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Invention of satanic witchcraft by medieval authorities was met with skepticism

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Re: Invention of satanic witchcraft by medieval authorities was met with skepticism

#61
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I don’t think he/she is wrong in saying they all employ the same strategy, where the last two being the only ones with a noble goal. It’s a powerful weapon, and can be dangerous if not used carefully.

Which of the first 12 did not have a noble goal?

Re: Invention of satanic witchcraft by medieval authorities was met with skepticism

#62
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think he/she is wrong in saying they all employ the same strategy, where the last two being the only ones with a noble goal. It’s a powerful weapon, and can be dangerous if not used carefully.

Which of the first 12 did not have a noble goal?

Only prohibition, the war on drugs, #metoo, and BLM had noble goals. The rest were "the enemy is among us" fear based.

I suspect that the fallout from virtue signaling and bad actors taking advantage of #metoo and BLM probably won't be too bad; certainly not on the same level as the rest.

Re: Invention of satanic witchcraft by medieval authorities was met with skepticism

#63

One thing that becomes immediately apparent when visiting the medieval witchcraft museum in Iceland[1] was how strategic the use of Witchcraft accusations were by the middling elite. One cunning foreign family with ties to occupying Denmark was able to secure land hold rights for nearly an entire peninsula from local Icelanders on the northwest through the strategic use of witchcraft accusations. During this period o…

Those articles are more interesting than OP's article. When I research a lot of wealthy families I frequently find their level of comfort not possible to replicate because it is something considered impropriety today. Taking advantage of an imbalance in the socioeconomic order that was promptly fixed as soon as anybody noticed.

I believe that they exist today.

They leverage their power and connections to remain anonymous and away from public scrutiny.

Re: Invention of satanic witchcraft by medieval authorities was met with skepticism

#64

Fun thought. What if in the future, witchcraft and sorcery and magic, is rediscovered. And it comes to rule the land, and the people. But in actuality, sorcery is really just applied computer science. Like, in the future, some engineer manages to tap into the quantum realm, which allows for all kinds of mystical apparitions to manifest, but instead, it’s really just another quantum artifact. But our limited understan…

If you discard any quantum computing, this is similar to the plot to the series of novels starting with "Off to Be the Wizard" by Scott Meyer. A fun, quick little read about a person who discovers the source database of reality, and then promptly starts messing with it.

Re: Invention of satanic witchcraft by medieval authorities was met with skepticism

#65
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which of the first 12 did not have a noble goal?

Only prohibition, the war on drugs, #metoo, and BLM had noble goals. The rest were "the enemy is among us" fear based. I suspect that the fallout from virtue signaling and bad actors taking advantage of #metoo and BLM probably won't be too bad; certainly not on the same level as the rest.

A war on drugs is never noble.

It wasn't the Opium war (England wanting to keep cheap Opium supply from China), and it wasn't Nixon. Criminalization of drugs and declaring war on the cartels, whilst secretly supporting the cartels for their help in their fascist putsches. Civilized countries can fight the drug problem fine without declaring war, even if state actors are involved. (Eg Kosovo, ...)

Re: Invention of satanic witchcraft by medieval authorities was met with skepticism

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Witch trials were virtually non existent in post-reformation Catholic countries (e.h. Spain, Italy and France). I have never seen any source indicating that women were more free in these countries.

This kinda fits in quite nicely with Federici's theory, seeing as capitalism emerged in Protestant north-west Europe.

Re: Invention of satanic witchcraft by medieval authorities was met with skepticism

#67
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only prohibition, the war on drugs, #metoo, and BLM had noble goals. The rest were "the enemy is among us" fear based. I suspect that the fallout from virtue signaling and bad actors taking advantage of #metoo and BLM probably won't be too bad; certainly not on the same level as the rest.

A war on drugs is never noble. It wasn't the Opium war (England wanting to keep cheap Opium supply from China), and it wasn't Nixon. Criminalization of drugs and declaring war on the cartels, whilst secretly supporting the cartels for their help in their fascist putsches. Civilized countries can fight the drug problem fine without declaring war, even if state actors are involved. (Eg Kosovo, ...)

Eliminating the scourge of drugs in America was Nancy Reagan's brainchild, and it was a very laudable goal. The fact that it was so ham-fistedly and wrongly implemented, and co-opted for repressive purposes doesn't diminish the nobility of the original goal that gave birth to such a monster.

Re: Invention of satanic witchcraft by medieval authorities was met with skepticism

#68
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I don’t think he/she is wrong in saying they all employ the same strategy, where the last two being the only ones with a noble goal. It’s a powerful weapon, and can be dangerous if not used carefully.

I should remind you that a lot of revolutions had a noble goal. Russian Revolution was made by people with an enormous noble goal of freeing the whole world from oppression (and Soviet state has never disavowed World Revolution, future Communism, people's dictatorship, etc.). How it was twisted from the very beginning — even long before revolution itself, see Dostoevsky's “Demons” — is a different story. I think that “we had a noble goal, and accidentally ended up with a dead body” is an explanation only suitable for children. It is better to pay attention to the process, not its stated goals (even more so for broad and lofty causes), and judge whether it is fishy.

In fact, nothing that happens in America today comes as a surprise to people familiar with Soviet society: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/american-so... It's a recent article, but I remember people commonly expressing similar sorrows years and even decades ago.

If you want to look deeper into the possible future of US, see “The Collective and the Individual in Russia: A Study of Practices” (University of California Press, 1999).

Re: Invention of satanic witchcraft by medieval authorities was met with skepticism

#69

Or in 2020: "China created the virus and must be held responsible!" Except that viruses jump from other animals to humans all the time. It can happen in any country.

Can and did. I think china are getting it in the neck not so much for its origins but the way they mishandled it early on.

China is criticized for its handling of the epidemic, but the "it was made in a lab in China" conspiracy theories are very very common.

Re: Invention of satanic witchcraft by medieval authorities was met with skepticism

#70

There's a stereotype that witch hunts were “mass hysteria” (as Wikipedia calls them) affecting stupid backwards people (another common stereotype) or stupid believers (a stereotype with a militant atheism flavour). In these cases, we would see more witch hunts the earlier the age is or the stronger the church is. People weren't much more stupid than people today are. Moreover, it's a fairly recent era, I'd even say t…

Assuming, as a starting point, that religious people believe what they say they believe is reasonable, and respectful.

The blending of what you belive and beliefs that benefit you is always relevant. It doesn't mean that no one believes.

There's a reason why we use the term "witch hunt" idiomatically. The way they happen almost always involves a belief system at a nexus with interests.

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