pejorativeevaluations. Cohen is clear in hisstudy of the modsand rockers phenomenonof the 1960s,however, that moral panics come about through acomplexchain of social interactions involving claimsmakers, moral guardiansand the media,set inthe contextof socio-political change and an ensuingclimate of ‘ culturalambiguity.’ What thissigni es forCohen isthat, although moral panics center on a particularfolk devil, the locus ofthe panicis not the objectof its symbolic resonances, not the folkdevil itself.Rather, folk devils serve asthe ideologicalembodiment of deeper anxieties, perceivedof as ‘ aproblem’only inandthrough social de nition andconstruction. Derivingfrom the legacy ofCohen’ s seminal work,the conceptof moralpanic has predominantlybeen invoked uncriticallyin sociological analyses torefer to ‘an ideology,’a general set ofideaswhich are imputed toserve asthe foundationfor a variety offorms of collective behavior. Employingan uncriticalconception of ideology, considerable theorizing onmoral panic has unfoldedwith respect to the media,whereby moral panichas simultaneouslybeen conceivedof as a set ofideas and a form ofsocial action brought about through a moregeneralized state of fear or alarm.Whilst ina practicalsense humaninteraction can be understood simultaneouslyas an expressionof belief and action, recent commentary has afrmed that there isan importantanalytic distinction to be maintained betweenwhat people think andwhat they do,and an even greaterlevel ofanalyticcare to be exercised concerningwhat appears in the mediaand whatpeople accept as factual (cf. Ungar 2001). Disappointingly, the bulk oftheorizing contained within the sociologyof moral panic has conated notonly mediadiscourse and social perception in an uncriticalmanner, buthas failedto explore fully the relationshipbetween social perception andcollective action. Indicativeof thistendency isVictor’ s (1998)study of ritualchild abuse, where,using Goode and Ben-Yehuda’ s (1994)near-orthodox topology of ‘ve crucialindicators’ as a foil,he denes moralpanic as ‘ asocietal responseto beliefs about a threatfrom moral deviants [ : : : whichrepresent] acollective formof behavior characterized by suddenlyincreased concern andhostility in a signicant segment ofsociety’ (p. 542, 543). At least twoproblems can be identied in thisconceptualization, the rstof which 314 Hier ² involves measurement.It is a necessary assumptionembedded in Victor’ s denition that moral panic as a collective formof behavioris presupposed byideological formations understood to envelop ‘signicant segments of society,’but what exactly isimplied by ‘ adesignatedsegment’ of society isvaguely formulated,and the pointat which moral panic manifests as a formof collective actionis not clear. It was this conceptual problematic thatUngar (2001:278-81) had in mind when he arguedthat, in the absenceof any primafacie behavioral evidence ofpublic involvement (vigilante groups,boycotts, protests), researchers have nessed the problem oftapping into public concern by usingmedia coverage or legislative activityas a surrogatefor widespread solicitude. His reasoning suggests that,because both legislative activityand the productionof mediareporting involve actorsseveral stepsremoved from the general public,there isno directlink tobe imputed between public concern and what appears in the media/legislation.Thus, although it may beconceded that Ungar is justied in his appraisal of a patternwhich has cometo characterize the literature,in the absence ofany attentionto a criticaltheory of ideology(or tocritical media theory), his critique remains suspect – apointaddressed below. The secondproblem concerns the difculty encountered when, in con- atingthe productionand reproduction of meaning with the importance ofthe mobilizationof collective formsof behavior in anuncriticalmanner, explanatoryimportance is (perhaps inadvertently) placedon the function, notcontent(s), of panic discourses. Rather than representationalpatterns embodyingthat which is ideologically normative and culturally modular, ‘panics’are henceforth inferred to be embedded in the ‘collective con- science’of society (Goode and Ben-Yehuda 1994), appearing and disap- pearingwith great regularity in the interestsof the ‘socialcontrol of de- viance’(Victor 1998). To put this differently, the centralfocus is not on the contentsof particular ideological formations which ndpoints of reso- nance withinthe widerdiscursive community, but rather on the ‘function,’ ‘intention’or ‘ purpose’of the discourse.Not only doessuch an emphasis onfunctionality serve tobroaden the eld ofdeterministic claims about avariety offolk devils inthe interestsof ‘ socialcohesion’ vis-a-vis the indiscriminatelabeling of a variety offorms of praxis as ‘ moralpanic,’ butit simultaneously narrows