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,
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symbols, and words. When describing a person by race, the first thing that comes to mind in that persons head is the previous information they have regarding that race (Allport 326). Allport uses the example of a Chinese man. When looking at the category of a Chinese man, the focal points of that category that pop up are reticence, impassivity, poverty, and treachery. When someone looks at a Chinese man, that someone doesn’t see a person yet. That someone sees a list attributes that person has assigned to the Chinese race (Allport 326). Those attributes then came to life in that individuals head, forming a slew of assumptions about that man that are probably not true. It is not until that person has interacted with that Chinese man that they can finally see them as more than a checklist of attributes. Allport goes on to describe the way communism and its’ symbols affected the American landscape in the 40’s and 50’s.
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…
country. Susanne K. Langer goes deeper into this in her essay Language and Thought. Langer’s essay divides the line between humans and animals, in that humans are able to understand the meanings behind symbols instead of just looking at them (106). Humans and animals have looked at signs the same way for millennia, and so far humans are the only ones to interpret such symbols. Langer argues that humans are able to think about the signs and symbols instead of talking of them (106). This is due to humans having the ability to use language as a means of communication. Animals have used grunts and noise as their main form of communication. Humans are able to craft and create beautiful, poetic words that leave a lasting impression on people. Animals are not capable of such intricate ways communication. Langer explains that “languages are not invented; they are grown with our need for expression” (109). Langer goes on to discuss that language itself is also a symbol.
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
combined. Brent Staples’ essay, Black Men in Public Spaces, describes the way people react when they see Black men. Staples describes an experience where a young white woman quickly out paces him on the street when she finds staples walking behind her (346). Staples said that this was an eye opening experience. Staples then describes a story where journalist friend is put at gun point by the police just because he was black. According to Staples, all Black men have stories like this (348). This is because black men create fear in public spaces. Black men are feared because they symbolize the fears many people have. The woman Staples encountered on the street didn’t see a man. To her she saw something even more horrifying, she saw a Black man. Staples says that this is because young women are more prone to being victims of violent attacks while the media repeatedly paint black men as the suspects (347). It is as if Black men have become a symbol of fear to those young women. The symbol those women gave black men had come to life. Brent Staples most certainly would not done anything malicious to that young women, but she didn’t. She saw what the media wanted her to see, the symbol for fear.
Communism has had an extremely negative impact on Americans—many people got fired for false accusations by the government. The case of Rosenberg has to do with this topic because Ethel Rosenberg did nothing wrong against the U.S., yet she was executed without evidence to support the government’s decision. Typical humans make harmful decisions when in fear, however, those decisions ensure safety for everyone
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...
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...
Many Americans were being taught that communists were the enemy from when they were young, so it created a generation that had so much hate and were so scared of the communist influence. In the education system, it was now integrated into the
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 United States was in a state of scare when they feared that communist agents would come and try to destroy our government system. An example of this scare was the Cold war. During the cold war the U.S. supported the anti-communist group while the Soviet Union favored the communist party. Many people who still supported the communist party still lived in the U.S. When the U.S. joined the Cold war, trying to rid the communist party from Europe and Asia, the U.S. were afraid that the people living in the United States that still supported communism were spies that would give intel back to the Soviet Union to try to destroy their government. If anybody was a suspected communist, if somebody just didn’t like somebody, or if they were even greedy they could accuse the person of communism and the person would be thrown in the penitentiary, thus, starting the second red scare.
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).
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 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
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.
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 ...
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
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.