Thoghts on the new antisemitism

 

     

Newsflash: Its not what you think it is.

A few years ago, I was invited to a meeting at the Jewish Community Center of Dallas – a meeting including a diverse group of local Jewish “leaders” to discuss the problem of antisemitism on university campuses. I was invited as a Jewish faculty member at the University of Texas at Dallas. Also present were Jewish faculty from other local schools, the head of the Dallas Jewish Federation and other local Jewish communal bodies, the head of AIPAC (who happened to be from Dallas), Jewish student group staff, a few prominent Jewish business leaders active in community affairs, etc.

I forget who chaired the meeting or even most of the details of what he and what others said. The time was spent going around the table letting everyone have their say – reporting on what they knew and expressing their opinions about what could be done.

At that time, it was becoming apparent that anti-semitism was growing on campuses nationwide, though as yet had not become very visible in Texas. Most of the remarks were vague or silent regarding the causes of this new development and it became clear to me that it was generally assumed that the problem was an increase in the familiar crude right-wing anti-Jewish (anti-black/Hispanic/Asian – you name it) rhetoric and action – crude, rude and violent.

Somewhat shocked I realized that I may have been the only one in the room who knew what was really going on. There may have been others, but nobody was able to articulate what seemed to me were essentially new elements in the current situation. When my turn came I tried, with the limited soundbites allocated to me, to suggest that we were witnessing the surface phenomenon of a much deeper cultural shift that emanated from a different political demographic source, namely, what is commonly identified as “the left wing” of the social divide. My remarks were ignored. This forum was not there to gain a deeper understanding and to form effective responses. It was, rather, a typical exercise in public relations signifying not much at all.

The truth is, if I had been asked to give a thorough analysis of this cultural shift and why it manifested in part in an increase in anti-Jewish animus, I would not have been able to do it. At that time, I had not connected all the dots, nor had I realized the extent of the abiding, stubborn, and frankly naïve, American Jewish commitment to all cultural and social aspects of what is commonly called “liberalism” in America. But, I began to realize that unless the American Jewish Community at large could be made to see past its obsolete assumptions, no effective response to antisemitism would be found. Later, I found out, it was much more serious. The weight of Jewish communal action was actually fueling the problem – making it worse.

When its about the Jews, its not just about the Jews, its not even really about the Jews at all.

In the intervening period, realization has begun to grow, generally, but significantly within the Jewish community that the old categories do not apply. The “liberals” are making a big category mistake, a mistake that diverts attention away from the most serious attack on American civil society in a century. It is a wolf in sheep’s clothing type problem. And unless you see it’s a wolf you may think its your friend, when actually it is about to tear you apart and eat you.

The category mistake involves the meaning of “liberal” – a concept, that, in spite of its straightforward origins, has become fraught with confusions and ambiguities. For starters, it does not mean the same thing in the UK or Australia or Europe that it does here in the US. I should start then by clarifying terms before linking to the real-world problems they can help us understand.  I have realized that progress has been greatly inhibited by semantic confusions leading to debilitating miscommunication.

The most robust, yet confusing, framework for analysis among the American intelligentsia is the “left-right”/” liberal-conservative” divide. This is always ground zero for any political discussion, or for any discussion of social and economic policy. It is reinforced by and is the basis of our unalterable two party system. It has always been wrong and confusing, but, now much moreso than ever.

A serious, but not the most serious, problem is the naïve simplicity of this framework. It reflects gross binary thinking. If you are a “liberal” then anyone who disagrees with what you think is liberal is “conservative”. Equally, if you are a Conservative (with a big C), anyone who disagrees is a “liberal”. The only nuance comes from inserting the term “moderate” as in “moderate liberal” (or centrist liberal), or “moderate conservative”. It is not only binary, it is one dimensional. And once you have decided who fits wear that is all you need to know to know whether they are right or wrong. It is a dumbing down of the political discourse. And the worst of it is that academia, and much of education generally, has bought into this. In terms of this linear left-right spectrum the left outnumbers the right 18-1 in our universities, and the number is much higher in the humanities and social sciences. This, in itself, though at a relative high, would not be so serious, if our institutions of higher learning were still firmly committed to the doctrine of tolerance, open discussion, and the encouraging of diverse viewpoints. Bias plus intolerance, however, is what we have, gross intolerance of any alternative viewpoints. This is the result of a significant radical change in the character of American “liberalism” – or, more accurately, a change in who gets to set and dominate the “liberal” narrative. It is what we may conveniently refer to as the ”woke revolution”. And, in a nutshell, because of what it essentially is, the woke revolution is what is responsible for the explosion of AS on campus and everywhere else.

If its Woke it ain’t Liberal.

The critical literature explaining wokism is huge and is growing – many articles and books exist. I won’t attempt here to provide a complete account of it, but, instead, will concentrate on the essential relevant aspects.

The first thing to note is that woke is not liberal. It is the opposite of liberal – in all plausible variations of that term. Before the label was highjacked, to be a liberal meant you were someone who believed in the sanctity of equal individual human rights, in equal individual freedom. This freedom consists simply of the right to be free in one’s person and property from coercion by others. Since it applies equally to each and every individual, regardless of race, gender, nationality, ethnicity, etc., having freedom does not imply license to complete freedom of action. Any action I take that compromises your body or your property – which would be a violation of your freedom – is prohibited to me. The practical limits of individual freedom are defined by property rights. Property rights include ownership of one’s body and the ownership of any property acquired legitimately by gift or trade. As such, liberalism looks askance at any interference in voluntary transactions.

The details and complexities of this doctrine can be greatly expanded and explained. But, the main point here is to understand that this, broadly speaking, is what liberalism meant, and, many believe, should continue to mean. Its appealing features are associated with its commitment to individual autonomy and equality before the law - the king is subject to the same law as the peasant; on its belief in the sanctity of freedom of expression, association, assembly, the value of diverse opinions, etc.; and to its association with enrichment of the masses. The advent of liberalism (not in its complete ideal form, but, certainly in the most important of its features) ushered in what has been called the Great Enrichment, the explosion of wealth creation in those nations that adopted it. This is undeniable. For most of human history, the vast majority of people were miserably poor and ignorant. Since the rise of liberalism, for the first time (roughly over the last 300 years and picking up speed) the majority of humans do not live in poverty. To be sure, the gains vary greatly between people, but, the gains have been considerable. Commitment to liberalism, properly understood, has been based on its morality and on its massive widely distributed benefits.

Toward the middle of the 19^th century, ideas critical of the foundations of liberalism began to grow in popularity, the most common being the doctrine of socialism. Socialists challenge the most basic ingredient of liberalism, namely, property. They challenge the sanctity and even the meaning of individual property rights. They challenge the notions of equality before the law to protect such property rights, insofar as such protections are seen not to apply to the “wealthy”. Socialists regard unequal outcomes as evidence of injustice, and claim the right, the necessity, to “reform” the distribution of income and wealth to make them equal. The most far-reaching variant of socialism is Marxism, which seeks to abolish private property completely.

These remarks are not meant to persuade as much as to clarify. But, any attempt at persuasion would start with the consequences of implementing policies that involved gross violations of individual property rights, such as those involving extensive government regulation, taxation, and spending to encourage “social justice” outcomes, like socialist countries or those with extensive welfare states. The consequences are that poverty increases and economic growth falls. In the extreme, socialism causes economic collapse and dictatorship. Numerous examples exist. No example of prosperous socialism exists.

But, the important point to make here, is that the ideology known critically as wokism originates not from any liberal source, but, from its antithesis, from a variant of Marxism, known as Critical Theory. Wokism denies the validity of every important aspect of liberalism, most significantly the value of freedom of expression and open inquiry. Modern American “liberals” who have jettisoned the firm commitment to protection of individual property rights, at least still agree on the importance of tolerance of individual viewpoints and the encouragement of civil discussion of such alternative points of view. As such they should not seek to make common ground with the Progressives who have embraced the tenets of wokism. Understanding that wokism is illiberal is also the key to understanding why it is responsible for the rise in (this new variant) of anti-semitism.

Jews Don’t Count

Wokism, “social justice revolution”, Critical Race Theory, “Anti-racism”, equity, diversity, inclusion, … .and other various components of this new ideology, all seek to articulate an alternate worldview that is antithetical to liberalism and liberal democracy, and to the very foundations of western science. In this worldview, the ideas and perceptions of all individuals are indelibly shaped by their identity, in the original Marxist concept by their social class, but, in this modern variant, by their race (- ethnicity, culture, etc., but mainly race). Truth is not objective in the sense we usually understand it. Rather, the truth of the “black experience” or the anguish of gay people, cannot be understood, therefore should not be described or researched, by anyone who is not black or gay respectively – and equivalently for any of the other oppressed minorities usually identified. One had to have access the “lived experience” of the minority group members themselves for this.

So, whites, who live privileged lives, should just shut up about this, unless it is to seek to understand the role that they have played historically, and continue to play, in the ongoing oppression. These are not claims made as an invitation to a discussion, they are dogmas, to be acted upon. Identity determines character. This principle is completely and insidiously destructive of the idea of the uniqueness of the individual. The individual is completely eclipsed by the contours of the group to which she belongs. There is no transcending the nature of one’s group (racial) identity. It is of a type with Marxist class determinism, where class is replaced by race (and other minority designations).

So, Martin Luther King’s hope for a colorblind society is naïve at best and complicit at worst. The woke agenda, by contrast, seeks to emphasize race, to dethrone and shame whites for benefitting from white supremacy, and remake the entire social system (by massive government intrusions, educational indoctrination challenging all and every “white” shibboleth imaginable). I have yet to find an account of what the new world achieved by this revolution is supposed to look like.

The manifold manifestations of wokism and their implications can be found in the vast literature to which I referred. My purpose here is to address their connection to anti-semitism. Published work has begun to appear on this. I just read two recent books, one about the UK (Jews Don’t Count by David Baddiel)  and the other about the US (Woke Antisemitism by David Bernstein). I highly recommend them both. Perhaps the most notable thing about them, is that they are both written by avowedly “liberal” authors, self-described as “leftist”. As such they appear sadly ignorant of the problems associated with the “leftist” agenda in general, to which they remain favorably disposed. But, both, in spite of this, have become completely disillusioned and alarmed by the woke (Progressive) agenda, not least because of its inevitable anti-semitic element.

Baddiel is a well-known British-Jewish comedian/public intellectual. Bernstein is an eminent American-Jewish communal leader. Both became disillusioned over time, especially Bernstein, as they began to realize that the woke folk were not the traditional friends to the Jews that “liberals” had always been. Further, they came to the realization that following the well-worn path of Jewish-liberal alliances would no longer work with the latest brand of “liberalism”. In fact, and this is key, the vigorous attempt by Jewish organizations to curry favor with the organizations adopting one woke principle after another, was not only undermining traditional Jewish values of tolerance and open-mindedness, it was not even working to maintain the alliances regarded as valuable. Instead, these efforts were rebuffed and treated with contempt (for chapter and verse read Bernstein).

In the woke worldview Jews cannot be victims, notwithstanding the evidence to the contrary. The Holocaust was terrible, but it is not relevant to the current environment of “systemic racism” in which Jews are “white adjacent” – part of the privileged white class. (Whiteness has been mystified to go beyond skin color to include a state of being). In fact, Jews, because of their relative success as a group, are an obvious and easy target when it comes to attacking white privilege. They have used their “whiteness” to garner disproportionate numbers in the institutions of power. As Baddiel points out when it comes to anti-semitism, “Jews don’t count” as victims, because they are way down on the hierarchy of racisms. Don’t complain about being oppressed by Jeremy Corbyn or Ye. Your suffering pales into insignificance in this world of systemic racism against blacks, Hispanics and others.  And, by the way, Asians are, likewise, white adjacents, who have benefitted by their token whiteness. No, they are not included in the club of the oppressed. Indeed, the world is divided into oppressed and oppressor and if you are not part of one you are part of the other. 

No small part is played in this anti-Jewish animus by the uncompromising anti-Israel rage that characterizes the woke folk. Criticism of Israeli government policy absolutely need not be anti-semitic, but, upon close examination, most of it in social media turns out to be grossly anti-semitic. To wit, the gross historical distortions that characterize the reporting, the historical misinformation, the singling out of Israel for human rights violations far less egregious than those of its neighbors or, indeed, numerous countries around the world, the insidious allusions to the Jewish character of the Israeli nation and so on. The association of Jews with the demon Israel has done much to make left-wing anti-semitism respectable.

You need not take my word for it. In a short essay I cannot provide the kind of evidence necessary to document the character (caricature?) of wokism and the implications of it for Jews and for Jewish organizations. For that you should read especially Bernstein. Anyone in any position of Jewish leadership should read that book. But, if this is right, if Bernstein is right, then Jews in America and everywhere that wokism is a factor, should understand the fundamentals of wokism and why it is necessary for Jewish organizations to distance themselves from it, and to combat its blatantly illiberal precepts. Those precepts are essentially anti-liberal and anti-Jewish in nature. There is no way to compromise with them. Racial preferences for blacks imply racial discrimination against non-blacks. Cancelling people with critical views is fundamentally anti-democratic. Whenever and wherever freedom in society is compromised, Jews will be targeted. Antisemitism is a litmus test for the degree of intolerance of dissidents in general.

Conclusion

If you have read this far, you will understand why I was at a loss at that community meeting to articulate the nature of the antisemitism that had emerged on campus. Since that time the problem has gotten worse. Jewish students on many campuses are at pains to hide their Jewishness. Jewish organizations have to have security at their events. University administrations have caved to the demand of woke student organizations to adopt their agendas and strike anti-Israel poses. None of this comes from the right-wing. Finally, at my campus, UTD, signs of this have emerged – so far among the student body, not yet endorsed by the administration – which, hopefully, never will.

As I write, as evidenced by the two books referenced here, awareness is beginning to grow. But the anti-woke awakening is still small and slow to grow. In America, an effective policy to combat this new anti-semitism, on campus and elsewhere, will depend on a fundamental change in the typical American Jewish mindset. It is a big change, but, one that I actually feel is possible, even likely, given the growing impossibility of denying the obvious.