Essay On Mass Hysteria

During both the devastating Holocaust in the Germany and the tragic Salem Witch Trials in the small town of Salem, innocent people were brutally killed, causing hysteria among the people. Both groups of people endured hardships because of the hysteria that occurred among them. This hysteria caused people to react in ways that they would not usually act. Both of these events are very historical and help The United States of America be a unified and prosperous country that it has grown to become today. Hysteria is defined as an uncontrollable outburst of emotion or fear, often characterized by irrationality, laughter, weeping

1692, 1920. Both of these years have a perfect connection. Hysteria in Salem, and the Red Scare. The Salem witch trials began in 1692, after a group of young girls in Salem, Massachusetts. They said to be possessed by the devil later the girl accused several women of witchcraft. The people in the village were extremely religious, for example if you didn't know your 10 commandments it was a sin and people would start questioning you because it was something important to know if you were a “god’s child or the devil's child”. The Red Scare was fear of a potential rise of communism or radical leftism. Many people were scared, they had to protect themselves of the strikers but they didn't know who were they exactly or for how long were they going to do this for.

“Good Night, and Good Luck is George Clooney’s warning to today’s post-9/11 YouTube culture that civil liberties and rights can slip away with mass hysteria” - (Caulfield, 2007). George Clooney’s Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) is a huge alert and warning to todays post terrorist attack (of the Twin Towers in 2001) society, in which civil liberties and human rights of each and any person can slip away as an effect of mass hysteria.

Mass hysteria has been part of history since the beginning of time. It happened in the United States the years 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts. In Salem, two young girls were responsible for starting mass hysteria by showing erratic behavior and accusing other people of witchcraft. This resulted in the death of over 20 people. Salem citizens were very confused and scared because they were never sure of how secure they actually were. Another reason Salem citizens were nervous was because, if their fate was put to the test, it would be in the hands of an unreliable court. Another event that involves mass hysteria was the one known as “The Red Scare”. The Red Scare was a variety of actions that led to an enduring episode of fear and hostility through the years 1940s and 1950s. The Red Scare was caused by a series of threats towards America. The Red Scare had many figures but two that were exemplary to others were Hoover and McCarthy. These men stirred up the environment with more problems than it had before. Citizens of America were surrounded by many threats especially their homes being corrupted by the pressure they were surrounded by. Politics played a very keystone part in The Red Scare because it was the fuel to the fire. Families and friends were being separated since

Mass psychogenic illness, also known as epidemic hysteria, is a set of unexplained symp- toms affecting two or more people who usually share a theory of some sort about what is causing their distress.

Imagine the terror of a mass hysteria hoax. During the sixteenth century, witch trials caused the deaths of thousands as chaos spread throughout Europe. Many European villages in history have witnessed witch executions and the imprisonment of suspected witches. The Crucible, along with the Salem Witch Trials and the European witch trials, have many similarities and differences that make them both memorable and important.

“Over 127,000 United States citizens were imprisoned during World War II. Their crime? Being of Japanese ancestry”(History par.1) all because people were scared which is a form of mass hysteria. Mass Hysteria is the cause of many panics across the world such as in Le Roy High School in New York where multiple girls suffered a twitch disorder much like tourettes and then in Tanzania when villages west of Lake Victoria experienced an epidemic of laughing and crying. Similar outbreaks have been reported in schools in europe and the US”(Waller par. 2). Most cases of mass hysteria all have different causes and there are three which are most common. Throughout history, mass hysteria has been caused by fear, attention and rumors, and even a psychic contagion.

Mass hysteria is a phenomenon that transmits collective allusions of threats through a population in society as a result of rumors and fear. The Crucible by Arthur Miller accurately portrays mass hysteria that took place during the Salem witch trials of 1692. People were accused based on revenge or other malicious motives and to make the situation worse, nothing about the trials was logical. After a few people were accused, fear set into the town and everyone was viewed as a witch until proven innocent. Mass hysteria not only happened during the Salem witch trials, but right after the Twin Towers fell on September 11, 2001 as well. Mass hysteria ties into both the accusations made in The Crucible and the islamophobia that set in after 9/11.

Mass hysteria can strike anywhere, anytime. Mass hysteria is an illusion or condition that affects a group of people, and is caused by anxiety, fear or stress. It can sometimes put people at risk because in most cases, it makes people sick. Mass hysteria has a negative impact on people like it did on the people of Salem who were killed and locked away. The Crucible was one of many examples of how fear can cause mass hysteria and unfortunately there are many more. Fear causes mass hysteria and has many cases that can prove that this is true.

In this world there have been causes of mass hysteria even back in the old days. In 1939 Mysterious girls were having cases of strange twitching making parents of the students curious. A big cause of hysteria was found in a case of a girl suffering in lack of attention. She was having sorts of insecurity and paranoia. For common people, twitching is a sign of nerve problem. But one case in Louisiana in 1939 involved numerous students suffering from twitching and all inflicted students were female. It began when one female student show sign of twitching in her right. It happened during an annual homecoming ball. Unfortunately, the twitching did not end up on that particular day, in fact, the twitching became worse as weeks went by. Following the incident, some of her fellow

Hysteria is a mental disorder marked by excitability, anxiety, or imaginary disorders. It can play an important role in people’s lives. Hysteria supplants logic and enables people to believe that their neighbors, whom they have always considered highly respectable, do things they would never expect them of doing. In “The Crucible”, hysteria causes people to believe their friends are committing deplorable acts. The townsfolk accept and become active in the hysterical climate not only out of genuine religious piety but also because it gives them a chance to express repressed sentiments and to seek reparations from grudges. Hysteria suspends the rules of daily life and allows the acting out of every dark desire and hateful urge under the

Can some of the most deluded water be purified by the Almighty Allah? The people in Mumbai truly believed that their most grotesque water had became sweet and potable. The outbreak of hysteria brought chaos to the large city sitting on the west coast of India. Thousands rushed, in hopes, to get a taste of the holy water that held great promise to the Muslims and others residing in the area. From the reports, religious beliefs, prior events and scientific research, the phenomenon of mass hysteria brought great question to the seemingly odd event.

Moral Panic Moral panic is a widely used and often misinterpreted concept in social sciences. The term was invented by the British sociologist Stanley Cohen the late sixties. Cohen defined moral panic as a form of collective behaviour during which: "A condition, episode, person or group emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests; its nature is presented in a stylised and stereotypical fashion by the mass media; the moral barricades are manned by editors, bishops, politicians and other right thinking people; socially accredited experts pronounce their diagnosis and solutions; ways of coping are evolved or (more often) resorted to; the condition then disappears,

Mass hysteria is when a group of people act out of the norm because of a fear of something. Other examples of mass hysteria are riots, weather problems, and illnesses. In fact, Riots fit in perfectly with mass hysteria. A riot occurs when someone is very unhappy with the results of something, like politics, and turns out other people are unhappy about it so they join together and cause trouble.

A moral panic is a condition in which widespread fear is present as a result of a social problem becoming exaggerated beyond its real threat (Krzanich, 2010: 165). According to Goode and Ben-Yehuda (1994) cited in Critcher (2008: 1131-1132), moral panics are characterised by several aspects: concern, hostility, consensus, disproportionality and volatility. A heightened level of concern over a specific issue is often evidenced through the media, how they are reporting on the issue and how often they are reporting on the issue. Hostility is held towards the groups or individuals believed to be causing the issue, often because they are seen as threatening to the morals and values of the society. Consensus involves an overall agreement within society