Moral Calm

To “fearmonger” is to intentionally stoke fear in someone (or many someones) by hyperbolizing a (real or made-up) threat.

That might mean spinning a story about a purported serial killer into a rumor about young people being targeted if they stay out too late or go to certain parts of town, and it might mean convincing a significant portion of a country (and its leaders) that Communists are infiltrating their government.

Fearmongering is often effective, it’s thought, because humans seem to be especially attuned to potential threats; our attention can be caught and held by fear-related rumors, and that can provide incentive for folks to spark and spread such stories whether they’re truthful or not (because doing so can influence policing or parenting, and it can also create and kill political careers).

On the flip-side of fearmongering is a lesser-known (and used) concept that’s sometimes called “Calm-Mongering”, but which is more commonly referred to as “Moral Calm.”