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You see parallels between the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism because the left made those comparisons repeatedly. For example, "The Crucible is a 1953 play

You see parallels between the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism because the left made those comparisons repeatedly. For example, "The Crucible is a 1953 play by American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a dramatized and partially fictionalized story of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during 1692–93. Miller wrote the play as an allegory for McCarthyism". But there is a crucial difference between the witch trials and McCarthyism. Witches don't exist. Communists did exist. And by Communists, I mean members of and supporters of the Communist Party USA in the US government. The CPUSA was dedicated to the violent overthrow of democratic government in the US and its replacement with a dictatorship loyal to Stalin. After the release of Venona documents and Soviet archives, we know now with certainty that those Communists did exist - they weren't imaginary. They existed in high positions in the US government, they spied for Stalin, gave nuclear and other military information to the Soviets, they made government policy that favored Stalin, the US government knew many of their names, and did nothing about it for years, in some cases over a decade. When people pointed this out, they were called paranoid. I don't see the parallels to the Salem Witch Trials in that. I see gaslighting. I see blaming the messenger. I don't see a witch hunt.

orwin 3y ago
Wow, so because a considerable minority of the CPUSA leaders and loudmouthes wanted to violently overthrow the US government, all their political overt allies needed to be removed from public jobs, the party was disbanded and all the leaders, even those not advocating for violence had to be put in prison. Imagine if they successfully stormed the Capitol, they would have been put to death.
- Joker_vD 3y ago
  Yes, of course. Democracy is very important, so in order to protect it, even such extreme measures can be morally justified. And before you try to mirror this argument with what was happening in the USSR: the USSR was not democratic, it was totalitarian, and protecting totalitarism is never morally correct, period.
  - p_j_w 3y ago
    Can we take similar extreme measures against Trump supporters, as some of them actively tried overthrowing the democratically elected government?
  - lukas099 3y ago
    Protecting democracy by throwing all your political enemies in prison... hm...
cauch 3y ago
I don't think what you call "witch hunt" is what the majority of people call "witch hunt". For example, when Trump says "they are accusing me of fraud but it is just a witch hunt", he does not say "fraudster don't exist", he says "those people have found someone they don't like, or have an interest to get rid of, or are super paranoiac, so they will jump on accusations and see 'proofs' that these accusations are real everywhere even when it's not the case". (I take Trump as an example where "witch hunt" was used. But in the case of Trump, I call BS: the reason he is so often accused is because he simply has done a lot of shady things) The historical witch hunt is a good example of that: people were trialed and found guilty, but we now know that witches don't exist, so it demonstrates that they did not really have any proofs, they were just so biased that every little thing was a proof to their eyes. This is the reason the McCarthyism is associated to the concept of witch hunt: during this time, any single element could have been overblown into the proof the person was anti-democracy communist ready to kill their neighbourgs even if it turned out this person had done absolutely nothing wrong and was innocent. And if there are arguments to justify very stringent background checks in some sector (military, politics, ...), this was extended to sectors where it was not at all needed, such as art and cinema (the worst they could have done was to put very hidden propaganda messages that would have had no effect on 99.9% of the viewers). And this is also why people talked about paranoia: it is ok to be careful and do a lot of background checks, but if you find a red socks in the bottom of the drawer and scream "ahAh, this is the proof this person is a commie", then, yes, you are paranoiac even if communists really exist.
- SenAnder 3y ago
  > they were just so biased that every little thing was a proof to their eyes. While all the accusations were indeed false [1], they actually had surprisingly high standards of proof, and the modern perception of witch hunts is largely an ahistoric lie [2]. If there's one thing to learn from this, it's to question the stories we're told - both their content and their selection. [1] At least in the sense that witchcraft isn't effective, not that there was nobody practicing witchcraft: https://www.reddit.com/r/WitchesVsPatriarchy/ https://www.reddit.com/r/WitchesVsPatriarchy/ [2] https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-malleus-maleficarum https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-malleus-malefic... - Quoting at length because it's too funny: How do you prove an accusation? Kramer’s preferred method is with at least three witnesses (although judges are permitted to occasionally convict with fewer). Who may serve as a witness? [..] It would seem that maybe the suspect’s enemies should not be allowed to testify against her, because they might be motivated by grudges. On the contrary side, most witches are people of bad reputation who have alienated their whole village [..] So Kramer compromises again: enemies may testify, but not mortal enemies. A person is considered a mortal enemy of a suspect if one of them has tried to kill the other, or their families have a blood feud, or something of that nature. [..] witch hunters are nomadic types. They don’t know who is mortal enemies with whom in every little village. [..] Kramer’s proposed solution is to ask the suspect to list off all her mortal enemies; if she names the witness, something is afoot. (Some of you may have already noticed a loophole here. A History Of The Inquisition In Spain describes the case of one Gaspar Torralba, accused in 1531: “There were thirty-five witnesses against him, for he was generally hated and feared. In his defence he enumerated no less than a hundred and fifty-two persons, including his wife and daughter, as his mortal enemies, and he gave the reason in each case which amply justified their enmity . . . The tribunal evidently recognized the nature of the accusation; he was admitted to bail, July 1, 1532, and finally escaped with a moderate penance.”)
SenAnder 3y ago
> You see parallels between the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism because the left made those comparisons repeatedly. There were also many other purges, notably in the Soviet Union and People's Republic of China, with which parallels could be drawn. Purges incomparably larger and bloodier. Yet strikingly little media draw these parallels [1], essentially lying through omission. There's no better example than Handmaid's Tale, that invented a whole new sexist society to draw parallels with Christianity instead of Islam. One must be aware that in the Plato's cave of media, those casting the shadows are not motivated solely by the pursuit of truth, nor are they a representative sample of the general population. [1] https://reason.com/2000/06/01/hollywoods-missing-movies/ https://reason.com/2000/06/01/hollywoods-missing-movies/
- krisoft 3y ago
  > Handmaid's Tale, that invented a whole new sexist society to draw parallels with Christianity instead of Islam. The point of the book is that religious fanatics can take over even in the USA. It is a cautionary story. It "invented" new things because it is a fictional book, not one describing real events. Atwood talked about how the Islamic revolution in Iran inspired her description of Gilead. If you don't understand the concept of taking something which happened "far away", to "other people", "a long time ago" and bringing it closer and making it more personal to the audience then you must be very new to this literature thing. > There's no better example than Handmaid's Tale, What do you think it is an example of?
  - SenAnder 3y ago
    > The point of the book is that religious fanatics can take over even in the USA That's her point. My point are the gymnastics done to substitute Islam with Christianity. If her work was the exception, with lots of other made-into-Netflix-miniseries works warning of Sharia, I would share your opinion. It gets even more skewed than Handmaid's Tale: The Woman King was perfectly fine depicting things that happened "far away", to "other people", "a long time ago". What the films was not fine with was accurately depicting the African kingdom of Dahomey as slavers, and the French as (belatedly) fighting against slavery. So the film simply reversed their roles [1]. For a more topical example, look at how the Apollo affair [2] made it into popular media: Israel stole plutonium from the US for their weapons program. It inspired the book Sum of All Fears, in which the plutonium was instead stolen by Palestinians. By the time it was made into a star-studded movie, the villains became Neo-Nazis. There is always some artistic excuse to justify these politically useful alterations. [1] https://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/woman-king/ https://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/woman-king/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apollo_Affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apollo_Affair
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> you see parallels between the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism because the left made those comparisons repeatedly Have you read primary documents relating to the Salem Witch Trials? It is difficult to read them and believe key actors truly thought they’d found witches. Instead, a frustrated population was led to scapegoat their situation on social misfits. Yes, some people probably believed they were genuine witches. But more crucially, the way they were pursued mirrors the way false accusations are levelled at marginalised groups across history. > there is a crucial difference between the witch trials and McCarthyism. Witches don't exist. Communists did exist… When people pointed this out, they were called paranoid. I agree completely. That said, there are parallels, and their construction is a recurring theme. I mentioned the Nazis, but was specifically thinking of the Éparation sauvage. Nazi collaborators in France existed. But the way they were “pursued” was farcical. McCarthyism is similar—Communist collaborators existed in America. But McCarthy was not considered paranoid, and he did not conduct pointed investigations; he was given broad powers to pursue and punish those he simply suspected. The lesson of these periods isn’t solely that marginalised groups get punished. It’s also that false accusations give real perpetrators cover. McCarthyism isn’t solely a story of a breach of the rule of law and civil rights. It’s also one of demagoguery facilitating actual breaches of our security.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
thiagoharry 3y ago
I would point that witches, if you think of them as people who follow pagan doctrines and knowledge not sanctioned by church also existed. What did not exist was old women flying in brooms. The medieval witch hunt existed to hunt ideology dangerous to the medieval status quo. If these real witches did not exist, the myth created by propaganda involving evil women flying in brooms also would not exist. Likewise, communists are also people with ideology anathema and dangerous to the current capitalist status quo. I also would point that while real communist exist, the propaganda of children-eater communists do not exist. But the exaggerated propaganda would not exist if the real thing did not exist. Anyway, communists always would be persecuted and vilified in a capitalist world because they are against private property, a central principle for capitalist societies. It does not matter if they try to advocate their ideas democratically via elections or not (Salvador Allende was violently overthrow anyway). This would change only if the ideology somehow become harmless to the status quo. Likewise, a medieval society never would allow pagan ideologies not aligned with the church, because this is against the core principle of medieval societies.

orwin 3y ago

Wow, so because a considerable minority of the CPUSA leaders and loudmouthes wanted to violently overthrow the US government, all their political overt allies needed to be removed from public jobs, the party was disbanded and all the leaders, even those not advocating for violence had to be put in prison. Imagine if they successfully stormed the Capitol, they would have been put to death.

Joker_vD 3y ago
Yes, of course. Democracy is very important, so in order to protect it, even such extreme measures can be morally justified. And before you try to mirror this argument with what was happening in the USSR: the USSR was not democratic, it was totalitarian, and protecting totalitarism is never morally correct, period.
- p_j_w 3y ago
  Can we take similar extreme measures against Trump supporters, as some of them actively tried overthrowing the democratically elected government?
- lukas099 3y ago
  Protecting democracy by throwing all your political enemies in prison... hm...

cauch 3y ago

I don't think what you call "witch hunt" is what the majority of people call "witch hunt". For example, when Trump says "they are accusing me of fraud but it is just a witch hunt", he does not say "fraudster don't exist", he says "those people have found someone they don't like, or have an interest to get rid of, or are super paranoiac, so they will jump on accusations and see 'proofs' that these accusations are real everywhere even when it's not the case". (I take Trump as an example where "witch hunt" was used. But in the case of Trump, I call BS: the reason he is so often accused is because he simply has done a lot of shady things) The historical witch hunt is a good example of that: people were trialed and found guilty, but we now know that witches don't exist, so it demonstrates that they did not really have any proofs, they were just so biased that every little thing was a proof to their eyes. This is the reason the McCarthyism is associated to the concept of witch hunt: during this time, any single element could have been overblown into the proof the person was anti-democracy communist ready to kill their neighbourgs even if it turned out this person had done absolutely nothing wrong and was innocent. And if there are arguments to justify very stringent background checks in some sector (military, politics, ...), this was extended to sectors where it was not at all needed, such as art and cinema (the worst they could have done was to put very hidden propaganda messages that would have had no effect on 99.9% of the viewers). And this is also why people talked about paranoia: it is ok to be careful and do a lot of background checks, but if you find a red socks in the bottom of the drawer and scream "ahAh, this is the proof this person is a commie", then, yes, you are paranoiac even if communists really exist.

SenAnder 3y ago
> they were just so biased that every little thing was a proof to their eyes. While all the accusations were indeed false [1], they actually had surprisingly high standards of proof, and the modern perception of witch hunts is largely an ahistoric lie [2]. If there's one thing to learn from this, it's to question the stories we're told - both their content and their selection. [1] At least in the sense that witchcraft isn't effective, not that there was nobody practicing witchcraft: https://www.reddit.com/r/WitchesVsPatriarchy/ https://www.reddit.com/r/WitchesVsPatriarchy/ [2] https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-malleus-maleficarum https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-malleus-malefic... - Quoting at length because it's too funny: How do you prove an accusation? Kramer’s preferred method is with at least three witnesses (although judges are permitted to occasionally convict with fewer). Who may serve as a witness? [..] It would seem that maybe the suspect’s enemies should not be allowed to testify against her, because they might be motivated by grudges. On the contrary side, most witches are people of bad reputation who have alienated their whole village [..] So Kramer compromises again: enemies may testify, but not mortal enemies. A person is considered a mortal enemy of a suspect if one of them has tried to kill the other, or their families have a blood feud, or something of that nature. [..] witch hunters are nomadic types. They don’t know who is mortal enemies with whom in every little village. [..] Kramer’s proposed solution is to ask the suspect to list off all her mortal enemies; if she names the witness, something is afoot. (Some of you may have already noticed a loophole here. A History Of The Inquisition In Spain describes the case of one Gaspar Torralba, accused in 1531: “There were thirty-five witnesses against him, for he was generally hated and feared. In his defence he enumerated no less than a hundred and fifty-two persons, including his wife and daughter, as his mortal enemies, and he gave the reason in each case which amply justified their enmity . . . The tribunal evidently recognized the nature of the accusation; he was admitted to bail, July 1, 1532, and finally escaped with a moderate penance.”)

SenAnder 3y ago

> You see parallels between the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism because the left made those comparisons repeatedly. There were also many other purges, notably in the Soviet Union and People's Republic of China, with which parallels could be drawn. Purges incomparably larger and bloodier. Yet strikingly little media draw these parallels [1], essentially lying through omission. There's no better example than Handmaid's Tale, that invented a whole new sexist society to draw parallels with Christianity instead of Islam. One must be aware that in the Plato's cave of media, those casting the shadows are not motivated solely by the pursuit of truth, nor are they a representative sample of the general population. [1] https://reason.com/2000/06/01/hollywoods-missing-movies/ https://reason.com/2000/06/01/hollywoods-missing-movies/

krisoft 3y ago
> Handmaid's Tale, that invented a whole new sexist society to draw parallels with Christianity instead of Islam. The point of the book is that religious fanatics can take over even in the USA. It is a cautionary story. It "invented" new things because it is a fictional book, not one describing real events. Atwood talked about how the Islamic revolution in Iran inspired her description of Gilead. If you don't understand the concept of taking something which happened "far away", to "other people", "a long time ago" and bringing it closer and making it more personal to the audience then you must be very new to this literature thing. > There's no better example than Handmaid's Tale, What do you think it is an example of?
- SenAnder 3y ago
  > The point of the book is that religious fanatics can take over even in the USA That's her point. My point are the gymnastics done to substitute Islam with Christianity. If her work was the exception, with lots of other made-into-Netflix-miniseries works warning of Sharia, I would share your opinion. It gets even more skewed than Handmaid's Tale: The Woman King was perfectly fine depicting things that happened "far away", to "other people", "a long time ago". What the films was not fine with was accurately depicting the African kingdom of Dahomey as slavers, and the French as (belatedly) fighting against slavery. So the film simply reversed their roles [1]. For a more topical example, look at how the Apollo affair [2] made it into popular media: Israel stole plutonium from the US for their weapons program. It inspired the book Sum of All Fears, in which the plutonium was instead stolen by Palestinians. By the time it was made into a star-studded movie, the villains became Neo-Nazis. There is always some artistic excuse to justify these politically useful alterations. [1] https://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/woman-king/ https://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/woman-king/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apollo_Affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apollo_Affair

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> you see parallels between the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism because the left made those comparisons repeatedly Have you read primary documents relating to the Salem Witch Trials? It is difficult to read them and believe key actors truly thought they’d found witches. Instead, a frustrated population was led to scapegoat their situation on social misfits. Yes, some people probably believed they were genuine witches. But more crucially, the way they were pursued mirrors the way false accusations are levelled at marginalised groups across history. > there is a crucial difference between the witch trials and McCarthyism. Witches don't exist. Communists did exist… When people pointed this out, they were called paranoid. I agree completely. That said, there are parallels, and their construction is a recurring theme. I mentioned the Nazis, but was specifically thinking of the Éparation sauvage. Nazi collaborators in France existed. But the way they were “pursued” was farcical. McCarthyism is similar—Communist collaborators existed in America. But McCarthy was not considered paranoid, and he did not conduct pointed investigations; he was given broad powers to pursue and punish those he simply suspected. The lesson of these periods isn’t solely that marginalised groups get punished. It’s also that false accusations give real perpetrators cover. McCarthyism isn’t solely a story of a breach of the rule of law and civil rights. It’s also one of demagoguery facilitating actual breaches of our security.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

thiagoharry 3y ago

I would point that witches, if you think of them as people who follow pagan doctrines and knowledge not sanctioned by church also existed. What did not exist was old women flying in brooms. The medieval witch hunt existed to hunt ideology dangerous to the medieval status quo. If these real witches did not exist, the myth created by propaganda involving evil women flying in brooms also would not exist. Likewise, communists are also people with ideology anathema and dangerous to the current capitalist status quo. I also would point that while real communist exist, the propaganda of children-eater communists do not exist. But the exaggerated propaganda would not exist if the real thing did not exist. Anyway, communists always would be persecuted and vilified in a capitalist world because they are against private property, a central principle for capitalist societies. It does not matter if they try to advocate their ideas democratically via elections or not (Salvador Allende was violently overthrow anyway). This would change only if the ideology somehow become harmless to the status quo. Likewise, a medieval society never would allow pagan ideologies not aligned with the church, because this is against the core principle of medieval societies.