MORE THAN once upon a time!

In the High Middle Ages (1000-1300 AD/CE), in order to combat religious instability (including but not limited to alleged heretics,^[1]) the powers-that-were resorted to:

1) denunciations (openly and secretly);
2) concealing the nature of charges and evidence against the accused;
3) “invitations” to confess (something? anything?);
4) torture to extract confessions;
5) torture to extract the names of “guilty” others;
6) indefinite detentions;
7) secret trials;
8) occasional “accidental executions” during torture;
9) propaganda to justify all the above.

In the beginning of the 21st Century,^[2] in order to combat national and global instabilities (including, but not limited to genuine terrorists), the powers-that-were-once-democratic have resorted to:

1) denunciations (openly and secretly);
2) concealing the nature of charges and evidence against the accused;
3) “invitations” to confess (something? anything?);
4) torture to extract confessions;
5) torture to extract the names of “guilty” others;
6) indefinite detentions;
7) secret trials;
8) occasional “accidental executions” during torture;
9) propaganda to justify all the above.

Have we passed a thousand years merely to look into the mirror of déjà vu?

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[1] Which some saw as being equivalent to spiritual murder—and thus worse than physical death.
[2] Though actually beginning in the USA several years before via the CIA and its predecessors—in déjà vu of many other nation states throughout history.

For more on the Inquisitions of the High Middle Ages, one can access the Great Courses series, entitled “The High Middle Ages” Lecture 12 with Professor Philip Daileader of The College of William and Mary.