Cancel Culture, Social Justice Warriors, Safe Spaces, Political Correctness, and everyone gets a trophy–except you.
I’ve never much enjoyed any of the above because they seem disingenuous and directly in opposition to their stated goals. But they’ve taken on a fever pitch and intensity lately.
Quite accidentally, I was stumbling around the internet and came upon the Salem Witch Trials. And holy fuck all that stuff is in lockstep with how the current outrage runs.
The Salem Trials may have started with at least a noble concept. Being good. Being holy. Of course, evil is more or less amorphous and figurative, as opposed to some demon you can directly throw salt at. But living goodly seems like a nice idea, right? So what could possibly go wrong if you take it to extremes?
And that’s how it runs the same way as our modern issues. If you disagree with our methods, you’re a suspect at best, a target at worse. A witch. “Spectral Evidence,” which was a vision in a dream or something of that sort, was sufficient proof to have someone killed. And the targets of all the early trials were simply people that others didn’t like very much. Wore bad clothes, didn’t seem very friendly, that sort of thing. Witch!
As the trials and hysteria went on, it scooped up hundreds of people and murdered dozens. A quick, and very guestimated total, would put the number of people tried/convicted/accused/arrested for witchcraft at about 10% of the entire population. So many witches.
And contrary to belief, it wasn’t just overzealous teen girls pointing fingers. It was anyone with a grievance, suspicion, dislike, or pre-emptive concern that the same could be done to themselves. But it took the whole community to get behind this and make it happen.
And, again, the roots of this come from a good place. Even if you don’t approve of Puritanism, or religion, the practitioners meant well. But the overapplication of it and the persecution of those outside the accepted boundaries had them feeding on themselves and punishing completely innocent people.
Look up the Salem Trials and do a bit of reading. Or viewing. Or whatever. It’s eerily similar to how modern intolerance is working. Just without all the starchy clothes and executions…so far.
