by Jorge Villanueva
Many events have caused pandemonium throughout the world. Also known as mass hysteria, events such as global viruses and terrorist attacks have affected us all. But from time to time we’ve also seen people creating scandals and spreading commotion only to end in an apology that people have gotten hurt for no rational reason. Here are some examples you might find interesting: The Salem Witch Trials Imagine being judged for witchcraft and then sentenced to hang. This might sound crazy in modern times, but in the 17th century most communities in the United States were crazy about religion. Many women were persecuted for witchcraft or for presumed association with the devil. There were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts, in the famous villages of Salem, Ipswich, and Andover. We know about these trials mostly because of movies and stories, but in reality they took a serious toll on the religious beliefs and the theocracy of the time. Not only were people falsely accused of witchcraft, but they were also executed, resulting in around thirty deaths. The War of the Worlds “The world is being attacked by alien invaders.” What would your reaction be if you heard that in the late 1930’s on the radio, the most popular source of entertainment at the time? Some called it impossible but most of the audience was shocked and panicked, calling the authorities for information and preparing for the worst. A radio program decided to play a Halloween prank on its audience by dramatizing H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds as a breaking news story. This might be one of the best examples of mass hysteria ever. It was also useful to show how people were influenced by the media. The plot was set in New Jersey, were the news was supposedly being broadcast from. It first explained that a meteorite had crashed into the earth and that a rocket machine had begun to incinerate people with some sort of beam. People reacted terribly to the broadcast, informing the police and alarming their neighbors. What would a prank would have to be like nowadays to scare people in the same way War of the Worlds did back in the 1930’s? The Y2K Problem Living through the change of the millennium was exciting, but of course there were also fears of what it could bring. Perhaps the idea that machines might have a mind of their own was only imagined in the movies, but there was a real problem that digital equipment would change the year 1999 to 1900 instead of 2000, making all their processes invalid and ultimately breaking down. This would supposedly involve banks, stock markets, security systems, and any kind of electrically operated system, resulting in chaos and mayhem. Actually, governments and international organizations had to spend billions correcting the problem, which added up to around 300 billion US dollars. The hysteria caused by this phenomenon was widely spread by geeks who wanted to boycott big enterprises such as software companies and organizations that ran databases. 2012 It might not have been the best movie of all time but it certainly reflects a growing fear of some groups that the end of the world will occur on December 21st this year. Will we be able to celebrate Christmas? Or might the world as we know it be gone forever? Doomsday theories vary in shape and color, from a spiritual reformation that could change our way of life, to a cataclysmic event such as the collision of earth with another celestial body or a huge earthquake that will end all life. The most famous theory concerns the Mayan belief that we are living in a “fourth world,” which means that there were three unsuccessful worlds before our own and that ours would last 5,125 years, with another cycle being completed this December, when our “fourth world” will end. We have frequently been bombarded with alarming news and claims of dreadful events, but never has the world seen such growing concern towards one event. Not only have people have started to prepare, like citizens of the United States buying underground shelters, but some have also started building colonies for the survivors, such as people from Corguinho, Brazil. You might call this just meaningless paranoia or fear, but how do we know that something not really about to happen? Whether you decide to prepare as well depends on how you see the end of the world. Taiwanese End of the World While most end of the world preachers prefer setting their presumed apocalypses far in the future, a daring Taiwanese called Master Wang predicted it to occur on May 11, 2011 at 10:45 a.m. He said a 14.0 degree earthquake would hit the island followed by a huge tsunami. This news was widely spread in the Taiwanese media, which naturally exaggerates every story that comes into their hands. This actually drove one person to commit suicide. After the incident, police were stationed outside Master Wang’s residence, waiting for his predictions to take place, but in the end he was arrested for disturbing the peace and creating panic among the people. a
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May 2024
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