Early Science?, Modern Science?, And "The Crucible?"
After watching an excerpt from the Ergot video, what are you contemplating regarding The Crucible? Does the Ergot
video's theory seem plausible? How does it force us to rethink the
theocratic process of the Salem Court proceedings? Are we challenged to
reconsider the behavior and attitudes of the characters in The Crucible?
Please respond thoughtfully while addressing the drama and video.
Complete your response by 2:30p.m. on Friday, October 3rd, 2014.
posted by Greg T at Wednesday, September 24, 2014
26 Comments:
After watching the Ergot video, the thesis that is presented seems plausible and is probably the most likely cause of the so called "witch" trials that we know of today. After hearing this idea it is hard not to think about the situation that the characters are in, and apply this new knowledge. When you do this though, you began to almost laugh off all the other hypothesis that the characters come up with. This really isn't fair though because they had no way of knowing what was the true cause, and to them, the possibility of witches was very real. But, as they say, hindsight is 20/20.
Place yourself in Salem at the time of the witch trials. Modern medicine was practically unheard of. Superstition carried on from the Middle Ages was still considered legitimate and realistic. Adding to that, Salem was a community woven together by a strict and dogmatic religious ideology.
Human beings are curious creatures who desire answers to the unknown. And when we cannot find an answer, when we are inhibited to discovering the truth of something, we tend to have a bit of an epistemological panic attack. Sometimes, to assure ourselves of reality, we will construct explanations without much evidence to back it up. This oftentimes takes the form of something supernatural.
In the case of Salem, many individuals were suffering from an illness (quite possibly from the LSD / Ergot theory) which the doctors could not diagnose. The symptoms were scary, and it seemed like it was spreading. A kind of social hysteria broke out, and everyone wanted answers. Since the doctors couldn't diagnose it, and because it seemed there was impending doom to their community, the citizens began to formulate a collective, irrational hypothesis of what could be causing this disease.
Witchcraft. Was there any actual hard evidence that witchcraft was the culprit? Hardly. Mostly hearsay and scientific ignorance. But the citizens of Salem felt their lives were in peril. This mysterious disease was spreading. Nobody knew what could possibly be causing it, and so in the spur of the moment, mass panic took over rational thought and many innocent lives were taken as a result.
The Salem society was primarily made up of people with illness and no one knew exactly what it was. The people in Salem were in bad shape and witchcraft seemed like a true reason because back then doctors didn't have a way to test people. The characters in the Crucible did what they knew at the time of this problem.
After watching this video, it makes sense that there were no witch. But during that time, its hard for those people to know what exactly it is even they still doesn't have modern things like how the scientists discovered that the influence were poison. They had no choice and thought it must be witch. But I think it is sad to see 19 men and women were hanged for being witch even its not true. It would be better if they need to find the evidence and prove it first before they believe everything what people say.
After watching the Ergot video, the proceedings of the Salem Witch Trials make a lot more sense to why they happened and why people were so quick to assume. The Crucible characters seem so dramatic and emotional but now it is more plausible since their life was fully based off of God and their religion. Their way of thinking only led them to assume the weird side effects of the illness had to be because of witchcraft. Abigail in the crucible is very dramatic and emotional as are the rest of the characters because of Betty's mysterious illness. I think our modern society would be too if we knew a devil potentially was the source of treachery. The scariest part about the whole thing, is that if one person assumed you were a witch, then you were a witch and had no way to prove yourself innocent.
After watching the Ergot video, the idea they presented seems very accurate in the sense that the witch trials were a combination of LSD hallucinations and the peer pressure. So to live in Salem would be hard ton know whether some one is lying or telling the truth.
After view in the Ergot video I believe that not only in the theory valid but I believe that it make more sense than the original theory. It would be easy for the town of Salem. Since the towns people blamed everything that they didn't understand on the invisible world. If someone was freaking out and seeing thing they would and they did blame it on witchcraft. It is hard to understand why the people of Salem did what they did but it is easy to look at their mistakes. Teaching us no to jump to conclusions but instead evaluate a situation before making rash decision.
After watching an excerpt from the Ergot video, I have come to terms with the fact that the Salem Witch Trials were most likely caused by the mold in their wheat. Although I don’t think that this theory is all that important to the actual study of the play. The puritans in the play and in the actual time period had no knowledge of the mold so we should not reconsider the behavior and attitudes of the characters in The Crucible. The theocratic process was the only way that the people of Salem could deal with these strange happenings. Their belief system allowed them to achieve comfort in a time of hysteria. I believe that the witch hysteria, a social epidemic is due to the involvement of the few main characters. It closely follows the “80/20” principle which is the idea that in any situation 80 percent of the work will be done by 20 percent of the participants. Or in this case, I believe that most of the chaos is the result of the characters that are most affected by the witch trials, be it reputation or monetary incentives.
After watching the Ergot video, it changed my ideas and views on "The Crucible." Due to the fact that medicine was not fantastic in Salem in 1962 makes me think that no one could find a reason that made sense, so they called the illness that was taking over "witches." I believe that if they had the knowledge we had today of different signs of LSD use, then the witch trials would've never happened.
After watching the Ergot video, it changed my ideas and views on "The Crucible." Due to the fact that medicine was not fantastic in Salem in 1962 makes me think that no one could find a reason that made sense, so they called the illness that was taking over "witches." I believe that if they had the knowledge we had today of different signs of LSD use, then the witch trials would've never happened.
The Ergot video demonstrates the misused and mis understood sciences of the time, and show that the Salem trials were set in a naive effort to explain the unexplainable. The hysteria that was pushed upon the town was only built up by miss communication and lack of clarification. I think that in comparison to the Crucible, we see the general hysteria has an affect on the entire village. The Crucible offers a look into general human nature, and the idea that bad news spreads faster then good news. The book highlights this fact in the sense that outsiders are coming near and far to see the phenomenon.
After watching the Ergot video and the idea that the symptoms displayed by the victims of witch craft where actually caused as symptoms of taking acid trips it makes you rethink the entire story of The Crucible. This really makes me think because the hypothesis presented seems absolutly true and the fact that the fungus took over the crops is plausable. Reading The Crucible with these ideas presented gives a little more explination to all the insane actions of the characters in the story and it kinda tells you why the characters would believe that this is witch craft. With the characters not knowing of the modern science it seems like the most reasonable solution to come up with even though it was completely false.
After watching the video the things that were happening to those people would look Ike witch craft to those who are not familiar with science. They didn't have anything to help these people get better and since they didn't have anything back then they though it was something supernatural. They got it into their head and wouldn't let anything else in like they might be sick and they actually didn't do anything bad.
The Ergot video and the Crucible possibly could have a connection because the the kids in the forest got a disease from wheat, that would explain why they were acting like witches. What if all the crazy people back then where not possessed by the devil but where extremely sick and ill. All of those innocent people were hung because they just ate some bad wheat. It is a hard thing to think about because children could have grown up and started a family of their own.
After watching the Ergot video, it might be possible for their theory but at the time when the illness had taken place they based the sickness off of the devil and witch craft. I can understand why they jumped to conclusions because of how their town and society were based solely off of religion. After hearing the theory it makes us think that this is a somewhat reasonable explanation to what was happening given what we know. I think the reaction that the citizens had was reasonable because they would have never considered a hallucinogen that was in their bread. Something I might add is, why weren't more people affected?
After watching the excerpt of the Ergot video, that does seem like it could have been a probable cause for the accusations presented in The Crucible. It does make some sense that these people may have been under the influence of a drug-like substance, but think about how many years it took for someone to finally come up with this theory. The people in Salem worked with what they had available at the time, and being in the religious society that they lived in, it makes sense that they would turn to witchcraft for the answer to a problem that was beyond their thinking.
After watching the ergot video my opinion of the entire event has changed. Before watching the video I was under the impression that the entire hysteria was brought on by a bunch of lies and the entire town was under the placebo effect. Now that there is a scientific theory that the people who were "cursed" or "bewitched" actually experienced the symptoms of a bad LSD trip I feel like there was more cause for concern. Especially considering that the medical science in that time period was not the best. In the Crucible, the children effected may have actually had experiences that caused them to believe that they were "cursed".
After watching the Ergot video, I find the theory it presents highly plausible. After hearing this theory, and considering it may be true, it forces me to rethink the behaviors, emotions, and actions of all of the characters. However, the extent of this truth is still questionable, and many of the characters actions can just as well be explained by human psychology. I believe either theory as to what happened during the Salem Witch trial to be equally likely, and I'll have to consider both throughout the text.
In Salem at this time, many people have become ill. After watching the Ergot video my opinions have changed about the Crucible. I don't believe that those women were actually witches. Witchcraft seemed to be the reason and doctors didn't know what to do. In "The Crucible" a few girls are accused of witchcraft. I believe they are innocent even though they aren't doing a great job showing it. No matter what happens it will not end good for the girls and it could lead to death.
After watching the Ergot video, and reading The Crucible, it's fairly obvious that there weren't any witches but it's also very likely that the "bewitched" people were just faking it. The theory in the Ergot video does seem plausible because of how many people were somehow getting "bewitched" and it's the only realistic theory for how this actually happened. Back when this happened they didn't have modern medicine so they couldn't figure out what was actually wrong with the people. So witchcraft would have been the only reason for this in their mind.
I watched the entire Ergot video, and they seemed to prove without a doubt that it was Ergot causing the fits. The Ergot video doesn't make me rethink anything about the process of the Salem Court proceedings as I already believed that it was awful and insane. The fact that there was a scientific explanation for the behavior doesn't change anything for me. I do reconsider some of the actions of the characters, but not many. I believe Betty, Ruth, and Mr. Collins got some Ergot poisoning, which is why Betty and Ruth got sick and Mr. Collins thought he saw Betty fly, but everyone else seemed to be acting out of their own paranoia.
The theory introduced in the video is very plausible,however, it is just that, a theory. They applied science to an unknown, where the Puritans applied religion. The scientific approach is definitely more fact based provable, appealing to our logic. Religion picks up where science left off, and it is a part of human nature to possess the desire to be knowledgeable on everything in the natural world.The lack of knowledge on the sickness spreading in Salem was driving people away from reason and toward hysteria, and as a result an entire society ostracizing each other.The need for reason was the downfall of the Puritans
I thought it was super interesting how they looked at the situation, and is a great explanation to what happened in Salem. The puritans had no concept of hallucinogens, so they found comfort blaming the devil for what happened. They convinced themselves that there was no other explanation for what was happening. Once the word spread, everyone "jumped on the bandwagon," so to say. So the characters in "The Crucible" were really just trying to pin it on the supernatural, for they had no other ideas.
As strange and interesting witchcraft sounds, it unfortunately resulted in the death of many innocent men, women, and children. After watching the Ergot video a further inference regarding witchcraft in Salem can be made. According to the video, the logical explanation for the disease/illness that many diagnosed as witchcraft, is a drug that became popular in the 80’s. LSD. Even more so, early medicine prevented the doctors in Salem form finding the real reason of the sickness that spread throughout Salem. The only conclusion the doctors could make was witchcraft. The Crucible, a play inspired by the events in Salem, portrays the reality of “witchcraft.” I believe that if theres anything we can take away from the sad horrors of Salem, its that people have to the consequences of an irrational decision. Because many in this case, many people died innocent.
The people of Salem were becoming very sick for a strange reason. Nobody knew why and since they had very little experience with medicine, they had to blame it on "Witch Craft". This was a time period were the belief of "witches" was common among people so it wasn't unusual for this idea to spread. Instead of thinking logically, the people of Salem let their emotions on the horrible illness get the best of them. In turn, many innocent lives wee taken.
The Ergot video showed me just how much the people in Salem at the time used witchcraft as an easy out to explain symptoms and miss understandings with people. Instead of looking for other more realistic reasons for the symptoms they jump to everyone has the devil in them. When this happens its just a blame game and I believe half the characters don't believe whats coming out of their mouth. the characters have cloudy judgment because they are trying to avoid trouble and end up turning on anyone they can to save themselves. If someone would have taken a step back and said symptoms might be caused by something else I think they would have been tried as a witch too and it probably wouldn't have mattered. the information the ergot video gave is important now so there is an explanations for the symptoms. it also makes the reading funny because there is so much drama in the cubicle and no reason for it.
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