Stanley Cohen (23 February 1942 – 7 January 2013) was a South African-British sociologist and criminologist, Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics, known for breaking academic ground on "emotional management", including the mismanagement of emotions in the form of sentimentality, overreaction, and emotional denial. He is also known for developing the concept moral panics. He had a lifelong concern with human rights violations, first growing up in South Africa, later studying imprisonment in England and finally in Israel. He founded the Centre for the Study of Human Rights at the London School of Economics.
Life
Cohen was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1942, son of a Lithuanian businessman. He grew up as a Zionist and intended to settle in Israel. He studied Sociology and Social Work as an undergraduate at the University of Witwatersrand, getting involved in anti-apartheid issues.
He came to London in 1963, where he worked as a social worker, before completing his PhD at London School of Economics (LSE) about the social reactions to juvenile delinquency. The Mods and Rockers youth riots were then occurring at England's southern seaside towns, which he studied in the sensational press reactions and by direct interviews. From 1967, he lectured sociology briefly at the Enfield College, NE London, and then at Durham University. During this time of the student rebellions of 1968 he was influenced by the anti-psychiatry movement and participated in the National Deviancy Symposium. A project in Durham prison with Laurie Taylor from York, led to their publication of three books, namely Psychological Survival: The Experience of Long-term Imprisonment (1972), Escape Attempts (1976), Prison Secrets (1978) and the later Visions of Social Control: Crime, Punishment and Classification (1985) which Cohen wrote alone. and the notion of the Deviancy Amplification Spiral. It helped to shift the focus of Criminology away from the causes of crime towards social reaction, the sociology of crime and Social Control. Cohen suggested the media overreact to an aspect of behaviour which may be seen as a challenge to existing social norms. However, the media response and representation of that behaviour actually helps to define it, communicate it and portrays it as a model for outsiders to observe and adopt. So the moral panic by society represented in the media arguably fuels further socially unacceptable behaviour.
Although Cohen is credited with coining the term moral panic the term is quite old - for instance an early usage can be found in the Quarterly Christian Spectator in 1830 and it was used by the Canadian communications theorist Marshall McLuhan in 1964.
States of Denial (2001)
Cohen's last book States of Denial: Knowing about Atrocities and Suffering attempts to analyze personal and political ways in which humans avoid uncomfortable realities, like poverty, suffering, injustice. In 11 chapters he examines elementary forms of denial, Knowing and Not-Knowing: The Psychology of Denial (How could people simultaneously know and not know about such matters?), Denial at Work: Mechanisms and Rhetorical Devices, Accounting for Atrocities: Perpetrators and Officials, Blocking Out the Past: Personal Memories, Public Histories, Bystander States (Though ignorance is bliss, to what extent is a bystander a perpetrator?, Images of Suffering, Appeals: Outrage Into Action, Digging Up Graves, Opening Wounds: Acknowledging the Past, Acknowledgement Now (societal and personal transformation) and concludes with Loose Ends.
The book has been highly praised by reviewers in the English speaking world. The Guardian wrote, "He leads the reader to the conclusion that it is denial that is 'normal' and an ability to see the truth and act accordingly which is rare, whether in individuals or in governments." Michael Ignatieff said "this book will become the starting point for all future debate on the subject".
Laurie Taylor commented on his personality this way: "He could be cruel about the pedants and time-servers he met along the way, intolerant of those who modified their political principles as they gained promotion."
Cohen's love of jokes and self-deprecating humor is exemplified in an anecdote when Taylor mentioned cutting down drinking during their next academic collaboration, like Richard Burton, who said that he "could see the world as it really was", to which Cohen replied "That's all very well, but who the hell wants to see the world as it really is?".