Friday, October 2, 2015
Guilt and Morality During the Reformation
One of the themes that Levack presents to us during the reformation is guilt. He discusses that this guilt Catholics, Christians and Protestants were feeling was something that might have lead to the accusation of witchcraft. When people felt guilty for committing a sin they immediately wanted relief from feeling and the way that they could do that was to project this guilt onto another. Levack talks about Alan Macfarlane who said many accusations came from people who refused to provide assistance to those in need that showed up at their door. Of course after immediately turning the person away they felt guilty but to rid themselves of this feeling they simply depicted the person in need telling themselves that it was a witch unworthy of the aid anyways. Even priests experienced moral guilt and projected these feelings sometimes onto the very witches that they interrogated. Levack argues that these accusations and projections of guilt were attempts to preserve the morality of the Christian community.
Levack also makes another interesting point about how these projections indirectly gave the community the chance for reassurance and moral worth. This is interesting because although we look at the witch hunts as a time of chaos and sometimes it seems as though people are getting accused left and right. Neighbors, wives, daughters, friends, there were accusations all over the place. Can we say that there was some good in these accusations and hunts? Do we agree with Levack in saying that the act of accusing gave the community room for moral growth and reassurance? Is this the only good thing (indirectly) that the witches did?
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Great post, I enjoyed reading it. Levack had a great point that people's guilt and insecurities were a part in causing the witch hunts. Through out our class discussions we agreed not one particular thing caused the witch hunts but yet had contributed in some way. People portrait their insecurities onto other people in which causing accusations of witchcraft.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to relieving the guilt of individuals, the witch-hunts served the purpose of unifying communities in the wake of the protestant reformation for one side or the other. Creating a common, definable enemy would unify communities far more than the rival preaching's of clergy against religious differences between the other and after the community is unified by the witch-hunts it would be easier to keep it religiously undivided. .
ReplyDeleteGreat post. It is a really interesting way of observing human interaction and even depravity. Humans are so insecure that whenever we do something that harms our moral conscience we turn to relieve that by pinning it on others. I can see where Levack is coming from with this idea, also I would argue this is a trend that people continue today especially in the international political realm.
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