2020: The Year Of Moral Panic
Last week, my wife and I warched an episode of the Crimes That Changed Us series on Investigation Discovery on the McMartin preschool case . This was a bizarre, years-long rehearsal of allegations against a Manhattan Beach, CA day care that involved sex abuse of toddlers, a bad clown in a secret underground room, and Satanic sacrifices on the altar of an Episcopal church. None of this could be proven in court, and after two hung juries, the prosecution eventually got tired and dropped all charges The narrator of the episode said the McMartin case was an example of "moral panic". My wife suggested that the current COVID crisis seems like a moral panic as well. I wasn't sure, but the idea was tantalizing enough that I decided to do some research on the web the next day. Moral panics are normally the province of sociology. What I've found is that much of the academic discussion is limited by the current Overton window, and academics will be likely to accept COVID r...