Dear flinter-ga;
Thank you for allowing me to answer your interesting question.
The Appeal of McCarthyism essentially hinged on the American public?s
need to place the blame for its own post World War failures.
McCarthyism suggested that the United State?s abysmal foreign policy
failures, like the ones in particular that saw the rise of Communist
China and the war in Korea, were not the fault of misguided policies,
but rather because of recruited and imbedded spies and disloyal
American?s within the US State Department. McCarthyism, on its face,
also provided a means by which many Americans could turn a blind eye
to the reality that seemingly faithful and steadfast nations around
the world did not, in actuality, trust the US or its friendly European
counterparts who engaged in similar forms of capitalism. The
suggestion was that those whose patriotism came under close scrutiny
were somehow tempted by the promises of Communism and thus began the
hunt for those who were unpatriotic as if this were prima-facie
evidence that all Americans who were less than enthusiastic about US
policies were communist sympathizers.
McCarthyism itself was a double-edge sword; to remain silent about it
was to embrace it and to speak out against it was seen as an admission
of guilt. To understand the reality of the world political climate at
the time Americans would have had to grapple with the uncomfortable
truth that their nation and allies had not always stood on the side of
freedom, democracy and self-determination. In a sense the appeal of
McCarthyism, like many powerful ideologies, was a comfort in knowing
that through one?s acceptance of the notion one removed himself from
suspicion. On the other hand there was also the simple-minded view of
the world as a struggle between good and evil, lightness and darkness;
and to reaffirm one?s American political loyalty, at that time, was
viewed as an automatic exoneration of sorts. No one wanted to be
targeted and an attractive aspect of McCarthyism was fundamentally
that you would not be viewed as secretly being ?one of them? if you
are openly and admittedly ?one of us?. This was proven time and time
again by whose who were subpoenaed and who refused to reaffirm their
loyalty (on principle alone) and walked away in many instances
carrying a life-long stigma as a ?communist sympathizer? even though
they cooperated fully and lived their lives many years before and many
years thereafter as loyal and patriotic Americans. Indeed the embrace
of McCarthyism, for some people, was an attractive lesser of many
evils and an avoidance of a potential scarlet letter.
What was lacking in our society in those days, I believe, was an
organized and collective sense of direction. The post war world has
become unsure and a suspicious place for anyone who held a
contradictory view of ?the powers that be?. Free speech and free
thought were being put to the test and opposing views were immediately
confronted as un-American ? after all, America had just recently
liberated the earth of tyranny and a force that powerful was above
reproach and could NOT be wrong. Or could it?
There was also a lack of security in America?s Constitutional
concepts. Those who did little else than what our founding father?s
had done in questioning our well being under current political
policies were no longer seen as patriots but subversives, hell-bent on
destroying democracy when in truth the very existence of the keepers
of our democracy depended on public debate and disclosure. With the
advent of McCarthyism we lost the ability to pick and choose which
policies we supported and which we deemed inappropriate. It was not
enough for a person to show favoritism to certain foreign policies
while condemning others, but we had to wholly embrace the sum total of
policies lest we be considered, as Hubert Humphrey put it when he
introduced an amendment to make the Communist party illegal, ?a half
patriot?. To some extent perhaps McCarthyism played on the waning
effects of social and political adrenaline left over from World War
II; adrenaline that needed ? no, SCREAMED for an outlet and
McCarthyism undoubtedly provided that. Unsatisfied with ridding the
world of the various menaces through McCarthyism we looked inward and
perceived another sinister plot and, still geared from our noble
fights for freedom, launched a new campaign to purge us of the last
vestiges of freedom hating revolutionaries.
From a cultural standpoint, especially among those who did not know
better in an age in which mass media was not commonplace and
disclosure was not the norm; McCarthyism was seen as an effort to
cleanse a dangerously polluted free society. McCarthyism was on our
side, in the minds of many, and because of it these supposedly
imminent seditious threats to our way of life would be ferreted out
and exposed for what they were. One must not forget that these
ideologues come on the heels of great racism in the south, the
internment of Japanese-Americans to prevent them from somehow
infiltrating free, white America, and the defeat of Nazism that
threatened all free societies just to name a few. Americans were
mindful of these recent and ongoing events and were weary of war and
apprehensive at the first sign that something was amiss. McCarthy?s
theories suggested that another such threat was brewing much closer to
home than what had only recently taken place in Europe and the South
Pacific and that the only solution to a domestic problem was a
proactive stance rather than a reactive stance.
Though there were many who did not necessarily embrace McCarthyism
there were unexpected and disproportionate responses to it. Truman,
who once traded disloyal accusations with McCarthy, issued an
executive order on loyalty in 1947 in the infancy of McCarthyism that
required the Department of Justice to draw up a list of organizations
it decided were "totalitarian, fascist, communist or subversive . . .
or as seeking to alter the form of government of the United States by
unconstitutional means." Oddly enough this not only included those who
held membership in these organizations but also those who were deemed
to have "sympathetic association" with any organization on the
Attorney General's list. This list included people in mainstream
society who often had absolutely no political interests such as the
Chopin Cultural Center, the Cervantes Fraternal Society, the Committee
for the Negro in the Arts, the League of American Writers, the Nature
Friends of America, and the Washington Bookshop Association to mention
only a few. Through this people began to realize that ?they? could be
next and thus an air of suspicion grew exponentially not only among
McCarthyism supporters but also among its detractors and added fuel to
the excitement and mass hysteria.
I hope you find that my answer exceeds your expectations. If you have
any questions about my research please post a clarification request
prior to rating the answer. Otherwise I welcome your rating and your
final comments and I look forward to working with you again in the
near future. Thank you for bringing your question to us.
Best regards;
Tutuzdad-ga ? Google Answers Researcher
INFORMATION SOURCES
EXCERPT FROM HOWARD ZINN'S A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES
http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/zinn-chap16.html
THE WORLD TRAVELER
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/McCarthyism/McCarthyism.html
THE AGE OF MCCARTHYISM: A BRIEF HISTORY WITH DOCUMENTS
http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/schrecker-age.html
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