I see mass hysteria as part of the Future Shock of our accelerated social destabilization as 'life as we know it' vanishes and gets replaced more and more by 'life as we used to read it in science fiction.' Naive people have grown terrorized by text books, by pop music, by games, and even by schoolteachers (the most inoffensive persons around) .... the whole modern (or post-modern) world seems incomprehensible, and therefore sinister, to millions of our citizen. If you want to grok what these ordinary beer-and-hotdog Americans feel when they see a Gay Pride parade on TV, try to imagine your own reaction to a Cannibal Pride parade. I do not mean that Gays should 'go back in the closet,' or that any other genies should or can go back into their bottles. I just mean that the world has begun to freak out a lot of ignorant people.