There's an episode of the old Twilight Zone named this, where the neighbors of an idyllic Mayberry-esque town find themselves plunged into darkness by a mysterious power outage. Soon there are rumors of malevolent monsters or aliens invading. Eventually they begin to turn suspicious of each other and viciously attack one among them for being different. It is the incivility of panic and fear that brings the true "monsters" to maple street in the guise of its own irrational residents.
I used this in court the other day to offer a parallel to my guilty client's neighborhood problem. He moved into a private bedroom community with his loud music and his barking dogs. He was neither friendly nor respectful to his neighbors. One day, he gets a note on his door threatening to "take care" of his dogs. Furious, he gets into an ugly argument with his neighbor, and gets pushy. Charged, he is ordered to stay away from his neighbors, and, accordingly, he can't stay in his own home. His entire neighborhood showed up in court for his sentencing to speak against him as "a bully" and "not a good neighbor" and a "danger" and a "threat to their community." None of them are willing to tell who wrote the nasty note that provoked the confrontation in the first place.
So I spoke on his behalf and reminded the court of that Twilight Episode I saw many years ago, a glazed-eyed fat kid, up too late watching TV.
As usual, no one knew what the hell I was taking about.
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