Social Panic Quotes

The fear of missing out … causes media, more than ever before, [to] hunt in a pack. In these modes it is like a feral beast, just tearing people and reputations to bits. But no-one dares miss out.

Dread of disaster makes everybody act in the very way that increases the disaster. Psychologically the situation is analogous to that of people trampled to death when there is a panic in a theatre caused by a cry of 'Fire!'.

If the tenth of the population that is gay became visible tomorrow, the panic of the majority of people would inspire repressive legislation of a sort that would shock even the pessimists among us.

The witch-hunt was a perverse manifestation of the panic which set in among all classes when the balance began to turn toward greater individual freedom. The witch-hunt was not, however, a mere repression. It was also, and as importantly, a long overdue opportunity for everyone so inclined to express publicly his guilt and sins, under the cover of accusations against the victims.

Coming out, all the way out, is offered more and more as the political solution to our oppression. The argument goes that, if people could see just how many of us there are, some in very important places, the negative stereotype would vanish overnight. ...It is far more realistic to suppose that, if the tenth of the population that is gay became visible tomorrow, the panic of the majority of people would inspire repressive legislation of a sort that would shock even the pessimists among us.

History is filled with weird but true stories of social contagion - from dancing manias in the Middle Ages to nuns pretending to be cats in the 19th century to laughing epidemics of Tanzanian school girls in the 1960s.

A lot of my musician friends have the same kind of anxiety and panic when faced with crowds of people, and I do, too.

It’s no more dangerous to society than a radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds.