Invention of satanic witchcraft by medieval authorities was met with skepticism

Post by vmception » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 6:59 AM UTC

eirini1 wrote: post #40

vmception wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For example, the family that was able to exploit the socioeconomic order to pick up those land plots from people indicted for witchcraft probably still owns those land plots, but new people will not be able to use the same tactic to obtain land now.

maybe not witchcraft accusations per se, but im quite unsure how you can be aware of events occuring in the world right now and think that exploiting the current socioeconomic order to gain land and wealth is not done.

Post by pjc50 » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 7:02 AM UTC

vmception wrote: post #23

ipsum2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you give an example of that level of comfort? Servants were more common back then, but not sure what else.

For example, the family that was able to exploit the socioeconomic order to pick up those land plots from people indicted for witchcraft probably still owns those land plots, but new people will not be able to use the same tactic to obtain land now.

Post by runawaybottle » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 7:10 AM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #54

kstenerud wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The modern word is "moral panic", and it's used just as effectively to destroy rivals as it was in times of old. The only difference is that we don't kill the losers anymore, but rather imprison, harass, fire, and bankrupt them. Anytime there's a moral shift (good or bad), there's an opportunity to co-opt it in order to remove rivals, and it works very nicely because all you need to do is sow seeds of doubt about som…

You were going so well until the last two, where you've ignored the very real problems that gave rise to them. There are very few examples of overreach compared to "underreach" there?

Post by kstenerud » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 7:19 AM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #54

kstenerud wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The modern word is "moral panic", and it's used just as effectively to destroy rivals as it was in times of old. The only difference is that we don't kill the losers anymore, but rather imprison, harass, fire, and bankrupt them. Anytime there's a moral shift (good or bad), there's an opportunity to co-opt it in order to remove rivals, and it works very nicely because all you need to do is sow seeds of doubt about som…

You were going so well until the last two, where you've ignored the very real problems that gave rise to them. There are very few examples of overreach compared to "underreach" there?

Post by occamrazor » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 7:29 AM UTC

claudeganon wrote: post #10

ertian wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't it be nice if history were actually this simple? The idea here is that Romans, with their pater familias, or the Confucian Chinese, for whom the father was a mini-emperor, were just preparing the way for capitalism, 2000+ years before the fact? Marriage and home-bound women were not an invention of the late medival world. Women may well have been more free in the preceding period, but that was the exception,…

This isn’t a refutation of Federici’s argument. Her’s is specifically that the conditions of European feudalism created an emergent communalism that was then subjugated through witch trials and their mythology in service to the new, Capitalist ordering. She doesn’t argue that gendered forms of subjugation have no prior context in history. And whether or not the changes in women’s social/economic conditions were “temp…