Fear, Superstition & Groupthink: The Human Cost

Fear and superstition impact human behavior through creating dangerous ideals that are acted upon in egregious ways. We see this often in the “mob” or “hive mind” mentality, it is defined as: “a large and disorderly crowd of people, especially one bent on riotous or destructive action.” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). An example of this within U.S. history, is the witch trials that took place during the 1600’s, and spread up and down the east coast. When most people think of the witch trials, they think of the Salem witch trials. An event in which 19 “witches” were prosecuted and executed after a group of young girls claimed to have been “possessed by the devil”. While the most famous example, it is only 19 of possible hundreds of prosecutions. In particular, I want to discuss the story of Mary Webster, and how women have never stopped having to defend themselves even 400 years later. Mary Webster was one of these prosecutions. She was a poor old woman who lived in Hadley, Massachusetts. She had a bad temper and wasn’t very religious which made her an easy target for witchcraft accusations. In fact, she was such an easy target, that even after Boston courts had found her not-guilty of witchcraft, she was accused again. A former adversary of Webster was Philip Smith, a man who was seen as a pillar of excellence within the community, who had fallen ill shortly after Webster had come back into town from Boston. The obvious conclusion for the townsfolk of Hadley, was that Webster cursed Smith. So, “…there, in a snow-covered field outside her own home, Mary Webster was hanged.” (Manke 133). The men of the village decided that they could wait no longer, and that if Webster died, the curse on Smith would be lifted. While Mary was just one of hundreds of prosecutions, one would assume that nearly 400 years later the madness of witchcraft allegations would stop. Enter, Taylor Swift. The 12 time Grammy award winning songwriter and singer kicked off her Era’s tour this year. The artist’s 2nd stadium tour acted as a celebration of all 10 of her albums or “Era’s”. While the tour boosted Swift to entirely new levels of stardom, it also left her open to a lot of criticism. More specifically on matters of happenstance. For example, when a plane flew overhead during the lyric “I thought the plane was going down, how’d you turn it right around?” at night one of three performances in Argentina (Swift). Or, during the song “Willow”, when Swift and her dancers prance about the stage in cloaks with glowing orbs. Some have equated the set for that song to as if Swift was performing a spell with her coven. A few conservative right figures have “spoken out” about this. In particular, Kandiss Taylor, a former Republican candidate for Georgia governor was quite vocal about it on social media. She said that Swift had, “…some satanic nods in [her] show.” and, “[is] influencing young minds to be enticed with the dark side of spirituality.” (Taylor). Whether it was 400 years ago, or just in April of this year, women are constantly being accused of nonsensical claims simply because they don’t fit the norm, have power, or even don’t have any power at all. When looking at the media and narratives that are currently being pushed to consumers, one should look at themit with a close eye. Otherwise, there runs the risk of falling into the mob-mentality, and starting to accuse global pop stars of witchcraft.