Juvenoia

One particularly salient and instructive example of a full blown juvenoia from recent time was the comic book scare of the 1950s, elaborated in a fascinating book by David Hajdu, The 10 Cent Plague.(Hajdu, 2009)

I suspect that this case and the attention it has garnered is another example of juvenoia. Juvenoia, a term usually credited to sociologist David Finkelhor, refers to the fear of juveniles by older adults. Juvenoia is manifest in a multitude of ways, including the belief that today’s youth are worse behaved than ever before, despite much evidence to the contrary.