The media often portrays the fifties as a time of innocent, laid-back utopia. Wrong! Why do we always depict the past as some kind of good ‘ol days where life was simpler? I recall my parents, in the fifities, saying how complicated life was, all the while lamenting the passing of their own good 'ol days.
As a point of fact, in the fifities we were under a 24/7 threat of being vaporized by a nuclear attack. If we survived the next minute, we never knew if we'd survive the next summer free of paralysis by polio. If that were not bad enough, there was widespread paranoia. Those annoying Communists were lurking everywhere, just outside our peripheral vision.
Senator Joseph McCarthy claimed there were large numbers of Communists inside the Federal government, the Hollywood movie industry, the media, and elsewhere. McCarthy was an undistinguished senator from Wisconsin. Then it happened.
In a 1950 speech he claimed that he had a list of members of the Communist party and members of a spy ring that had infiltrated the US State Department. By 1954, he used charges of Communism, Communist sympathy, or disloyalty to attack the Voice of America, the United States Army, the Truman administration, the Hollywood movie industry, and others. This eventually led to 36 days of Army-McCarthy hearings 1954 broadcast live on TV.
I recall McCarthy continually calling for "a point of order," whatever that was. I didn't understand what the hearings or the hysteria were about, except that calling a person a Communist was the worst name you could call her. I didn't know what a Communist was, except our worst enemy and a grave accusation.
McCarthy was never able to substantiate his claims. Edward R. Murrow, bless him, debunked McCarthy on "See it Now," in 1954. The senator's star rapidly fell. He died in our sophomore year, 1957. The damage he did to reputations and livelihoods outlasted him.
At Rogers, I learned that Communism was a Marxist economic system. Totalitarianism and godlessness seemed to follow, but it wasn't the definition. I learned about the Salem Witch Trials, mass-hysteria, and paranoia. After reading "Lord of the Flies," "The Village," and "The Crucible," I formed beliefs on this issue of witches in the woodwork.
This I believe: people naturally tend to pull together to fight a common enemy. The image of the enemy need not be accurate. A real or imagined enemy feeds on the fear of the people. A strong third party can manipulate those people by playing on those fears.
That process of manipulation is the real thing to guard against. We used to call an undesirable person a Communist. When the Berlin Wall fell, this usage fell with it. What is our current fear? Is there a new label used to insult a person?