The Politics of Exposure Investigating Committees

Abstract

Among the most sinister figures in western culture is that of the witch-finder, whose capacity to evoke fear rests in large part on the combination of authority with arbitrary power. Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, directly linked the witchcraze of the seventeenth century to the American political inquisitions of the 1950s. There were probably more effective ways of protecting the polity from subversion, but none was more cherished by its champions and more reviled by its opponents than the investigating committee. The deep emotions it aroused owed something to folk memories of the witch-finder, but also to the recognition that such a device could easily be turned to political and partisan purposes.