andie nachgeborenen No go, Charles. Your explanation is, as my daughter would say, random. The question is, why was there a big witch craze, specifically a sudden jump, in Europe in the period of roughly 1550-1670 -- that is what is being discussed.
^^^ CB: That is part of what is being discussed. We are discussing a number of issues. We are also discussing why there is such an institution as belief in witchcraft at all. The materialist explanation for that is what I am addresing.
Also, there doesn't have to be a vulgar materialist explanation for the sudden jump in that period. There can be, but from the materialist standpoint, every aspect of reality need not be determined by the material base or infra-structure. See Engels' letter to whathisname on this.
Nonetheless there might be a materialist explanation for the leap. So, I don't say don't look for one. But there's already a materialist explanation here.
Are you a materialist ? I thought you were Kantian liberal on materialism.
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Your analogy actually makes the point: the jump in lynchings in 1866-1930 has an obvious materialist explanation.
^^^^ CB: There may be vulgar materialist explanations at this level, but there doesn't _have to be_ a cardinal or ordinal correlation of the superstructure and the infrastructure on every jot and tittle of historic changes and motions. The materialist explanation is sufficient at the level of male supremacist institution like "we believe in witches because women are prone to consort with the Devil, hisself"
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Also, unlike the general structural background factor with lynchings of maintaining white domination, the link to male suprematicist ideology is way too loose with the witch craze.
^^^^^ CB: Sez you. We disagree.
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Lynchings were _admittedly_ intended to keep African Americans "in their place." And the civil war and recomstruction had put absolute white supremacy in question.
^^^^^ CB: The materialist explanation is that that place is divided from the white workers.
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Absolute male supremacy was not contested by anything so dramatic (or indeed I think contested at all) in Europe in the period in question, so there was no threat to quash.
^^^^^ CB: Male supremacy is a standing institution in Europe from way back, and witchhunts as an expression of that institution, geez, look at that wikipedia article 425 AD.
There have to be institutions which maintain the supremacy, state protected institutions. The oppression of women is enforced by the state continuously, not just from time to time. There's always a threat to quash, always resistance going on, struggle .
Like Carrol says Marx answered the question , what is ? struggle.
Women have been struggling against there oppression continuously since its origin. So, there is always a threat at some level, and male supremacist ruling class only retains rule by being aware of this.
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And no one as far as I know admitted that witch burnings were intended to keep women down, that's not essential, but you need some more stuff in the middle than: predominantly male persecutors and predominantly female victims.
^^^^^^ CB: Predominantly female victims gets me a _de facto_ case. All male persecutors.
Also, this is part of the male supremacist state of society at the time. You are wrong. The facts all facts that establish that this is a male supremacist society in general, like all male officials, bolster the claim that the specific witchhunt is an specific instance of the expression of male supremacy. Also, that there are any witchhunts at all, whether more or less than last "season's witchunt" is an expression of the male supremacist ideology. Causeded by male supremacist ideology.
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Otherwise all you have is a hand wave towards an explanation, not an explanation per se. The two points mentioned may be linked: it may be that women _happened_ to be predominantly the victims because they were powerless, rather than because they were women, even though they were powerless because they were women.
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CB;
If the women were powerless because they were women ( i.e. powerless because of the male supremacist ideology), and they were victimized because they were powerless, then by some sort of transitivity, they were victimized because they were women, because of male supremacy.
I rest my case .