I am going to talk about the notion of Myths and Heroes.
A myth is an ancient story about gods, heroes, and magic, it can be a popular belief or a tradition or a false notion.
A hero can be a mythological figure, a person who is admired for his or her achievements, a superhero or maybe a role model or an icon.
I would like to illustrate this notion through the theme of myths.
Are myths beneficial to population?
To begin with, I'm going to explain what we know about witch hunting in 17th century then what we know about the Red Scare.
I will concentrate on beliefs and expectations that brought myths and I will show the danger some of myths.
The extract called “The witches of Salem” explain that American colonists believed in witches, they brought over their belief from Europe.
In Salem, Massachussets, mass hysteria was provoked by a group of girls who fell ill and claimed they had been bewitched and were tormented by some people in their community.
In the document about Puritanism in 17th century New England, we learn that witches were hunted down by Puritans.
Accused witches were arrested, tortured and often put to death.
Duning as often used to prove whether an accused woman was a witch.
Puritanism was based on a very strict moral code in which the notion of pleasure was considered as a sin.
They believed in witches and the devil.
Those who said to be under the influence of the devil were hunted don and arrested often without evidence, or because the were simply denounced by someone.
Witch hunting was justified to protect the community from devil.
In the text “The Hollywood blacklist” was described the phenomenon of MacCarthysm during the Red Scare in 1950s.
It refers to the period in the USA when there was a strong communist feeling.
At this time,an intensive,systematic campaign was directed against those who have done something wrong or hold different views.
The Hollywood blacklist show a list of writers,directors,producers who were suspected of having connections with the communist party or other subversive organisations.
These people suffered from harsh consequences, many of them lost their jobs, they had to find jobs such as bartenders,bus driver to survive and some of them committed suicide.
Those who had to witness in front of the government's committee had to confess that they didn't have connections with them.
To conclude, we can say that there is an analogy between the two eras in the fight against enemies of the enemies of the USA.
Both the Salem witch hunt and the Red Scare were triggered by fear.
Intolerance and hysteria ruined lives of many people.
April 2016
Vote now! 