Whoops! We didn't know you weren't a witch
The Devil Made Us Do It: Apologizing for The Salem Witch Trials
These days, awful "apologies" are going viral all the time. Spanning from individuals to governments to corporations, people are constantly piling onto their iniquities with offensive monologues self-christened apologies. Well, as it turns out, these kinds of apologies have been around for a long time. They litter history as an enduring landmark to humankind's aversion to admitting wrong.
The Salem Witch trials give us a beautiful example of a messed up apology. The Apology of the Salem Jury begins like this: "We must confess" the devil made us do it (aka it was not our fault), and continued like this:
We made a bad decision to murder the people that other people accused (aka they started it)
We apologize to God first (even though this apology is for you)
We should be punished, but we would never do it again (so we hope we are not blamed)
Please accept this apology, God bless.
https://gizmodo.com/the-real-life-letter-of-apology-written-by-the-salem-wi-1640827487
The Salem Witch Trials! I've always heard of the phrase "The Devil made us do it" but I never really knew of the origins. I also didn't know about the apologies and I'm curious to how you will connect it to our prompt. How does religion play into this? Can everything be justified by religion? How will an apology resolve issues today? Are there issues today?
ReplyDeleteThis can certainly not be justified by religion, especially because their actions went directly against the religion they were claiming was their own. For instance, the Bible said to take care of the fatherless and the widows, but those were their main targets. I do not think there are issues today as far as descendants go because the Salem Witch trial were so long ago, but I do not know.
DeleteNice tittle! Yes the Salem witch trials were crazy stuff. I like how you emphasized the bad apologies and their expected impact.
ReplyDelete