How do moral panics emerge within societies?
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People do not have enough experiences day-to-day to get an accurate picture of the world firsthand. The world is just too big and complex. So we let the claims of other people set our expectations for how to live, what challenges our society faces, etc.
Certain cunning people have learned that you can take advantage of this limited perspective. If you make claims that make other groups sound evil, people will listen to you more closely out of fear of those people.
It’s a sort of “a common enemy builds unity” situation. Except the common enemy is manufactured by you, so you get to control the narrative completely!
It starts w/ fear mongering. People/groups push stories about bad things happening to people. For example stories about the homeless attacking people in broad daylight.
Then you bring in the stereotypes. For example “all those homeless people are drug addicts robbing people to get their fix”
Last you continue to divide the group to create an US vs THEM narrative. For example “giving the homeless housing and work doesn’t help them. It just takes opportunities away from good people, and money away from the community”
Naive here. What is morall panic?
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