In the fall, 2014, Tanzanian authorities arrested 23 people accused of killing seven witches in Kigoma, a region in the country’s Northwest. At the time, a Tanzanian group concerned with human rights estimated their fellow countrymen kill about 500 “witches” each year. Among those killed are albinos because “their body parts are thought to bring prosperity.” * Barbaric, right? Witches! Really?
Are we living in late seventeenth century Salem? Recall the circumstance? In 1692 the so-called Salem Witch Trials led to the deaths of the accused, eventually reaching a mob fervor for more and more bloodshed. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible dramatizes the trials, and there are numerous historical accounts, including the words of those involved in stirring the bloodlust, people like Cotton Mather.
As historian Richard Hildreth explains, “Cotton Mather seems to have acted, in a degree, the part of a demagogue. Yet he is not to be classed with those tricky and dishonest men, so common in our times, who play upon popular prejudices which they do not share, in the expectation of being elevated to honors and office. Mather's position, convictions, and temperament alike called him to serve on this occasion as the organ, exponent, and stimulator of the popular faith.”**
We are living in twenty-first century “Salem,” though we know it by “the Web” or “social media.” It’s the place of accusation, and it’s the place of condemnation and execution. Social media have Cotton Mathers, relatively bright people who see accusations as a means to self-aggrandizement or “stimulation” of “popular faith.” Once an idea, however true or false, begins to spread locally, someone stimulates it over the Web, social media, or even in various “news” outlets, such as TV and radio.
Before you take someone to trial on the Web, ask yourself whether or not you are following a Cotton Mather. You don’t need to learn the lesson New England society learned the hard way in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. They hanged innocent people with ropes; now we hang them with wireless WiFi.
*
BBC World News: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-29572974
** https://ia902704.us.archive.org/33/items/thegreateventsby09929gut/7ge1210.txt
Are we living in late seventeenth century Salem? Recall the circumstance? In 1692 the so-called Salem Witch Trials led to the deaths of the accused, eventually reaching a mob fervor for more and more bloodshed. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible dramatizes the trials, and there are numerous historical accounts, including the words of those involved in stirring the bloodlust, people like Cotton Mather.
As historian Richard Hildreth explains, “Cotton Mather seems to have acted, in a degree, the part of a demagogue. Yet he is not to be classed with those tricky and dishonest men, so common in our times, who play upon popular prejudices which they do not share, in the expectation of being elevated to honors and office. Mather's position, convictions, and temperament alike called him to serve on this occasion as the organ, exponent, and stimulator of the popular faith.”**
We are living in twenty-first century “Salem,” though we know it by “the Web” or “social media.” It’s the place of accusation, and it’s the place of condemnation and execution. Social media have Cotton Mathers, relatively bright people who see accusations as a means to self-aggrandizement or “stimulation” of “popular faith.” Once an idea, however true or false, begins to spread locally, someone stimulates it over the Web, social media, or even in various “news” outlets, such as TV and radio.
Before you take someone to trial on the Web, ask yourself whether or not you are following a Cotton Mather. You don’t need to learn the lesson New England society learned the hard way in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. They hanged innocent people with ropes; now we hang them with wireless WiFi.
*
BBC World News: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-29572974
** https://ia902704.us.archive.org/33/items/thegreateventsby09929gut/7ge1210.txt
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