The Spanish Inquisition

 

  • Framed properly, even boundary-breaking comic sketches can be handled by students.  Beyond the obvious Catholic and Spanish stereotyping, we have crime and punishment being sent up.
  • The actual Inquisition and its type of bizarre logic–not “fear and surprise,” but heroic punishment and the Malleus Maleficarum–speak to a tendency to find the worst in people.  While nobody may expect them, the Inquisition finds guilt, finds what it is looking for. . .
  • The other obvious idea in classrooms is that, nowadays more than ever, we only research what we are already looking for.  This is a huge problem I encounter every unit as a composition professor.  This sketch famously sends confirmation bias and illustrates the engaging Dunning-Kruger Effect.