Mass Hysteria and the Red Scare The Red Scare of the 1950's was directly caused by the mass hysteria of the time period. The American public had become very afraid of secret Soviet spies infiltrating their government and their everyday society. This led to people distrust each other making it very easy for accusations to occur. In everyone's eyes everyone else was a potential communist spy. This hysteria had a huge negative affect on American society.
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Mass Hysteria - A condition affecting a group of persons, characterized by excitement or anxiety, irrational behavior or beliefs, or inexplicable symptoms of illness.
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Propaganda Films
The film industry was also involved in the mass hysteria, creating films that negatively portrayed communists and showed them taking advantage of the poor innocent free-thinking capitalist. The general public was literally bombarded on all sides by negative imagery and fear surrounding communists making it easier for mass hysteria to spread because it was being encouraged.
McCarthyism
Senator McCarthy holding one of his supposed lists
of communists.
Senator Joseph McCarthy was able to take advantage of this fear and hysteria to further his own political agenda. He accused a huge amount of people in a multitude of different fields. If the general public had not been in a state of hysteria then McCarthy would not have been able to convince friends and colleagues to turn on each other mercilessly. The Red Scare was a direct result of the public's irrational fear and paranoia. The original fear of spies was rational but it quickly grew out of proportion. The spread of McCarthyism proves that the Americans were susceptible to propaganda, had a herd mentality, and were easily manipulated.
Further information on the Hollywood Ten can be found here
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Hollywood Ten There were people in the entertainment industry that decided to openly defy The House Un-American Activities Committee. This group of ten people came to be known as the Hollywood Ten. They openly denounced the HUAC claiming that the committee was violating their civil rights and that under the 1st Amendment they had the right to be a part of any political party they chose.
There were large consequences in making this claims and resisting the HUAC. They were fined a large amount and had to serve a year in jail. One of the men even turned on the rest and gave up around twenty other names that he claimed were communists. After they were released no one wanted to hire them, as to avoid being suspected of Communism, which began the blacklist which grew and grew as more people were suspected of being communists until the list was ended in the 60's. This persecution of people in the entertainment industry showed that no one was safe from accusations. The mass hysteria surrounding communism led to these accusations becoming extremely exaggerated, resulting in jobs being lost and time in jail being served. Which are both ridiculously embellished punishments for simply being accused of being part of a political party, which in reality should have been protected under the 1st Amendment. |
There were many other celebrities that were at some point or another accused of being communists including Helen Keller, Charlie Chaplin and Orson Welles.
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