Cotton Mather - It is a good thing one can no longer know who is on a jury nor write letters to them to encourage a verdict. I'm so glad to have the right to a fair trial.
The information in the reading about that era is kind of scary, isn't it? If you think about it though, we still engage in "witch hunting" in our society, looking for any reason to condemn others for their lifestyles and belief systems. We as human beings are prone to this behavior, it seems. Were the "witches" guilty before they were tried because of the rampant gossiping and embellishing? In reading, it seems that way to me.
The witch hunts never end, for those of you into history remember the Red Scare of the 50's with a certain senator from Wisconsin, Joe McCarthy? How many lives did he ruin?
Cotton Mather is one of those historical characters who, unfortunatly, will be remembered for his mistakes and not his attept to judge fairly. I would like to give him some sympathy seeing as his motivation was good, but I have trouble offering that sympathy based on the fact that he destroyed the lives of so many people. If he had really been as pious as he claimed, how could he have missed the lack of proof in the cases he influenced? He was the one misguided, and even though he adopted a very different view of the supernatural later in life, his negative infulence still remains.
The information in the reading about that era is kind of scary, isn't it? If you think about it though, we still engage in "witch hunting" in our society, looking for any reason to condemn others for their lifestyles and belief systems. We as human beings are prone to this behavior, it seems. Were the "witches" guilty before they were tried because of the rampant gossiping and embellishing? In reading, it seems that way to me.
ReplyDeleteThe witch hunts never end, for those of you into history remember the Red Scare of the 50's with a certain senator from Wisconsin, Joe McCarthy?
ReplyDeleteHow many lives did he ruin?
Cotton Mather is one of those historical characters who, unfortunatly, will be remembered for his mistakes and not his attept to judge fairly. I would like to give him some sympathy seeing as his motivation was good, but I have trouble offering that sympathy based on the fact that he destroyed the lives of so many people. If he had really been as pious as he claimed, how could he have missed the lack of proof in the cases he influenced? He was the one misguided, and even though he adopted a very different view of the supernatural later in life, his negative infulence still remains.
ReplyDelete