"Have you no sense of decency, sir?" With these seven words 51 years ago today, Joseph Welch, a Boston lawyer, put the finishing touch to one of the most shameful periods of the 20th century in the US. These seven words really encapsulated the McCarthy era. I wonder whether they will also come to encapsulate the current era, in which words are used with the same disregard for the truth as they were then.
Back then, it didn't matter whether what you said was true or false; it mattered whether you defended your position without regard to the merits of that position. The present times are becoming more and more like those days. Eventually, everybody will become a 'Red', McCarthy's term for his enemies.
No comments:
Post a Comment