Through Death & Rebirth

a critical literacy approach

The Victim

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The records of the world present no more conspicuous instances of Christian and saintlike excellence than were exhibited by Rebecca Nurse and Elizabeth How; but spectral testimony was allowed to destroy them.

Upham, C.W. 1869, p.21

Postman (1985) argues “whatever dangers there may be in a word that is written, such a word is a hundred times more dangerous when stamped by a press. (p. 139).

Postman’s words are an echo of the argument put forward by C.W. Upham in 1869 in his argument about the powerful role that text played in frenzy around the time of the Salem Witch Trials.

Increase Mather, President of Harvard College at the time of the witch trials, along with his son Cotton, who were associate ministers for the same congregation, are argued by Upham (1869) as acting as key human instruments in the tragedy of injustice that led to the death of Rebecca Nurse and her co accused in the Salem witchcraft trials in 1692.

No wonder that the country was full of the terrors and horrors of diabolical imaginations, when the Devil was kept before the minds of men, by what they constantly read and heard, from their religious teachers!

Upham, C.W., 1869, Pg. 4

Upham (1869) argues that the pair distributed as much printed word on the matter as they could, so much that “The public mind became infatuated and, drugged with credulity and superstition, was prepared to receive every impulse of blind fanaticism.” (p.2).

Upham argues that in Cotton Mather’s writings the Devil, or its synonyms, is mentioned ten times as often as God. He goes on to provide a detailed account of how Cotton referenced written legal principles and manipulated the wording to achieve ambiguous meaning, most critically in the following directive:

“And yet I must most humbly beg you that in the management of the affair in your most worthy hands, you do not lay more stress upon pure Spectre testimony than it will bear.”

Cotton Mather, cited by Upham, 1869, p.20.

While the statement appears to be cautioning against the use of spectral evidence, Upham argues that it is in fact acting as authorization to use spectral evidence where preceding legal rules forbade it. Upham was attacked for his stand in this matter but continued to uphold and provide further evidence, courageously voicing dissent with his unpopular perspective.

In whatever arena of life one may meet the challenge of courage, whatever may be the sacrifices he faces if he follows his conscience – the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow men – each man must decide for himself the course he will follow. The stories of past courage can define that ingredient – they can teach, they can offer hope, they can provide inspiration. But they cannot supply courage itself. For this each man must look into his own soul.

John F. Kennedy, 1956 (cited in JFK Presidential Library and Museum)

The transition from the printing press which facilitated the mass production of print, to the television, and the move to mass visual communications can be experienced well in the assassinated , the story of the death of the former American President John F. Kennedy.

Written by Julie S

November 10th, 2011 at 12:13 pm

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