Satanism.
A few years ago, a friend of my parents saw that I had a poster of Wonder Woman hanging on the wall of my room and was deeply concerned. She thought my liking for mythology and fantasy indicated an involvement in "the occult" and that I was in danger of being seduced by "satanism." The friend was echoing a recent concern among a number of right wing groups, ranging from Lyndon LaRouche followers (White) to Jack Chick Ministries, a publisher of religious hate literature (Brown), that a global conspiracy of satanists is taking over the world. Among other deeds too diverse to discuss here, these satanists are supposedly committing sacrificial cannibalism and engaging in the sexual and physical abuse of children as part of their worship. The idea would be merely quaint except that the notion of "satanic child abuse" has come to be accepted among numerous child protection workers, therapists, and feminists, to the extent that at least five states have introduced or passed legislation to outlaw "ritual abuse" (Hicks, In Pursuit, 366-67). This thesis grew out of my asking why a paranoid and irrational idea, seemingly a product of antifeminist fringe groups, has been able to affect the mainstream and be taken seriously by so many people.
Simplicity.
One of the best criticisms I received in revising this thesis came from an instructor who noted that my draft was being judgmental toward conservatives, and said that persuasion is better than vilification. On reflection, I realized that the problem she saw went beyond style. A major difficulty in studying contemporary culture's antifeminism is to avoid temptingly simple, satisfying explanations for that antifeminism. When Susan Faludi titles her book on such trends Backlash or an Undeclared War Against American Women, she gives the impression, despite her disclaimer that the backlash is unconscious, that "someone" is acting in an antifeminist conspiracy to erode feminist gains. When feminists anthropomorphize and animate the labels given abstract ideas, talking about "the patriarchy" or "the power structure" as actual things, we are creating an indirect conspiracy theory, equally tempting and equally flawed. I realized that in writing against conservatives, I was unconsciously using such a satisfying and simplistic explanation.
It is easy to apply simplistic, reductive explanations to a complex reality rather than try to understand that complexity. Even easier is the simple explanation that avoids examining unspeakable ideological assumptions. When the explanation takes the form of a satisfying story as well, it is seductively easy. The best stories in these terms are fables, tales in which the protagonists are good because of their conformity to traditional roles and the antagonists are evil because they defy or attack such roles.
Ideas of child abuse.
Simple and satisfying explanations are especially dangerous when studying cultural ideas which are themselves neatly simple. Jeffrey Victor's efforts to debunk the child abuse aspects of the satanic fable (in Satanic Panic) have led him to join the "professional advisory board" of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF goldenrod leaflet), a group devoted to promoting another fable of child abuse. The Foundation claims that intact white middle class nuclear families do not abuse their children, and that such families accused of child abuse by their grown daughters are the innocent victims of "FMS," false memories put in the adult daughters' minds by the New Age self-help culture and greedy or incompetent therapists.
Both fables of child abuse have been widely accepted among people who (we would like to think) know better than to define the world in terms of simple and satisfying problems, explanations, and solutions. As I researched both fables, I realized that most investigations of them had concentrated on disproving one or the other and had not looked deeply at why they are so popular. In addition, none of the investigators seemed to have realized that both were cultural fables. Like Victor, critics of one fable tend to unquestioningly embrace the other as its rational antithesis. In this study, I look at personal narratives of people who claim to have been victimized by satanists or by FMS, asking why such fables are so popular. I argue that fables of satanic abuse and FMS are based on two related reactionary mechanisms for responding to cultural change that I call "scapegoating" and "nostalgia." When applied to ideas of child abuse, these mechanisms act to reinforce traditional ideas of women and the family, and to distract attention from the ways those traditional ideas encourage and exacerbate harm to children.
Terminology.
The antifeminist ideas I am examining are often labeled "conservative," a term I have avoided because the ideas are not linked with any particular idea of government or economics. The antifeminism I am looking at is instead "reactionary," involving a refusal to change along with a changing world. I have used the term "right wing" when appropriate, but in terms of reactionary cultural politics rather than conservative governmental politics.
The idea of "false memory syndrome" comes from a single organization and can be discussed in terms of that group's views. Since there is no single group promoting the idea of "satanic abuse," I refer to those who believe in the satanic abuse fable as "satanic believers." An important group of satanic believers are those who think that they themselves have been tortured by satanists. These people usually call themselves "survivors," a dubious claim; I have instead adopted the term "satanic victims" for this group. While they have not been victimized by satanists, they are victims of the belief that they have been. Finally, to avoid endorsing the idea that "satanism," as defined by satanic believers, exists, I have left it a common noun.
Outline.
Chapter two, "Nancy Mairs, Pat Robertson, and My Mother" develops my general argument and theory. The next four chapters discuss fables of satanic child abuse. That such stories are fables is almost certain, as shown in chapter three, "Something Under the Bed Is Drooling--Not." Chapter four, "Heretics, Jews, Witches, Catholics, and Other Cannibals" looks at the enduring popularity over the centuries of stories in which some imaginary or real group in society is thought to be inhumanly evil and plotting to destroy civilization. Contemporary narratives of satanists support the traditional patriarchal family by depicting the imaginary satanists as "All Purpose Villains," embodying every perceived threat to that family, including feminism, as shown in chapter five. In addition, chapter six, "Evil Mothers and Nurturing Victims," shows how the narratives contrast the evil, supposedly anti-family satanists with their good, supposedly pro-family victims.
If satanic fables obsess on external threats to the traditional family, the FMS fable focuses on the internal threat of a daughter's refusing to give fealty to her father. Chapter seven, "(False) Memories of Perfect Families" looks at the autobiographical accounts that form the Foundation's propaganda, in which accusing daughters are not attacked for their supposedly false statements but for their disloyalty to family unity.
If this study were a television program, it would appear as a "debate" between dualistic, neatly simple, and polarized views, the FMS supporters versus the satanic believers. Chapter eight, "Hypnosis, Repression, and Reality Consensus," seeks to avoid such an outcome by looking at the neatly simple and reductive ways supporters of both fables explain a messily complex world in which abused people can cope by forgetting things that did happen and mentally ill people can be cured by unforgetting things that never happened. The last chapter, "Serving the Victims," offers some conclusions.