There’s a saying that “What the Thinker Thinks, the Prover Proves” - when you have a belief, the evidence will appear to support it, via confirmation bias, and evidence against it will be easy to ignore or downplay.
For example, one could look at the dawn of agriculture, which is arguably where pitched battles, leading to the need to commit genocides, and competition to own land and prevent others having access to it, all began, as well as slavery (farming plants & tending livestock is hard work, better to find some group who can be pushed into doing it).
But that was also the first time in which humans started to have the leisure and stability to create culture, to consider the form of their societies, and the rights and responsibilities of people in them, at a level beyond simple survival. Specialisation is only possible when we’re not having to personally grab each calorie we consume from the natural world.
An abundance of food and food stores could therefore be argued as both “good” and “bad” depending on the points you wanted to make, or the beliefs you hold.
If you have a belief about something, and the world bothers you, at least try to adopt a different belief for a while, and look for proof that’s correct, see where it leads you, and also, try taking each belief to its logical conclusion: if it was accepted by all and put 100% into practice, what would the world look like?
As normal people, we can choose to be things bobbing haplessly in an ocean of other things, washed about by currents and feeling ourselves the victim of any we dislike, and the triumphant supporters of those we prefer.
As magicians, arguably a bit more is required, if we start to look into questions about where the line is drawn between our personal consciousness, and whatever seems to be creating the universe, time, space, and so on. 
There’s also a whole thing about our shadow and what we dislike being the mirror of our own desires, but that’s all a bit beyond the scope of this post.
At some level it was people who thought the witches had something they lacked, or wanted to control.
“I’m going to hurt you because you hurt people and hurting people is wrong” is a Gordian Knot that baffles many a mind… 