Arthur Miller and the Salem trials

[Sanford Levinson]

For what it is worth, one problem with the anaology between the Salem trials
and McCarthyism is that extremely few of us believe in the ontological
possibility of witches, whereas even the most leftish among us have to
concede a) that there were Communists and, perhaps more to the point, b)
there were even some Communists engaged in espionage.  I am not offering a
latter-day defense of the odious Junior Senator from Wisconsin, but it does
seem to the me that the difference must be acknowledged.  There is a
difference, after all, between saying that "Salemites overreacted to the
presence of witches in the community" and saying that "the pathetically
deluded Salemites, falsely believing in the presence of witches, went on to
engage in the most malicious persecution of persons who, by definition,
could not possibly have been witches (since, of course, no one could have
been a witch)."  I presume that most of us would subscribe to the latter
sentence, whereas the critique of McCarthy has to begin with some version of
the former.

Sandy Levinson

------------------------
Sanford Levinson
B.U. Law School
EMail: levinson at bu.edu
------------------------