On Fri, Apr 02, 2021 at 10:36:39PM +0200, Philip Hands wrote: > > You'll need to ask Craig what he actually meant by that. > > My assumption would be that it was an allusion to McCarthyism, and the > associated anti-communist moral panic in the 1950s that Arthur Miller > dramatised in The Crucible. > > The term's been given a recent retread as a thing that strong-man > leaders use as a weapon against investigative journalists who are doing > their jobs, but I doubt Craig meant that. > > The problem I see with his proposal is in the way it uses the term > 'witch-hunt' as though it is an undisputed fact that such a thing is > currently in progress. > > The way things normally go in a witch-hunt is that some people are > accused of something, then those in authority coerce the accused into > naming conspirators, and then people start inflating the charges being > made in order to distance themselves from the accused and prove their > own purity -- defending any of the accused just gets you added to the > list of wrongdoers. > Good point. What I described is probably more like scapegoating. Thanks for pointing out the more sensible meaning that I missed.
Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sánchez
