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Ashton Wilson

Ms. Vanorden

English 11

04 October 2023

Just doing their job

Throughout history, people have done terrible things, and of course have blamed it on

other people, forces, etc. A lot of things that happened during the rule of the Romans and Greeks

were blamed on the natural forces and/or the gods that they believed in. Humans have an instinct

to try to explain things and sometimes this passes over to blame, a lot of people have the habit of

blaming things on others, when trying to explain something we don't put ourselves in that

equation out of self-preservation. Though this is a convenient explanation, this is no excuse for

what somebody does.

We’ve all been in the position of getting told to do something, though we may not want

to do it for one reason or another. Most of the time this is solely something that we find mundane

and tedious, say your parents tell you to take out the trash. Sometimes, this goes a little farther

than just simply a chore. The book “The Crucible”, tells of Ezekiel Cheever and Marshal

Herrick, who had arrested innocent people, and instead of apologizing or admitting to their acts,

they say they were just doing their jobs. While this may seem innocent since they were only

bringing people to jail and arresting them, in their mind they knew they were innocent people.

They had the power to stop doing what the judges said and yet they didn't falter which may have

led to many deaths. One thing in their favor is that this was a very controlled community, being a

part of a very religious Puritan community. They had very set beliefs and believed in people

possibly too much. This could have affected their behavior since most people in the book held
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beliefs that witches were real and should be exterminated until the end when their belief started

to break down. Yes, possibly, had they gone against the court and the people, they may have

been accused as worshipers of the devil. Had they been good of heart, they would have gone

against them, while death is extreme, that’s how change starts. These people talked of telling the

truth and being of god, yet they can’t stand against the evil in themselves. Saying you were

forced to do something is false, these men had free will. While this may not have been

completely voluntary, they still had a big part in it themselves, making it an excuse to say that it

was just them “doing their jobs”.

Throughout some parts of history, this same topic has been observed a lot. One of the

biggest arguably was Hitler and his officers. When these officers were finally brought in for

questioning for their crimes they used the excuse that they were forced to do so, such that they

would be punished or killed otherwise. Not believing them they decided to do a study where they

indeed found that people who are put under extreme stress from a more authoritative figure are

more likely to do something whether it is moral or not. This is arguably much worse than what

happened in the crucible but is similar nonetheless. They were both killing innocent people

whether it be that they are committing genocide or putting somebody accused of a crime to rest.

They were both at risk of severe punishment had they not done what they were told and neither

went against them. An obvious difference between these is that their periods were far apart,

meaning that by Hitler's time, this type of killing was considered a war crime. The two in the

crucible could have arguably done something and had been influential in stopping these killings,

and yet they did not. Whereas the Nazi officers could’ve also done something and had been

heroes for going against Hitler, but were at a very high risk of death or worse. Though these Nazi
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officers have a much better alibi than the two in The Crucible it does not mean that they did the

right thing, they did even worse things than The Crucible had ever done.

To conclude, while Cheever and Herrick have not done as bad as they could’ve, at least

compared to the Nazis, they still have an unbacked alibi, that does not hold up. They have done

wrong and didn’t even try to do the right thing. Change only comes when the confident and

brave do something bold. While they may have been punished or accused of acting with the

devil, they would have done something good and may have stopped the events completely.