While at Dragon*Con a couple of weeks ago, I attended a panel on urban legends. It was pretty interesting, though in some cases I think I knew a bit more than the panelists about specific urban legends and their provenance.

One of the urban legends discussed was the “dihydrogen monoxide” story. Yes, it is based on a true event, but it has spread throughout our culture so that many people, even though they assert its truth, do not know where it originated. “This kid at this high school by neighbor’s cousin’s kid was going to did this thing…” This, I suppose, is what has caused this story to move into the realm of Urban Legend.

The moderator of the panel remarked that this particular story demonstrated one important property of urban legends. In particular, this story possesses an almost “anti-science” theme, or seems to convey the idea that science cannot be trusted. This, he said, shows that urban legends are incredibly subversive, and work from within to disrupt our culture.

I’m not certain I agree with his assertion about the theme of this particular story, but I am pretty sure I disagree with his comment about the “subversiveness” of urban legends; this legend, if the moderator’s analysis of its theme is true, undermines public faith in science, and this strikes me not as a subversive theme, but a very conservative one; almost reactionary. Most of the urban legends we see — “The Hook”, “The Babysitter”, and so on — have very distinct morals: “Don’t park with your boyfriend late at night”, “Don’t trust your baby to a hippie babysitter”.

Do these themes, therefore, count as subversive or reactionary? Or am I misunderstanding the terms completely?