The Madness

I'm gonna be all phylisophical again today because other than my thoughts my life is beginning to bore even me. My life is consisting of work, school, and sean if i can get him in. SO here it goes.

What is the reason behind the social hysteria resulting in the Red Scare and the Salem Witch Trials? If you don't know what the Red Scare is let me update you. The short version: Picture the Salem Witch Trials during the 50s when Communism is on the rise and Joseph McCarthy comes out with a list of 57 congress and house members that are currently in office that are 'supposedly
communists in order to get votes for the upcoming elections. To keep his face he goes into it. The inquisitions begin, and if you are not on the side of the american government and capitalism guess what you are gonna be suspected of? Fun yeah?

Anyway. My hypothesis to this problem is that the average person is smart, but people are stupid and are easily convinced of something that when given decent thought is obviously hysteria ESPECIALLY when faced with a danger they have no knowledge of and must trust on something (religion, capitalism) or someone (Courts, God, McCarthy) to convict and judge. (Man i keep going back to that stinkin Men in Black analogy!!!)

For Example. Right now I'm reading The Crucible, actually I just finished it today, and I sided with the most tragic character as my favorite, of course! John Proctor, and I was dumbfounded in the end when they actually hanged him for witchcraft. Now of course the author meant to parallel the red scare with something completely insane like the Salem Witch Trials to show the reader how absurd the whole time period was, but I thought of the injustice these people had to suffer through and it just made me sick. Injustice is something I loathe and abhorr and connects a bit with the inward struggle I've had with what is really truth (See Last Post), and to see someone stand up for something they KNOW to be true (and by truth I do mean the truth and not just the perception of truth as I talked about last time) and to be judged so harshly because of it. Its a 'if you don't follow us your against us' kind of mentality that drives the main force behind the pious Puritan authority.

Interesting huh? Alone the seperate person such as Proctor and Giles are smart, they know the motivations behind the trials, but Salem as a City and a Theocracy is stupid, first for putting their faith into a theocracy for their societies, and second for being so easily mannipulated by putting their faith into a girl who they know to be an antagonist because of previous events. So maybe its just putting your faith in the wrong people that makes them stupid, but how scared can you have to be to choose that over Proctor, someone who levels with you and has a clear mind free of the supernatural? Because even from the outset when I knew he was a lecher I still would have trusted him over Abigail.

I'm sure I'll continue this tomorrow but as I am tired I will go to sleep now.