Summary: #MeToo is America having another of our too-frequent bouts of mass hysteria. See the similarities between Salem and now, showing how little we learned from our mistakes in 1692.
“{History repeats itself} the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”
— By Karl Marx in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.
That was then …
The Salem Witch trials were an episode of mass hysteria in colonial America, a paradigmatic example of out-of-control extremism, false accusations, by-products of social anxiety, and lapses in due process. We have had many since, most recently about Satanic Ritual Abuse. (and before that, the McCarthy-era commie hunts).
In January of 1692, Reverend Parris’ daughter Elizabeth (age 9) and niece Abigail Williams (11) started having fits. They screamed, threw things, made strange sounds and twisted themselves into strange positions. When questioned, the girls blamed three women for afflicting them: Tituba (the Parris’ slave, brought from Barbados), Sarah Good (a bad-tempered beggar), and Sarah Osborne (an elderly poor woman, scorned for her romantic involvement with an indentured servant). Other girls and young women began experiencing such behaviors, among them their friend (Ann Putnam, Jr., 11), her mother, her cousin (Mary Walcott), and the Putnams’ servant (Mercy Lewis).
Most of the accused belonged to the Putnam faction of Salem Village, foes of the Parris faction. As the Britannica says …
“On May 27, 1692, after weeks of informal hearings accompanied by imprisonments, Sir William Phips, the governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, interceded and ordered the convening of an official Court of Oyer (“to hear”) and Terminer (“to decide”) in Salem Town. Presided over by William Stoughton, the colony’s lieutenant governor, the court consisted of seven judges. The accused were forced to defend themselves without aid of counsel. Most damning for them was the admission of “spectral evidence” – that is, claims by the victims that they had seen and been attacked (pinched, bitten, contorted) by spectres of the accused, whose forms Satan allegedly had assumed to work his evil.
“Even as the accused testified on the witness stand, the girls and young women who had accused them writhed, whimpered, and babbled in the gallery, seemingly providing evidence of the spectre’s demonic presence. …
“Many in the community who viewed the unfolding events as travesties remained mute, afraid that they would be punished for raising objections to the proceedings by being accused of witchcraft themselves.”
The girls’ actions mirrored those of their society, in extreme form. Then, as now, girls see (as the young often do) how to capitalize on the political needs of their leaders. Naturally they exercise this power for private gains. Being young teens, their goals are frivolous. Being children, their unsupervised dynamics resemble those of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies
But in 1692 their trials at least followed the forms of their time. However nuts, they were not massive violations of their procedural norms – and ours. The accused were indicted by grand juries and tried in open court. Prosecutors had to prove their case “beyond a reasonable doubt.” The accused had a right to confront their accusers, and call witnesses in their own defense.
This is now, the eternal recurrence (because we do not learn)
Flash forward to our time. Here is a report by Chadwick Moore (editor-in-chief) at Dangerous. It is unverified, but an easily believable tale of our time. It has the commonplace gross overreaction by teachers and police, and gang-like bullying by children. Also note the similarities to Salem in 1692.
“According to Keith and his family, it all started a week ago when Keith and his friends were sitting around his house talking about online anonymity. Keith decided to change his Snapchat avatar into a black Bitmoji character. One of his friends, a girl, immediately noticed and within minutes told him he needed to change it back. She said it was insensitive and racist for a white person to use a black character as an avatar. Keith, stubborn as any eighth grader, laughed it off and said he wasn’t going to change it.
“The next day at school the girl, according to Keith, then started telling everyone he was a racist. The harassment and accusations persisted for days. Other students began threatening to beat up Keith, saying they were going to jump him after school for being ‘racist.’ Then the girl and three other female classmates took it to the next level, appearing to take a page from the Feinstein handbook on how to destroy your political enemies, they appeared before the vice principal to accuse Keith of sexual harassment and assault stemming back to the summer.
“Keith had been friends with two of the girls. They attended youth group together at their church. ‘They hang out all the time. If he had been maliciously touching them since back in the summer, then they wouldn’t be going out of their way to walk by our house to go to school together. They go to youth group together, they carpool together. To any reasonable person, I’d think that these allegations would be obviously ridiculous, but apparently there aren’t any reasonable people anymore,’ Dennis says.
“Keith is an A and B student, plays football, takes advanced math classes, is well-liked by his teachers, and loves attending church. …
“{He} was summoned by administrators into the vice principal’s office at a Colorado Springs, Colo. middle school. He was confused and shaken. …For over two hours on Wednesday afternoon, alone in her office, the vice principal grilled Keith. ‘He said they kept asking him the same things over and over. They were just intimidating him, asking him the same thing in different ways, asking what he did to these girls and why he did it to them. ‘Why did you do it, what did you do, when did you do it,’ Keith’s father, Dennis Bailey, says. ‘They were vague the whole time. They never asked anything specific.’
Only after the two-hour inquisition did the school phone Keith’s parents to let them know he was being suspended. But before they did that, they called the police. By the time Keith’s father showed up at the school, his son was being cuffed and put into the back of a police car as a crowd of students stood by ogling the scene. …
“’He was crying when they arrested him. We’ve never been close to anything like this. We don’t know anybody criminal. It’s not something we ever thought we’d have to do deal with,’ Dennis, 32, who works as a plumber, says. ‘I think the whole political climate is what is motivating this. Anytime you disagree with somebody, now you accuse them of sexual assault and automatically they’re a victim and you’re a monster. It’s so highly publicized now, that’s just the answer.’
“After the arrest, Dennis stayed back at the school while his son was taken to the police station to be finger-printed and have his mug shot taken. But neither school administrators nor the police would tell Keith or his parents the exact nature of the allegations. He was charged with unlawful sexual conduct and harassment, which comes with a maximum sentence of two years in a juvenile detention center, and the family must wait until a court date on Oct. 27 to learn what, exactly, the girls claim Keith did to them. But a clue emerged the night before when one of the girls’ parents phoned the Baileys.
“‘Her mother gave us a call and said she just found out that Keith had been inappropriately touching her daughter and she just wanted to let us know. She said, “I know Keith is a good kid, maybe he just went down the wrong path.” She obviously believed her daughter. But she said it happened at the football game last week. The problem with that is, my wife was at the football game the whole time. My son was there with his girlfriend and my wife didn’t want him unattended, so she had eyes on him the whole time. My wife tells this girl’s mother, “that’s funny, I was there watching the whole time, he didn’t leave my sight and he was nowhere near your daughter,”’ Dennis recalls. ‘He was hanging out with his girlfriend, he wasn’t running around molesting other girls.’ The mother then changed the story, saying it must have been a different football game.
“The Baileys have met with a lawyer and started a legal defense fund for their son. After Keith’s five day school suspension is up, the school has the option to extend it another five days, or to expel Keith entirely. But after the humiliation Keith suffered, his parents are already looking to enroll him in a new school. The other students, they say, already assume he is guilty after watching him put in the back of a police car.
“‘It blew my mind. My son is not even mature enough to have done anything like that maliciously. I don’t think it’s in his realm of mental capacity at this point in his life. That they are demonizing him as some sort of malicious predator blows my mind. I don’t even think his mind is capable of being predatory,’ Dennis says.
“‘The Crucible’
“He sees the whole terrifying situation as trickling down from the way all the adults on television appear to be treating each other these days. ‘What 13 year old girl doesn’t love drama? I imagine that’s all they see it as. Let’s stir up some drama. What they don’t realize is now he is facing criminal charges. I hope these girls did this without truly understanding the repercussions of their actions. I think the #metoo thing has gotten played out so much, that they see it as a way to get what they want. It’s a quick way to demonize somebody. I hope they didn’t foresee what the actual ramifications would be.'”
This closely resembles episodes from past mass hysterias. Young girls picking on peers outside the in-group, with heterodox opinions. Credulous authorities grossly overreacting.
“History never repeats itself but it rhymes.”
— An aphorism of unknown origin, falsely attributed to Mark Twain (see Quote Investigator).
How did it end?
The governor’s wife, Lady Mary Phips, was “called out upon” (accused). The governor immediately withdrew support for the trials, and began the process of ending them.
Similarly, the #MeHysteria is fun for the Left. But eventually the accusations will burn out of control, and “people of name” will be accused. The successfully protected Bill Clinton from the accusations of sexual assault, and Hillary from accusations of abetting his crimes. I doubt they can do so again, in this climate. I believe they will instead call off the campaign.
Results of the hysteria
“More than once, it has been said that the Salem witchcraft {trial} was the rock on which the theocracy shattered.”
— By George Lincoln Burr (Editor) in Narratives of the New England Witchcraft Cases(1914).
We can only guess at the results of the last bout of mass hysteria in America. Perhaps MeToo will be the peak of the radical feminism movement, as the Salem Witch Trials were for the New England theocracy.
That’s the small outcome. MeToo might radicalize large numbers of young men, as they realize that our society’s goals are not theirs. And that America considers them fodder, to be burned for greater goals.
How common are false accusations of sexual misbehavior and crimes?
It is hidden knowledge (because it ruins the narrative), but false rape accusations are common. So how much more common are false claims the less-serious forms of sexual misbehavior that comprise much of the MeToo movement? Probably much more common, but it will be a long time until reliable research delivers answers.
Other posts in this series
- MeToo = Salem Witch trials 2.0 — see the similarities.
- Hidden knowledge: false rape accusations are common.
- The astounding story of false rape accusations in England.
For More Information
Hat tip on the Huffington tweet to Dalrock, from this typically insightful post: Sisters aren’t about to do it for themselves.
Ideas! For shopping ideas, see my recommended books and films at Amazon.
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about society and gender issues, about feminism, about sexual assault, about rape, about MeToo, and especially these…
- Weaponizing claims of sexual harassment for political gain.
- Worrying while the harassment fires burn out of control.
- Second thoughts about romance in the #MeToo age.
- The amazing numbers behind the #MeToo movement!
- News from the front lines as the meToo madness spreads.
- Look beyond the stories to see how we define harassment.
- MeToo discovers that there is always a counter-revolution.
A counterpoint to the Feminist Revolution
Well worth reading: Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women
“Philosophy professor Christina Sommers has exposed a disturbing development: how a group of zealots, claiming to speak for all women, are promoting a dangerous new agenda that threatens our most cherished ideals and sets women against men in all spheres of life. In case after case, Sommers shows how these extremists have propped up their arguments with highly questionable but well-funded research, presenting inflammatory and often inaccurate information and stifling any semblance of free and open scrutiny.
“Trumpeted as orthodoxy, the resulting ‘findings’ on everything from rape to domestic abuse to economic bias to the supposed crisis in girls’ self-esteem perpetuate a view of women as victims of the ‘patriarchy’.
“Moreover, these arguments and the supposed facts on which they are based have had enormous influence beyond the academy, where they have shaken the foundations of our educational, scientific, and legal institutions and have fostered resentment and alienation in our private lives. Despite its current dominance, Sommers maintains, such a breed of feminism is at odds with the real aspirations and values of most American women and undermines the cause of true equality. Who Stole Feminism? is a call to arms that will enrage or inspire, but cannot be ignored.”