Witch Hunting

In his book How to Stop Time Matt Haig writes 

"‘People believed in witches because it made things easier. People don’t just need an enemy, they need an explanation. And it’s often useful, in unsettled times, where ignorance is everywhere, for people to believe in witches . . . Who do you think believed in witches?’

We live in rather unsettled and arguably ignorant times. We are definitely looking for explanations and finding an enemy to frame. How much further does society need to unravel before we need witches to ease our troubles? If not witches what will stand in for them in challenging times to explain hard things away? 

Haig tells a clever story and uses time to shine light on our collective stupidity as human beings. We were looking for witches once, in more enlightened times people who failed to fit the accepted mold were referred to the mental asylum without further ado. Most recently, we have made political correctness and identity labels the way to project our imagined selves to the world. 

In so doing, we attract only imaginary things back to us - fake news, insta-friendly lives, social media influence and so on. If like Haig's protagonist some of us were living to be four hundred and older, the cyclic pattern of stupidity would give them splintering headaches all the time. Such is the fate of Tom Hazard in the book.