Risk and scapegoating

Mental Health Nursing,  Nov/Dec 2001  by Godin, Paul

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Ulrich Beck (1992) argued that though contemporary society has been described as post-industrial, postmodern, post-Enlightenment, it is better understood as a `risk societv'. Science and industrialisation have meant that we in the developed world live longer, healthier and - in some ways - more secure lives.

But this has been at a price, for new hazards now threaten our existence in new ways. Catastrophes such as Chernobyl, BSE and now the World Trade Centre collapse can destabilise our secure existence in the developed world at any time.

In the developed and developing world, we are united in facing a multitude of uncertain, incalculable and unlimited risks. The events of I Ith September highlighted yet another risk: the ability of determined individuals to turn common implements of the modern world into weapons of terror and immense destruction.

The risk society certainly generates anxiety. As a child I remember lying awake at night fretting about the Cuban missile crisis. In this issue's Speak Up! Laurence Pollock considers the meaning of his own son's anxiety and fear of cosmic chaos following the collapse of the World Trade Centre. I suggest that anxiety is widespread within the risk society and that we find various ways of dealing with it. We may simply repress it or we may deal with this incalculable intangible horror by identifying a scapegoat.

The mental patient in the community has, over the last decade or more, served this purpose. Homicides have increased in Britain four-fold over the last fifty years, but those committed by people with mental disorders have remained steady Yet popular fear concentrates upon the 'danger' of the mental patient in the community and the Government encourages mental health professionals to be more vigilant in assessing and managing their clients' violent potential.

It is somewhat ironic that mental health service users are portrayed as major perpetrators of violent crime whilst they are more often the victims of crime, discrimination and exploitation.

In our rational scientific world, disasters can no longer be seen as accidents, there must be somebody who is culpable. Thus experts can no longer explain that homicides committed by mental patients are unpredictable, rare and tragic events. Such events are now seen as the result of mental health professionals' inadequate assessment and risk management of their client. As Mary Douglas (1994) argues, this need to blame is characteristic of all cultures. In the face of disaster, insiders achieve greater social solidarity by blaming the outsider. Abul Hussain and Rufus May point out (page 6) that this seems to be happening in Britain as Muslims are experiencing an increase in racist attacks. Perhaps, as they suggest, we need to talk to each other more about our anxieties in order to reflect upon and develop our understanding of our world in this time of difficulty.

Beck U (1992) Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London, Sage

Douglas M (1994) Risk and Blame: Essays in Cultural Theory. London, Routledge

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