Hey, it's Amy.
When I was researching Mccarthyism and the Red Scare, I began to relate it to George Orwell's novel 1984. The novel describes the life of Winston who refuses to believe the lies of the dictatorship of England under the reign of the omnipresent "Big Brother." Anyway, in both societies, mccarthy's and Orwell's, it's a do or die situation. There is no possibility of rebellion because if someone steps out of line, in both cases the government eliminates them. Mccarthy punished people associated with the New Deal and who he suspected had any communist ties while Big Brother knocked anyone who knew too much or didn't follow the policies right out of existence.
Fear is a huge strategy to keep up a form of government or a political idea because no one can rebel because they'll be alone. This fear also unifies the public and the ideas soon become realities. Like in Hayakawa where he describes when he was at the train station and people where suspicious of him because he was Japanese. If you hear something enough times, it begins to become the truth.
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Hey, it's Erin.
What Amy says reminds me of what I read about modern McCarthyism. Fear is the driving force behind any "witchhunt". Some people think that the Patriot Act is a form of McCarthyism and that reminds me of what Amy said about how no one can rebel. To be against McCarthyism at that time was to be a sympathizer or "un-American" (think the HUAC), to be against the Patriot Act is to be unpatriotic, to be against the Salem witchtrials was again to sympathize and was considered suspicious. I forget who, but someone said something like, all the good people are happy for the trials, implying that whoever dissented wasn't good or innocent of supposed crimes. McCarthyism works on fear - people become afraid of some unknown enemy, sometimes sacrifice their rights, and subsequently it is hard for any one individual to stand up. There is no defense for suspicion, especially where no one will say so to your face (like the blacklists - by the way, I thought it was interesting; I found out Arthur Miller was blacklisted). But the labeling that went on destroyed many reputations. Even today, call someone a certain name and you can destroy them. There's many more than just "communist" today that have an extremely negative connotation. Name-calling is a powerful propaganda technique because it can utilize emotions like fear or hate and there are so many more cases in all of history that lives have been ruined or ended because of that.
Hi everyone, its Amy. What's new?
Going along with the fact that people can't rebel, I wrote about the moral majority for my paper which is a Christian based group that supports politicians who demonstrate the approved views and attacks those who are against their views. They accounted for two-thirds of the white evangelical vote during the Reagan vs. Carter presidential election of 1980 and it shows how if you don't support a set of beliefs, then the moral majority basically eliminates you.
Opposition to acceptance of homosexuality is one of the views of the moral majority and sexual prefference is currently used to scrutinize political opponents by revealing their private lives. The situation with the moral majority illustrates how public fears and desires to maintain a strict set of values can alienate groups of citizens, yet no one can oppose the force because it's so powerful.
It's scary how we can twist our views around to make certain American citizens "un-American."
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