Abstract
Furedi is no stranger to publicly asserting his sociologically based views on current affairs, as a self-styled social commentator and public intellectual. However, it is perhaps a little surprising that Moral Crusades in an Age of Mistrust has created waves, as illustrated by the vitriolic response to the book by Guardian newspaper columnist Suzanne Moore. With the growing pressure for academic sociologists to provide evidence of the impact of their work, such aggressive responses, whether justified or not, meet the intention of provoking debate and reflection upon sociological issues. In this instance, the focus for debate stimulation is upon the mediated and controversial scandal surrounding the late Jimmy Savile. The criticism Furedi uses regarding the Savile scandal to address his key research interests into fear and the construction of risk consciousness within 21st-century society is incontestably one of the book’s strengths. To be able to identify research interests with occurrences within society is what sociologists do – sociology is after all a study of society. Sociology revels in engaging with social issues, whether or not portraying our world as glorious or horrifying, mundane or dramatic. It is about the world in which we live, a study of the here and now in the context of the past and looking to the future. Inevitably, in a study such as this Furedi can be misinterpreted as being opportunistic in ‘cashing in’ on the Savile scandal, particularly when it remains an unresolved case whose repercussions are still unfolding. However, in his defence, Furedi is using the new Palgrave Macmillan Pivot series that is characterised by a rapid submission-to-publication turnaround, allowing the publication of ideas that are pithy in rapid response to events and occurrences. This reflects historical publications, now considered classics, which were often little more than extended essays or a collection of concise ideas such as Roland Barthes’ (1957) Mythologies. Such texts continue to inform sociological thought and are used to teach and inspire the next generation of sociologists.
The scope of the book at a fundamental level is an engagement with risk, fear, celebrity and the narrative of evil. It proposes a shift away from the classic understanding of moral panic as it is hard to find broad public agreement on any public issue, and Furedi endorses a shift towards Becker’s (1963) notion of moral crusades, which seek to alter people’s behaviour through the promotion of an ideology of evil. Confusingly, and despite the title of the book, it is also suggested that child abuse is one issue where moral panic can still be applied as it has a unique capacity to mobilise powerful emotions and ‘harness the moral sentiments of the entire public’ (p.7). According to Furedi, the Savile scandal is potentially both moral panic and moral crusade at the same time. Therefore, the case is yet another instance of high-profile child abuse stimulating a moral panic through the exacerbation of public fears while also promoting a moral crusade in order to change people’s behaviour through their understanding of evil. Furedi also suggests that moral crusaders have had a negative impact by adding to mistrust and ultimately helping create a society where many adults are disengaged from children who are not their own. These crusaders who are paedophile-obsessed are ‘highjack[ing] our moral imagination’ and the ‘best guarantee of children’s safety is the exercise of adult responsibility towards the younger generation’ (p.97). Although he admits there is no simple solution to this situation, neither does he suggest any solutions at all other than resistance to such child abuse-focused moral crusaders. Subsequently the book leaves the reader hanging without resolution. If the intent is to raise awareness, highlight issues and leave unanswered questions, Furedi succeeds.
Some of the chapters within Moral Crusades in an Age of Mistrust read as interesting brief engagements with issues related to the Savile scandal and provide pertinent and timely assertions. Chapter 2 is significant in its consideration of the Savile child abuse accusations and the context of time. Furedi reflects, through people who knew Savile, that ‘everyone knew’ about his predatory behaviour and as a result the posthumous allegations were ‘not so much revelations as recollections’ (p.29), and that the past is being turned to in order to ‘uncover the truth’ (p.33). This emphasis is insightful in restating that there has been a change in the standard of behaviour and highlighting the danger this poses if the past is reconstructed through our current perceived crisis surrounding child abuse. Beyond the consideration of how the past is remembered and the consequences of this social memory in Chapter 3, Furedi also reflects on topics including the sacralisation of childhood, the rise of the victim, demonology and the crisis of authority. In doing so, he contributes on a range of fronts to the various issues surrounding the Savile scandal. As a result, each chapter reads more like a short essay which is largely based upon opinion rather than deeply theoretically rooted assertions. However, this is a criticism based upon a hankering for a more substantial text on the topic, and therefore differs from the intent of this short book’s goal of tackling a current event in sociological terms in the form of a rapid response publication. The short engagement with victimhood in Chapter 5 in relation Savile’s alleged crimes is particularly problematic because of its superficial attention to the sensitive issue of those who have endured child abuse. The Savile abuse is still a raw and painful wound to a large number of victims and has caused shocked reverberations across the UK. Hence to gloss over the victims themselves and to consider only the broader issues of victimhood is lacking in sensitivity and invites an aggressive response to Furedi’s drawing upon the Savile scandal as a case study.
In using the Savile case as a lens through which to study contemporary sociological issues, Furedi succeeds, albeit unintentionally, in adding to the growing plethora of academic study into celebrities who have ‘gone wild’. This entails well-known individuals whose image becomes dominated by their association with deviant activity or through conviction of a criminal offence. This is an undertheorised area. The lack of research can be explained by the subject being considered too criminological for many sociologists, too much like cultural studies for sociologists and too criminological for cultural theorists. Consequently Furedi accidentally adds to the debate surrounding ‘celebrity criminals’ (Penfold-Mounce, 2009) while exploring his own specific interests regarding fear and risk. This contribution to the cultural approach to crime and deviance is interesting in that Furedi has based his work on a narrow foundation of scholarly work, which is an issue, considering that the book is a peer-reviewed publication. Furthermore, the narrow research base strongly reflects both his agenda and the goal he sets out to achieve, namely to flag up society’s growing fears and assessments of risk, as we live in an ‘age of mistrust’, rather than undertaking a broader consideration of work conducted in this field. Despite this overt promotion of a specific research objective and a lack of in-depth consideration of scholarly research, Furedi still manages to achieve something vital in providing a stimulus for debate and deliberately seeking to provoke a reaction or a response regarding the issues raised by the Savile scandal among academics and laypersons alike.