Everybody Panic!

As night follows day, new technologies trigger moral panics.

In the 1980s, the “video nasties” controversy erupted in Britain—as home video allowed unprecedented access to scary films like The Driller Killer (1979) and The Boogey Man (1980) while the great and good clutched their pearls and sought to save us from ourselves.

British sociologist Stanley Cohen first introduced and defined the concept of “moral panic” in his influential 1972 book Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers. Cohen’s book, which analysed the media and public reaction to youth subcultures in 1960s Britain, has since become a cornerstone in the study of social reactions to perceived threats. Cohen provided a comprehensive definition of moral panic, which researchers have widely cited and applied to various social phenomena:

“Societies appear to be subject, every now and then, to periods of moral panic. A condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests; its nature is presented in a stylized and stereotypical fashion by the mass media; the moral barricades are manned by editors, bishops, politicians and other right-thinking people.”

Cohen, S. (1972). Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers. London: MacGibbon and Kee Ltd.

A Very Long History

And when it comes to technologies for helping people learn, moral panic has a very long history: in 370 BC, Plato’s Socrates warned that writing would “create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories.” The 15th-century printing press sparked fears of information overload and declining knowledge quality. The Industrial Revolution’s mechanical calculators raised concerns about eroding mathematical skills.

The 20th century saw a rapid succession of cognitive tools, each bringing its own wave of panic: slide rules, electronic calculators, computers, the internet, and smartphones—with each innovation fuelling anxieties about undermining true understanding, pure skills, and attention spans.

Right now, artificial intelligence’s powerful problem-solving capabilities fuel new/old fears about the authenticity of human work and the erosion of critical thinking.

Cognitive Off-Loading

What these furores share is their deep suspicion for cognitive off-loading and likewise their assumption that using external aids to reduce mental workload dishonestly enfeebles the mind.

But to feel outraged by a calculator, one must first presuppose struggle-based learning as virtuous and pontificate from the ivory tower of ‘pure knowledge’ (whatever that is—given all knowledge is ‘impure at source’, mediated as it is, and disseminated as it must be, through all the stuff and clutter of human existence).

Each panic likewise turns green with queasiness at the unconscionable prospect of other, more ordinary people gaining easier access to information and cognitive enhancement—which is obviously a bad thing because ‘the masses’ simply can’t be trusted to know what’s good for them.

Now consider this from Conservative MP Harry Greenway making it clear which demographic of society he felt was the most susceptible to the degradations of VHS. During a House of Commons debate on the Video Recordings Bill on March 16, 1984, Greenway stated:

“I confirm from my own research and observation that the first thing that people with redundancy money buy is a video. They are often a higher priority in the homes of people who are not particularly articulate, and who do not read books or listen to music very much, than in the homes of people who are better educated and more articulate.”

(Hansard, HC Deb 16 March 1984 vol 56 pp.1275-94)

The Real Boogey Man

While it’s certainly true that artificial intelligence is indeed something ‘new’, the long history of moral panics and new technologies tells us something predictable about the real character of these ‘scare stories’: for all the hand-wringing and soul-saving, moral panics are gatekeeping by another name and characterized by their sweeping misanthropy.

The real boogey man isn’t slide rules, calculators or even ChatGPT, but self-loathing—our profound unease with the democratisation of knowledge and failures of trust in the likes of you and me.

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