Most people use symbols to categorize other people in order to remember them easer and to assign them attributes based on their symbols. This idea is explored in Gordon Allports essay The Language of Prejudice. Allport explains that symbol phobia occurs within people, but only when the symbol being discussed is assigned to themselves. Allports ideas are mirrored in Language and Thought by Susanne K. Langer and Black Men Public Spaces by Brent Staples. These authors argue that it is human nature to categorize and assign symbols to other people, and also to put symbols to words. When symbols become powerful enough, they become real, and that can lead to problems within a society. In Allports essay, he describes the relationships between race, …show more content…
When something goes wrong in a country, the people demand that the government find something responsible for it. This is because there is always a need for an enemy to put peoples’ discontent and jitters upon (Allport 330). A prime example of this was when Hitler declared Jews the reason for Germanys’ troubles before World War II. Like Germany, America had its own problems in the aftermath of World War II. While what happened to America is standard for countries that have experienced war, its citizens were still afraid. Communism became the focus of everyone’s fears during that time. In the period after the war ended, the word Communism became something more powerful than the name of a political stance. Communism became a symbol, one that elevated the emotions and tensions of post war America. Americans knew little of what communism was at the time, but thanks to figures such as Joseph McCarthy, all they had to do was fear communism (Allport 331). Any words or symbols associated with communism, such as red or Bolshevik, became villainous because of their association with communism. Communism and the things associated with it stopped being symbols and became real things Americans feared. It was not in their school, police, or government, but it was in their heads that communism had infiltrated the …show more content…
Humans can spread ideas and concepts through to use of words alone. Words also give humans the ability to put names to objects (Langer 108). This what happens to infants who are able to speak the first time, they put certain words to certain objects. Langer describes a young child who receives a toy horse. The child yelps “horsey” over and over again. When he does this, he is conceptualizing the toy horse that is right in front of him (Langer 108). He knows that is a horse, and the next time he witnesses a horse, he will know that is one. The symbol to the child was the word horse. He was taught that they toy was a model of a horse, that the word “horse” symbolized what the toy was. That symbol, which is language, came to life when that boy conceptualized that language and objects can be
One of the biggest fears of the American people is that the concept of communism contrasts drastically from the concept of capitalism, which the United States was essentially founded upon. The United States, as the public believed, was not a land of perfect communal equality, but rather a land of equal opportunity. However, what made communism so dangerous can be succinctly described by Eisenhower who compared the spread of communism as the domino effect. As his secretary of state, Dulles, put it, the propagation of communism “would constitute a threat to the sovereignty and independence” of America (Doc B). In addition, the Cold War also planted the seeds of rational fear of a global nuclear war. As Russia caught up to the United States in terms of technological advancements, they successfully developed the atomic bomb as well as the hydrogen bomb, which caused Americans to believe that the USSR would use these weapons of mass destruction to forcefully extend their ideologies to the USA. In fact, Americans were so frantic about a potential nuclear disaster that it...
America, throughout the ages, has always despised Communism and Communistic beliefs; however, during the 20s to around the 90s, there was a deeper hatred for Communism and a fear that lingered in most Americans’ hearts. Communism is a political theory that was derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs. The majority of Americans strongly disagreed with
Almost instantly after the end of World War Two, the tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union began to tear away at the thin bond formed by the two counties' alliance in the war. McCarthy and many other republican politicians believed that the democratic party, along with President Harry S. Truman, were not harsh enough on the communist party and they strongly opposed Roosevelt's New Deal. When the Republicans took control of the presidency in 1952, "McCarthyism," as it is now known. This new movement, McCarthyism, accused some Americans of being communist’s sympathizers and people that were suspected o...
We’ve all done it: walking down a hallway, judging someone or thinking someone is less than what we perceive ourselves to be based on the color of their skin or how they are dressed, or even their physical features. The author of The Language of Prejudice, Gordon Allport, shares how we live in a society where we are ridiculed for being less than a culture who labels themselves as dominant. This essay reveals the classifications made to the American morale. Allport analyzes in many ways how language can stimulate prejudice and the connection between language and prejudice.
The Red Scare in the 1950’s was actually America’s second red scare. The 1920’s red scare was what helped start suspicion over Communists, but was put off during World War 2. It was no coincidence that what many people called the second red scare ignited after World War 2, during the Cold War, in the 1950’s. The 1920’s red scare started because Americans were paranoid over the fact that Russia may seek revenge after they had overthrown a royal Russian family in 1917. What started Communist ideas in the U.S at the time was the fact that since the war was over many of people were out of jobs which caused people to ask how efficient was the government. The most successful and noteworthy of all the Soviet parties in the 1920’s had to be the International Workers of the World, which was also called the I.W.W or the Wobblies. The Wobblies first strike was on January 21 1919 where about 35,000 shipyard workers struck. They were immediately labeled reds, or Communists. After the first strike mass panic struck the U.S and many major chain stores had to reassure their customers that their workers would not revolt. A mayor named Ole Hansen from Seattle took the Wobblies strikes personally. Strikes continued over the next 6 months and were labeled as “crimes against society”, “conspiracies against the government” and even “plots to establish Communism”. This was when Attorney General A. “
There were Communists infiltrating America, and it seemed McCarthy was the only one actively trying to find it. McCarthy governed the U.S. people with fear for three years, was censored, and now is being proven correct, despite people trying to hide the truth. 1950 Joseph McCarthy, U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, began a crusade of anti-communism (Bartlett). In this period of time “the widespread accusations and investigations of suspected Communist activities in the U.S.” became known as ‘McCarthyism’ (Reeves). Many events happened during the McCarthyism era to justify his suspicions; Communism was spreading throughout Czechoslovakia and China, and North Korea invaded the South –which started the Korean War (Reeves).
President Eisenhower implemented policies in order to keep Communism and Communist threats of war out of the United States, but these policies caused much fear in the American people concerning Soviet bombings and Communist spies. One such fear-inducing policy was McCarthyism, which was began by U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, and involved blaming innocent people for Communist activity in America, and President Eisenhower did not stop this incrimination of guiltless U.S. citizens. Eisenhower states in Document A that investigators either implementing McCarthyism or working for groups such as HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee) were spreading hysteria among Americans, as they feared spies and deceit, as well as being accused as such by people who implemented McCarthyism. Paranoia of being thought of as, or blamed for being a Communist caused much conformity among Americans in order to seem “normal”, as well as a return to religion and traditional family values. Desp...
The ideas promoted by McCarthyism and the anti-communistic sentiment of the times were meant to push people away from non-conventional ways of thinking. Anything that was the slightest bit left or radical or even new could be construed as communistic. After Russia’s rejection to the Marshall Plan, a strong wave of communist fear began to sweep the nation and was being promoted by the U.S. government and the media. The early development of the Russian nuclear weapon brought grounds for suspicions of leaked information and the discovery and conviction of espionage for the Rosenbergs only fanned the flames of fear. The 1940’s were plagued with endless magazine articles like “How Communists Get That Way” and “Communists Are After Your Child.” Even President Truman’s Attorney General stated “There are today many Communists in America. They are everywhere--in factories, offices, butcher shops, on street corners, in private businesses--and each carries in himself the germs of death for society.” The Cold War had created a fear that democracy was in danger and that the American people must take drastic measures to ensure the continuance of their way of life. The first step taken in searching out “Communists” in the U.S. was the development of the House on Un-American Activities Committee or the HUAC. The HUAC was formed in the 1930’s but didn’t really become active until the Cold War controversies began in the forties and fifties and would assist Senator Joseph McCarthy in rooting out the “Reds”. The HUAC distributed millions of pamphlets to the American public cautioning: “One...
Americans knew about Communism because Communists had been at large in the country for years. When the Bolshevik revolution succeeded in Russia, it sent a shock wave in America. Americans have never been sympathetic to radicalism in any form. People that were associated with radicalism, rightly or wrongly, were harassed, lynched, jailed and subject to all sorts of bias. Thousands were arrested in 1920 and often held for long periods without trial. The Red Scare of 1920 was a precursor of McCarthyism (Baughman 200).
In this essay, I am going to discuss various policies and wars that were a huge part in America’s history of fighting against the spread of communism throughout the 1940s and 1950s. These things were policies and ideas that helped to shape and mold our nation’s foreign policies as well as touch on events that forever changed our country.
Former U.S. President Richard Nixon once said, “Communism is never sleeping; it is, as always, plotting, scheming, working, fighting.” From 1919 – 1921, a hysteria over the perceived threat of communism spread like wildfire across the nation. Known as the First Red Scare, the widespread fear of Bolshevism and anarchism quickly invaded the infrastructure of the U.S. government and radically influenced the American people. American citizens, such as Sacco and Vanzetti, were convicted and found crimes that evidence showed otherwise only because they supported anarchism. The US government arrested and deported radicals only because of their political standing.
The First and Second Red Scare of the United States paved the way for a long standing fear of communism and proved to be one of America’s largest periods of mass hysteria. Throughout the years authors and analysts have studied and formed expository albeit argumentative books and articles in an attempt to further understand this period of time; the mindset held during this period however is shown to be completely different compared to now.
The attitude of the citizens of the United States was a tremendous influence on the development of McCarthyism. The people living in the post World War II United States felt fear and anger because communism was related with Germany, Italy, and Russia who had all at one point been enemies of the United States during the war. If the enemies were communists then, communists were enemies and any communists or even communist sympathizers were a threat to the American way of life. "From the Bolshevik Revolution on, radicals were seen as foreign agents or as those ...
In 1917 the Russian revolution took place. Many Americans were suspicious that Russian immigrants might spread communist ideas. This shows that Americans were scared of/ didn’t want communism as it contradicted the American Dream and took away personal advancement by hard work. In January 1920, 5 elected members of the New York State Assembly could not take
Within the early and mid-1900s, there were several moments in American history in which we feared that our democracy would be overridden by communist influence and infiltrated by communist groups. These two events were labeled the Red Scare, a time in which “reds”; or communists, were feared to be taking an active participation and role within our democratic government. The first Red scare occurred in the early 1919-1924 after the First World War and the second Red Scare occurred after the World War Two between 1947-1954. Both events, while happening in two totally different eras, carried effects that would impact American society for several future generations and impact the racial prejudice treatment towards those who carried communist beliefs and believed in a supremacist government.