Hey all, this is your life-pondering-question-asking-philosophy-major
classmate here. I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but I think
it’s worth a read. Plus there are funny images to make up for it.
The last couple class periods have been filled with
discussion on the primary documents read in Kors and Peters’ Witchcraft in Europe. As you may have
(hopefully) noticed, most of the documents deal with how to understand, find,
and eradicate magic users. The documents we have read involved trials,
executions, underhanded tactics, and moral ambiguity.
Moral ambiguity you say?
<www.enumclaw.com>
The things we have read about made me think of other times
in more modern history where, as a society, we have persecuted and punished
those who are unlike the majority in the name of God and peace. I think a lot
of people have had a negative outlook on the medieval folk that condemned others
to death, but don’t we continue to do that as a society?
What really made me do a double take at the text were the
Persecutions at Trier. Taking place in Germany, this community killed thousands
of their own based on accusations of witchcraft or association of witchcraft. I
think that it’s safe to say that the vast majority of those people were
incredibly unlucky innocent folks who confessed to witchcraft under the pain of
torture, yet similar situations would arise in Germany and the rest of the
world for years to come.
<http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3vfx0c/>
What does that say about humanity? I can’t help but draw
parallels with the Holocaust, McCarthyism, and the unfair manner in which
racial and religious minorities are condemned in comparison to the majority.
Let’s face it; we treat men with turbans and women in hijabs the same way
medieval folk treated the lady who bakes brownies down the street. How come we
haven’t learned any better?
Why?!
<http://alltheragefaces.com/face/misc-jackie-chan>
Humanity often kills off those they don’t understand out of
fear of the unknown. We’ve seen this in Classical Greece when Socrates drank
hemlock after he was wrongly convicted of impiety and corrupting the youth, and
we see this in modern literature as well. I just finished Veronica Roth’s Divergent (it was awesome go read it)
and the story takes place in a dystopian America where the people are divided
into five factions based on virtue, and the rare individuals who do not fit
neatly into any one faction (aka divergent) are discovered and snuffed out
simply because they don’t fit. You see this in Harry Potter when muggles and
muggle-borns are threatened/killed because they are different, you see this in
George Orwell’s 1984 and The Matrix and Doctor Who and even Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer is subjected to
ostracism.
<www.whytry.org>
So why did the medieval folks kill their kin? Were they
really that different from us? Were they already corrupt and using magic as a scapegoat?
And more importantly, why haven’t we learned from their mistakes and the
mistakes of others? How come we’re perpetuating something we openly mock? How
come we are so fascinated by this subject that we continue to explore it in
various media when it’s so often staring us in the face?
<http://thoughtcatalog.com/2013/40-gifs-that-prove-every-day-is-mean-girls-day/>
End rant. And please answer some/any of those questions
because there’s nothing I like more than a good argument/discussion.
I think you make a really good point! I think they knew that it was wrong to kill another person but then I feel like they numbed their guilt if they could or justified that by saying that they killed a sorcerer or a person working with the devil and going against God. And if they weren't able able to hide away their guilt it affected them a lot like the one guy who killed himself after he executed the supposed "witch".
ReplyDeleteJustification is a dangerous thing isn't it? And humans have a knack for justifying almost any and all of their actions...
ReplyDeleteExactly. We humans are experts at both rationalizing and generalizing things. No one enjoys admitting they're wrong, so we find ways to make our situation different from the one we're denouncing. In that sense, I'd say we're no different now than the people living during the Middle Ages.
ReplyDeleteHey, side note here. I really enjoy your writing style for this. Have you blogged before? By the way, nice pictures haha
ReplyDeleteThanks! I haven't really blogged before in the formal sense of the word (cough tumblr cough) but writing like this come naturally to me because it's pretty much everything that's going on in my head. I write almost exactly how I speak when I don't have to be formal, and I guess that's coming in handy on this assignment. I'm also trying a little harder than normal to be witty so that my posts are actually fun/entertaining to read.
ReplyDeleteI feel like people have not learned from the mistakes of others because they are ignorant. They do not think something that happened to their friend will happen to them but in reality it is very likely it will. people do not listen to one anothers advice. I will never forget when my sophomore high school history teacher told us that "If we do not learn from the past then history is doomed to repeat itself." And i think we can see that even today still.
ReplyDeleteI think as a whole we have a significantly easier time judging people in the past and judge ourselves less. I think this has a lot to do with our assumption that because we are living it we have all the information when we probably only have a fraction of all the information needed to come to a conclusion.
ReplyDeleteI think the philosophy major in you would be interested in the philosophy of Michael Foucault. In his book, Discipline and Punish, he talks about how people in power use knowledge to stay in power. For him punishment is not for the sake of some law but rather for the to reaffirm the power of that leader. It becomes a participatory ritual for the constituents of the government which reaffirms the leaders powers.
ReplyDeleteWitch trials are an interesting example of this because both the church and state vie to assert their power through these rituals of punishment.
A truly intriguing question. One that many have sought to answer, but the phenomenon always repeats. I guess my answer to the question "Why does it keep happening?" has two parts.
ReplyDeleteFirst history always seems more muted to us. It is less passionate looking back on an event than it would be if we actually lived through it. Secondly we all have the advantage of hindsight, so we know all (or most) or the facts and how an event finally ended.
When you combine these two, when you are actually living during an unfolding event and you don't have the benefit of hindsight, even if you know about previous crazes (witchcraft, Mcarthyism, or what have you), you justify your actions by saying "Yes, but this time the threat is real."
People genuinely believe (again even if they know and laugh about past frenzies) that their event is different because in their event the threat is real. During the witch craze there were enough people who really believed that there was a secrete witch plot, that they were willing to bring about the deaths of thousands to try to protect themselves. During McCarthyism, there were enough people who believed that the communist plot was genuine that they were able and willing to ruin many innocent people's lives.
I am sure I will have more thoughts on this later, but those are my initial thoughts.