Customer Reviews

Folk Devils and Moral Panics

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British society has traditionally and perhaps rightly prided itself on its tolerance of eccentrics and alternative views. Seeing all of this as contributing to a robust people's democracy. But there were also those regarded as deviants. Cohen's 3rd edition spends a lot of space on Britain of the 1950s and 60s; looking at the disaffected youths of that time. The Teddy Boys and the Mods and Rockers.

Unintentionally, to a current reader, the times and travails of British society may seem quaint. Cohen shows how these deviates raised real alarm amongst the Establishment. Whereas now to many, these groups are remembered in the rosy twinge of nostalgia. With hindsight, we now know that they were never any real threat to society.

Note also that while this 3rd edition came out in 2002, almost all of the new stuff seems confined to a long introduction. There is nothing in this that refers to the punk rock scene of the 1970s, which was also regarded with alarm.

Instead nowadays, the internal dangers to Britain from Islamist terrorists seems more troubling than the Mods and Rockers ever were.