By Jonah Goldberg
Friday, January 09, 2026
In the 16th and 17th centuries,
Europe had a witch problem.
Actually, that’s not quite right. It had a witch hunt
problem.
This was hardly a new issue. But it was getting out of
hand, thanks in part to the printing press, which like all revolutionary media
technologies, elicited a kind of populist upheaval. To listen to some people—a
lot of people—witches were everywhere. Curses, hexes, and spells were making it
difficult to get anything done. Mathilda turned my kid into a newt! Mary
made my husband lustful for her! People, mostly women, were making pacts
with demons and the Devil like he was giving out coupons for a free butter
churn. The most common charges fell under the broad category of “maleficium”—“evil
doing” or “wrong doing.” The annoying hag with the lazy eye at the edge of
town made the crops fail—that sort of thing.
It got so bad, the Catholic Church felt it had to get
involved. This made sense, after all. The church didn’t just have final
authority on religion and morality where it held dominion, it also had the most
educated scholars and legal minds in its employ.
The church’s Office of Inquisition was tasked with
investigating these allegations. That’s really all “inquisition” means: an
inquiry or investigation. Among the most famous of these investigators was the
Spanish canon lawyer Alonso de Salazar Frías. In northern Spain one might say
he was a one-man Catholic Supernatural Investigations (“CSI: Navarre,” coming
soon to Netflix). He interviewed victims, he cross-examined women who’d
confessed to being witches, and children who claimed to have attended nocturnal
sabbaths. After eight months, he had compiled 5,600 folios of such affidavits.
In 1612, Salazar informed his superiors in Madrid of his
findings. “I have not found a single proof, not even the slightest indication,”
he wrote,
“from which to infer that an act of witchcraft has actually taken place.”
The witch craze in Spain, as in much of Europe, had been
a kind of moral panic fueled by outside preachers and stories of witchcraft in
other regions. “I have observed that there were neither witches nor bewitched
in a village until they were talked and written about,” Salazar said.
His final recommendation: This witchcraft thing is bunk
and the church should have no tolerance for it.
He was not alone among Catholic witch-mythbusters. In
Italy and other realms still under Catholic dominion, the church was
instrumental in quelling the witch hysteria. Inquisitors would hold hearings at
which evidence was demanded and testimony given under oath—and these were oaths
that witnesses took pretty seriously. These hearings often revealed that
charges of witchcraft were cynically or delusionally levelled. In newly
Protestant parts of Europe, however, the witch craze continued, as secular
nobles—often illiterate or semi-literate—succumbed to the populist frenzy. The
“guilty” were often burned.
“During the 16th century, when the witch craze
swept Europe,” affirms historian
Thomas Madden, “it was those areas with the best-developed [Catholic]
inquisitions that stopped the hysteria in its tracks. In Spain and Italy,
trained inquisitors investigated charges of witches’ sabbaths and baby roasting
and found them to be baseless. Elsewhere, particularly in Germany, secular or
religious courts burned witches by the thousands.”
I do not bring this up to suggest that the church or its
various inquisitions and inquisitors—there were many—were all saints or immune
to criticism or condemnation (Though the Mel
Brooks version of the Spanish Inquisition leaves much to be desired for historical
accuracy). The contemporary fad for medievalism notwithstanding, it was a
pretty terrible time all around. The Black Death, serfdom, stillbirths,
rickets, and the promiscuous use of hot pokers and Iron Maidens by local
authorities—not exactly selling points in my time-travelers’ vacation brochure.
But at least Salazar and the Catholic Church had the
right idea: Look for the facts. Employ reason and skepticism to outlandish
claims and accusations. Do not cave to the mob. Do not listen to people who
reject appeals to facts and reason in service to passion and fear.
Witch craze days.
Let’s fast-forward to today. Charlie Kirk was murdered.
The alleged murderer, Tyler James Robinson, was arrested after a member of his
own family tipped off authorities. He hasn’t had his trial yet, but the
evidence against him is compelling, including the claim that his DNA was found
on the trigger and on a towel used to wrap the murder weapon. Robinson also
allegedly told his roommate to delete incriminating messages. There’s more
evidence, videotapes, prior statements, etc. But I’m perfectly happy to wait
for the trial to say, at least as a legal matter, that he is the culprit and
that his motives are fairly well established.
What there is no evidence of, whatsoever, is that Kirk
was murdered at the behest of Israel, Israel supporters, Jews, etc.
But here is Megyn Kelly boasting,
nay preening, to Tucker Carlson about her own courage in supporting Candace
Owens’ “asking questions” about Israel’s involvement in the death of Charlie
Kirk. Indeed, Kelly apparently has her own questions too.
I don’t want to dwell on Kelly, Carlson, or Owens because
that’s what they want. But suffice it to say, that’s not how it’s supposed to
work.
In our system, the accused get a fair trial, with legal
representation. And the verdict of that trial reflects what is true to the best
ability of our system to discover the truth. But our system is not perfect. We
occasionally see wrongful convictions. At least as frequently, people who
deserved conviction—or more severe punishment than they receive—get away with
wrongdoing. We know there are far more crimes committed than arrests made,
never mind convictions.
But my point isn’t about the criminal justice system.
It’s about how we, as a society, “know” things. There was a time when people
would argue about great controversies based upon what trials and investigations
revealed. Now that process of discovery is often a sideshow or distraction for
people who leap to conclusions heedless of facts.
It is almost impossible to “do your own research” on most
issues. When people say they “do their own research,” they do not mean they go
forth into the field like Salazar and interview witches or their victims. They
mean they search the internet for the information they want to be true. But
even in such cases, they are relying on other people who wrote the things
they’re reading. If they’re searching government websites or reports, old news
stories, books, etc., they aren’t doing the actual research that went into
those things. They’re relying on the research of other people and institutions.
Some of those sources are reliable. Some aren’t. Often, the “independent”
researchers haven’t the foggiest clue which is which. And often they don’t
understand what they are reading anyway.
For example, the people who glibly prattle about “the
Jews”—or some other “they”—conspicuously avoid deferring to what investigators,
courts, etc., find. In some cases, it’s simply a matter of refusing to wait for
the facts. But in other cases, they assume that the courts, the cops, the
lawyers—indeed, the whole monolithic concretized and reified “elites”—were all
in on the cover-up. The fact that the “official story” is unsatisfying is often
the proof of the conspiracy.
We see this almost daily with stories about the Jeffrey
Epstein files. It was also the case for years with the Democratic National
Committee, the Republican National Committee, and the pipe bombs planted near
their headquarters on January 6, 2021. Say what you will about the Dreyfus Affair, but at
least there was a (shameful) trial and a subsequent investigation. Today,
people of influence or authority or both immediately leap to a script that has
barely any relationship to the facts. How many people after the assassination
attempt on Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, immediately insisted that “the
left” or “they” tried to kill Trump?
There was no evidence for that then, and there is none
now, because it wasn’t true.
This week, Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, and Kristi Noem
broke with virtually every norm, tradition, and policy to simply assert what
happened to Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis virtually the moment the videos
hit social media. Instead of saying we should all calm down and let the
investigation take its course, they simply lied—Trump said
the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who shot Good was “run over”—or
exaggerated, or made stuff up. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor
Jacob Frey didn’t react well, but they didn’t approach this level of
irresponsibility (though I fear it is only a matter of time). New York City
Mayor Zohran Mamdani did, by calling this homicide a “murder.”
The constitution of knowledge.
Courts aren’t the only institutions dedicated to finding
facts and truth, nor are they even necessarily the most rigorous.
Science is a rich and complex system of institutions, in
every sense of the word. Science is done in specific places: the National
Institutes of Health, research universities, private sector labs, etc. But
“institution” doesn’t just mean a physical place. In economics, an institution
is a rule or set of rules. In science, too, there are rules, protocols,
systems, procedures, etc. Hypotheses are formed. They get tested. The results
are published. Other scientists scrutinize those results to find weaknesses and
flaws. They see if the results can be replicated.
Journalism is another fact-finding, truth-seeking
enterprise. And like science, it has rules and procedures. Journalism also
benefits from competition among journalists. Brit Hume often likes to say if
only one news outlet is “exclusively” reporting something for very long, it
probably means it’s not true because other outlets can’t confirm it.
And of course, politics—at least politics in a liberal
democratic society—is supposed to be about competitive fact finding and truth
seeking. Congressional hearings are supposed to be adversarial. Partisans
aren’t as bound to rules as court lawyers and scientists, but they too are
expected to play a role in finding the truth, not least by trying to expose the
falsehoods or exaggerations of partisans on the other side. Even elections are
supposed to be arguments about what the government should be doing and why.
Trust in these institutions has been declining, for good
reasons and bad, for a very long time. I can run through the reasons for
another couple thousand words, but the story is familiar enough. Leaders of
institutions on both left and right have abdicated their responsibilities.
Whatever you think about the “trans” issue, the left’s bullying to get people
to accept what millions considered a lie has done lasting damage to the
credibility of those who did the bullying. Donald Trump’s insistence that the
2020 election was stolen—a flagrant and unapologetic lie that could not survive
scrutiny in more than 60 courtrooms—has done even more damage.
People sneer at me when I uphold “norms.” Others roll
their eyes when I talk about “both sides.” I get it. But a lot of that comes
from partisans who want to claim that one side is dedicated to truth and the
other to lies. This gets it wrong.
I don’t mind differences of opinion—I actually like
differences of opinion and arguments. Vigorous disagreement about how to weigh
the facts is what makes liberal society work. Jonathan Rauch wrote a brilliant
book on the incredibly fragile ecosystem that makes the acquisition of
knowledge possible, called The
Constitution of Knowledge. I disagree with Jonathan on many things, but
what I admire about him is his steadfast commitment to dealing in facts, in
telling the truth. I’m a conservative, but I can have a conversation, even an
enjoyable argument, with anybody who cares about such things. I have nothing
but scorn and contempt for people who think the truth can simply be asserted or
imposed through force of will. And I have a healthy fear of people who think
passion alone creates truth. That is the path to witch burning.
No comments:
Post a Comment