Why is it that we have the so much false accusation? Why are people willing - want to believe any slander?

Question

Seems that in the last 10 years, especially in the USA, that "witchhunting" has become acceptable behavior. I've had several ccasions where my professional welfare or personal life has been disrupted by a third party who says some awful thing. I've been told that I was guilty of anything from cheating on my girlfriend to stealing, to being a "wanted criminal", and even worse. Each time, the third party was someone I barely knew -- someone untruthful, but whose aggressive way had gained a position of influence. What bothers me even more than reciting of malicious gossip is the average person's apparent willingness to believe "there must be some truth" in anything bad that is said, and acceptance. I say there's "Weapons of Mass Destruction", there must be at least some nerve gas, right? Or if somebody says that guy is a rapist, he's got to be SOME kind of deviant. Since when is this behavior acceptable to our society, or has it always been part of our national character?

Answer 1

People say these things . . . because people will believe them. And people will believe them . . . because they WANT to believe them. Why do people WANT to believe any random malicious rumor they hear about someone else? Because it's NOT THEM. It's that same reason we enjoy watching reality TV shows where someone struggles and fails and gets humiliated in front of millions of people - thinking "thank goodness that's not me!"

Sure, sometimes there's influence involved. If a newspaper, police officer, or some dominant person in their life says something that might be speculation or rumor or just plain false - who are you to think something different? These are your sources of usually-valid information, so why question it now?

The BIGGER problem is people who are in denial about the way this system works. A few weeks ago, I passed by my local laundromat and saw a sketch of a person who looked like me in the window. It was a police artist sketch of someone who's a possible child molester and wanted for questioning. While I am aware that I have not molested any children, I am not going to deny the fact that any other people might believe that I have. Hence, I hauled *** and didn't venture that way for a few weeks until I was sure the picture was gone.

Witch-hunting never goes away. It's just a system based on rumors, lies, and (above all) stereotypes. And guess what? We'll never be able to escape from rumors, lies or stereotypes - so get used to it and find better ways to cope than questioning a system that we already know is evil and wrong and so forth.

You DO remember what happens to people who question witch-hunting, right? Of course you do . . . you witch!

Answer 2

My mother used to quote St. Paul. Now I will have to look this up...

"you well know that the Manichees move the unlearned by finding fault with the Catholic Faith, and chiefly by rending in pieces and tearing the Old Testament: and they are utterly ignorant, how far__5 these things are to be taken, and how drawn out they descend with profit into the veins and marrows of souls as yet as it were but able to cry.__6 And because there are in them certain things which are some slight offense to minds ignorant and careless of themselves, (and there are very many such,) they admit of being accused in a popular way: but defended in a popular way they cannot be, by any great number of persons, by reason of the mysteries that are contained in them. But the few, who know how to do this, do not love public and much talked of controversies and dispute:__7 a and on this account are very little known, save to such as are most earnest in seeking them out. "

My mother, who was from south-western Mexico, had a saying, I haven't yet found it exactly, "The number of fools are infinite." Sort of to me, it meant the same thing American mothers say "If a crowd of your peers went to jump off a cliff, would you join them?"

Answer 3

Find some new "friends," people to be involved with, move on to another area where no one "knows" you. Others won't be influenced that way.........right or wrong.......I can't conceive of anyone saying malicious things about another, unless it generated from a reliable source. Otherwise it just doesn't click and you have been seriously maligned..................