Your debunking of Dworkin’s pseudo-academia is really interesting. Would you mind sharing your alternative analysis- what was really going on with the witch trials? Has history been blown out of proportion? What sorts of people were targeted? (I know you’re busy but you’ve really spared my interest- if you want to link me to resources that would be super cool too!)

Mostly people who were just unpopular, a mixture of townsfolk, poor people, the occasional member of the local bourgeoisie. It was a mass hysteria issue, sort of like the satanic panic, or anti-vaxxers, there were religious tensions with the reformation, it was during a mini ice age that made weather unpredictable which made harvests unpredictable and thus people vulnerable to disease. People were just kinda stressed and took it out on people they didn’t like

They’ve been blown out of proportion but also misattributed in a way that obscures what we actually need to learn from them, which is the danger of mass hysteria.

Not to mention the “pagan genocide” theory was encouraged by Himmler as a “you’re bad too” thing. www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01639625.1989.9967814#/doi/abs/10.1080/01639625.1989.9967814

But like mostly it’s a reminder to take some deep breaths and really think about what you’re doing before you accuse someone of being in league with Satan