Re: Taliban hatred for women?

I've read some about the "Witchcraze" thesis as well.  The main point of it
is not to tie the burning of "witches" etc. solely to capitalism. Of course
there has been oppression before capitalism, including oppression of
heretics. The particularly interesting aspect to the "Witchcraze" thesis is
that it was much more than just the burning of some heretics. It involved
the massive expropriation--stealing--of property from many, many women, and
may have been an important part of the primitive accumulation of capital at
the beginnings of capitalism. So in that sense, there is some particular
relevance to capitalism as opposed to a more general form of sexist or
anti-heretical oppression.

Alan Spector

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----- Original Message -----
From: "Austin, Andrew" <austina@uwgb.edu>
To: <Shahijm2@aol.com>; <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
Sent: Saturday, November 10, 2001 2:05 PM
Subject: Re: Taliban hatred for women?


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Shahijm2@aol.com [mailto:Shahijm2@aol.com]
>
> "Witchcraze" about the persecution of witches in Europe during the
15th/16th
>
> centuries, which, on the face of it was religious persecution but she
argues
>
> convincingly that it was a holocaust against women associated with the
rise
> of capitalism.
>
> * * *
>
> The problem with this thesis is that the persecution of out-groups in
Europe
> by the church began long before capitalism - by over a millennium. It is
> true that much of the war on heretics and witches was piecemeal for some
> time, even after Charlemagne fused canon and civil law in 800 AD. Indeed,
> the cultural-ideological system necessary for widespread persecution of
> enemies of the church was not really in place until the 12th and 13th
> century. This happened in a big way with the edicts of the Lantern Council
> and the aggressive posture of Frederick II and Pope Innocent IV in the mid
> 13th century. Even after the ideological basis had developed and the
charge
> was made, the centralization of legal machinery and the network of
> inquisitors required for systematic mass murder would not become fully
> developed until the 14th and 15th centuries. It is almost certain that the
> inquisition was fed by the emergence of capitalism, for it would reach its
> peak between the 15th and 18th centuries, and it required a great deal of
> wealth to fed its expansion. Also during this period, the tortures of the
> inquisition would creep beyond the church into the emerging criminal law
> (which was much more obviously associated with the rise of capitalism).
But
> these facts, and the inquisition's association with the crusades, are
quite
> damaging to any thesis that attempts to explain the persecution of witches
> with capitalism's rise in Europe. The desire to consolidate the religious
> community, which involved the need to control women who lived beyond the
> direct control of the household dominus (under the principle of
> paterfamilias), lead to the construction of the machinery necessary to
> prosecute a war on the devil - and all this occurred before capitalism.
Why
> women were targeted by the church in feudal Europe is rather obvious if
you
> stop and think about it: they needed to be controlled by the greater
dominus
> in the community, which at the time was the church. Other indications of
the
> importance of religion in mass murder: Jews were the primary targets (they
> were collectively guilty of deicide), and so were homosexuals (who engaged
> in sex with no creative purpose, in contradiction of the transcendental
> imperative). Such oppressions intersected, for it is quite likely that
many
> of the women singled out as witches were lesbians who had organized their
> own households.
>
> Andrew Austin
>
>