Abstract

Arts Council. AIDS as an Apocalyptic Metaphor Race Wars and Ancient Conspiracies 101. of the countersubversion ideologies percolating through our soci ety during periods of social upheaval. Subversion fears have recurred throughout American history, providing food for countersubversion ideologies that have been used to justify the persecution and scapegoating of witches, Am erindians, Catholics, Communists, Mormons, and religious cultists(Bromley, 1991). Fears of subversion, Bromley notes, tend to emerge during periods when there is tension or conflict among contemporary social patterns. Once a central problem is defined, its source is attributed to human agents who are designated as morally inferior. The social construction of extreme moral degra dation, he claims, moves the target group to a symbolically distant and alien position, which in turn mandates a repressive response: Subversives are depicted as having infiltrated a once secure terrain;