This is a really good nuanced article. I think it is really important to view history through the lens of those who created it. It’s not easy to do, and I guess impossible to be 100% accurate as you cannot possibly see it precisely as they did. But try we must otherwise we are just projecting modern sensibilities and neurosis onto facts.
You say “view history through the lens of those who created it”.
Yes, I think the article does this really well, but of course we cannot completely know the minds of historical figures.
We can then use what we learn from history to look for parallels with our own times…
The article says “rationality and its limits, the power of collective opinion”.
I think a lot of the comments, and even articles, on UnHerd reflect collective opinion, and not independent, rational thinking. Of course, I can’t know this, and maybe my rationality is limited too
“This is a really good nuanced article. I think it is really important to view history through the lens of those who created it.”
I agree. The thing that tripped me up with this article, though, is the misdirection of the title. I kept waiting for the author to delve into the psychology of the women accused of witchcraft followed by a lengthy extrapolation to women who identify as witches today and what they get out of it (no doubt with a feminist twist). But that was only part of the story presented here.
This article placed us squarely in the world of the witch trials and showed how a variety of factors led to what we would now call mass hysteria. I’ll look for the Gaskill book in our library as much for a description of the historical period as for the witch trials.
Keith Jefferson
2 years ago
The sentence that really jumped out at me in the article was: “As frontier neighbours, they were completely dependent on each other (and literally indentured to Pynchon), yet the contemplation of their own sins led quickly to the censure of others.”
Isn’t this exactly what is going on with modern day cancel culture? Unconscious bias training, with its associated tenets of guilt / fragility etc. has long escaped academia and is now enshrined in almost every workplace. And for many people, perfectly decent people who have no enmity towards others, who undergo such “training” and told to contemplate their own sins, will there not be a tendency to think “but I am a nice person, there are those that are far worse than me and I should censure or otherwise condemn them”? It would be good to get a psychologist’s honest view on this (though I suspect much of that profession has imbibed all this wokery). This all sounds like a prelude (or maybe the main show) to something like the Chinese cultural revolution, or modern-day witch trials.
The rest of the article is very interesting – I will be ordering the book by John Carrow.
This is exactly my take on the article. JK Rowling is an obvious example of someone who could be considered by many wokers to be a witch, which is ironic given the subject matter of her most famous works.
AC Harper
2 years ago
So close down Facebook, Twitter etc. to prevent ‘the bear-pit’ spreading?
Snake Oil Cat
2 years ago
How could there be “long term recipients of the dole” centuries before the welfare state?
The Dole starts with Rome. The Monasteries and Nunneries provided food, clothing and hospital care. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Poor Laws were established by Privy Council, supervised by Justices of The Peace for the poor and destitute of each parish.
This is a really good nuanced article. I think it is really important to view history through the lens of those who created it. It’s not easy to do, and I guess impossible to be 100% accurate as you cannot possibly see it precisely as they did. But try we must otherwise we are just projecting modern sensibilities and neurosis onto facts.
You say “view history through the lens of those who created it”.
Yes, I think the article does this really well, but of course we cannot completely know the minds of historical figures.
We can then use what we learn from history to look for parallels with our own times…
The article says “rationality and its limits, the power of collective opinion”.
I think a lot of the comments, and even articles, on UnHerd reflect collective opinion, and not independent, rational thinking. Of course, I can’t know this, and maybe my rationality is limited too
“This is a really good nuanced article. I think it is really important to view history through the lens of those who created it.”
I agree. The thing that tripped me up with this article, though, is the misdirection of the title. I kept waiting for the author to delve into the psychology of the women accused of witchcraft followed by a lengthy extrapolation to women who identify as witches today and what they get out of it (no doubt with a feminist twist). But that was only part of the story presented here.
This article placed us squarely in the world of the witch trials and showed how a variety of factors led to what we would now call mass hysteria. I’ll look for the Gaskill book in our library as much for a description of the historical period as for the witch trials.
The sentence that really jumped out at me in the article was: “As frontier neighbours, they were completely dependent on each other (and literally indentured to Pynchon), yet the contemplation of their own sins led quickly to the censure of others.”
Isn’t this exactly what is going on with modern day cancel culture? Unconscious bias training, with its associated tenets of guilt / fragility etc. has long escaped academia and is now enshrined in almost every workplace. And for many people, perfectly decent people who have no enmity towards others, who undergo such “training” and told to contemplate their own sins, will there not be a tendency to think “but I am a nice person, there are those that are far worse than me and I should censure or otherwise condemn them”? It would be good to get a psychologist’s honest view on this (though I suspect much of that profession has imbibed all this wokery). This all sounds like a prelude (or maybe the main show) to something like the Chinese cultural revolution, or modern-day witch trials.
The rest of the article is very interesting – I will be ordering the book by John Carrow.
This is exactly my take on the article. JK Rowling is an obvious example of someone who could be considered by many wokers to be a witch, which is ironic given the subject matter of her most famous works.
So close down Facebook, Twitter etc. to prevent ‘the bear-pit’ spreading?
How could there be “long term recipients of the dole” centuries before the welfare state?
The Dole starts with Rome. The Monasteries and Nunneries provided food, clothing and hospital care. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Poor Laws were established by Privy Council, supervised by Justices of The Peace for the poor and destitute of each parish.