For better or worse, America has been through the trend of paranoia and throwing accusations left and right. Our history has had some dark times regarding hysteria and it may be because of the lack of knowledge from the general people. Blaming and accusing is one of the ways we tend to deal with issues that we do not understand. The Salem Witch trails will go down in history as an event that has the most baseless accusations. Bear in mind, Puritans considered an individual a witch if one floats in water, the notion now is very amusing, but at the time it was life or death for an individual.
As hard as it is to understand how the Salem witch trials happened, it is not the first time it has occurred, and there is no doubt it will be the last. In the few decades after the Salem Witch Trials, there have been countless historic events that are very similar, relating to mass fear. The anti-German sentiment, which was the fear of Germany, and the general German culture and language was brought about by the notion that "Germans were bad because America is fighting them". Americans tend to see things through a bais lense, and like many other countries, we have pride in our own people and nation. However, there is a degree to which this pride becomes our Achilles' heel. For instances, the onslaught of discrimination for Germans and their culture was mainly because of World War 1. At the time of World War 1, America’s opposing team was the Germans, the fear and hysteria was an added factor to the tension growing for the war. When the Zimmerman Telegram was discovered there was even more hysteria, new propaganda was created by news outlets to discredit and scare the people into fearing Germans. Many of the German-Americans living in America were outcasted, humiliated and thrown to jail. Alongside that, there was McCarthyism, Red Scare, Anti-Japanese champagne, and more. What all these events have in common is the fact that there was a lot of blaming and false accusations, however, there was no need for it. McCarthyism by definition is “a vociferous campaign against alleged communists in the US government and other institutions carried out under Senator Joseph McCarthy ”, this rise of hysteria was caused by the fear of communism through postwar. Joseph McCarthy used the hysteria during the time period for his own benefit. He was viewed as a respectable man trying to better the community, but in reality, he was hunting people who either opposed him or wronged him. It spread quickly when there were many other individuals who also started to accuse others of believing in communism or being a spy.
What I find striking is the similarities between McCarthyism, Anti-German Sentiment, and the Salem Witch Trials regarding mass fear. It is hard to think that The Salem Witch Trail could happen again because the faults and wrongdoings are clear within the text, but maybe it really could. The only real cause of all these mass paranoia was the fact that people were afraid of the unknown. McCarthyism was led by the belief of communism spreading towards America, this was unnecessary considering the reprisal it was receiving. There was no need for the fear of communism spreading with all the hatred it was received by the masses. The same thing goes for Anti-German sentiment and the Red Scare era, these events were the snowball effect of a person or a group of individuals who were influencing the public opinion. So, back to the Salem Witch trial, could it really happen again? The events after prove that the Salem Witch Trail can happen, and have happened. There are many possibilities that our community will look at something different and consider it a threat because of the lack of knowledge for the topic. This is essentially what occurred during the Witch Trails, the individuals who were thought to be unique and different from the rest were outcasted and named a witch. Individuals who valued certain morals and ideologies were compared to the general public and ostracized for their differences. In many ways, society is still viewing differences as a threat, the first instinct is to scrutinize those unique aspects of an individual or group rather than understand it.
Aabibsa, I thought you drew great comparisons between the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism. In addition, I thought your use of memes was funny and was revealing of your own style. I noticed that you referred to an event that yielded mass accusations, such as the Salem Witch Trials, will undoubtedly occur again. I was wondering how you thought modern technology would impact a situation like this. Also, in what way do you think modern society would handle these mass accusations differently than people in previous times?
ReplyDeleteI really likes the connections you drew between the Salem witch trials and other historical events. It's a little scary to think that we could repeat our own history so many times without learning anything from it. Recently, when several men in Hollywood and the media were accused of sexual misconduct, it was called a witch hunt. While I can see the similarities between that and the Salem witch trials, I didn't think it was fair to call the #MeToo movement a witch hunt as it was accusing people of a physical crime instead of something that can't be proved, like witchcraft. Do you see similarities between he #MeToo movement and the Salem witch trials? Do you think it was fair to call those accusations a witch hunt?
ReplyDeleteVery insightful post Aabibsa! I agree with you when you were talking about things like the witch trials could repeat in history. I think that it's happening right now in our society. People are impacted by fear and other things in their world. Do you think that politics has an impact on the "trials" that take place? Do you think it is negative? or positive?
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