Hearing all the news reports about the wave of anti-semitic
attacks in Britain, I can’t help wondering what it is that causes people to
hate other people, and hate them so viciously and relentlessly.
Is it how they were brought up? Are they copying their
friends’ attitudes? Are they influenced by social media posts? Do they somehow
blame Jews for their difficult lives?
And they think the best way of expressing their hatred is to
burn down a synagogue or stab a few Jews. What do they think that’s achieving?
All they’re doing is spreading fear and alarm and despair.
Such all-consuming hatred has to be fuelled by a view of
other people as objects rather than human beings. If you see other people as
human then you’re not able to inflict
casual violence on them.
And then again there’s an intolerance of difference. They
find difference threatening rather than intriguing. Instead of asking what
Jewishness and Judaism is all about and enjoying adding to their knowledge,
they see only something peculiar and unfamiliar that needs to be got rid of.
Meanwhile Jews are fearful of further horrific attacks on
their community.
I think a lot of it has to do with how you're brought up. If your family is racist then most likely you will be too. But there could be other reasons as well.
ReplyDeleteMary: I think family influence has a lot to do with it. You spend so much time with them that their views are highly likely to be passed on.
DeleteI would argue that this is not anything new. Jews have been viciously persecuted all over Europe and the Middle East for the last thousand years or so. Even with the coming of the Enlightenment, very strong bigotry remained. The Holocaust made really extreme anti-Semitism disreputable in the West, but now that the Holocaust is passing out of living memory, anti-Semitism in the West is simply reverting to its historic norm, bolstered in Europe by the presence of large numbers of immigrants from Muslim cultures where hatred of Jews never became disreputable.
ReplyDeleteAs for how it originally started, I suspect it (in Europe) was rooted in the fact that in the Middle Ages the Jews were a highly visible group which retained a non-Christian religion after the older native paganism had disappeared or gone underground. Religion was still a huge part of identity back then. At any rate, however it started, it seems deeply entrenched now.
Infidel: As you say, anti-semitism is deeply entrenched and has been for very many years. And yes, as the Holocaust passes out of living memory it isn't the restraining influence it used to be. Also I wasn't aware that hatred of Jews isn't so disreputable among Muslims.
DeleteIt's partly that the Islamic sacred texts and traditions are more explicit in expressing the hatred (something not really possible for the Bible since most of the major Old Testament figures, and Jesus himself, were Jewish). For example, one of the major acts of Muhammad's reign in Medina was massacring the adult males of a Jewish tribe there, and distributing the women and children to his followers as slaves. Muhammad is considered virtually above criticism, his actions a sure guide to what is and is not moral. And the Islamic world didn't have a single giant event comparable to the Holocaust to make anti-Semitism disreputable. Works like Mein Kampf and the Protocols of Zion are still widely sold in many Arab countries and considered respectable; in some countries they're published by governments. Hitler is widely seen as just another statesman, not the epitome of evil as he's seen in the West.
DeleteBut yes, horrific things happened in Europe too before a few generations ago. It is very frightening where the revival of anti-Semitism today could lead.
Infidel: I know nothing about Muhammad's reign so thanks for that catch-up. Extraordinary that Hitler is seen only as another statesman in other countries.
DeleteI would agree environment has an influence, but is not the whole package. My parents were racists. As I approached teen years I started arguing the point. But then, the civil rights movement was in full swing. Being young in a time of social upheaval does have influence, in my case more than my family and community. We is the US are plunged back into the days of bigotry and hate in full view.
ReplyDeleteSandra: Good that you challenged your parents' racist beliefs and stood up for your own values. Bigotry and hate indeed.
DeleteNick
ReplyDeleteI refuse to comment, as a Jewish old woman married for nearly 60 years to my beloved Palestinian husband Saïd , I only look what happens in the Middle East for more than 70 years. So just think about it.
Hannah
Hannah: Yes, the Middle East has been rife with conflict for years and years, with various factions fighting some cause or other. And now it's Trump weighing in. It must be causing you and Saïd so much agony and despair.
DeleteI grew up in the USA in the 1950s when prejudice agains black people was rampant. But, my mother was not prejudiced so I played with black kids. That made me really surprised later to learn she was prejudiced against Mexicans.
ReplyDeleteLinda
Linda: Playing with black kids must have been quite bold at that time. My sister had several black dolls which our parents had no problem with.
DeleteI think that in the US smaller discriminations and hatreds exist because of the semi-conscious reasoning that if we make them equal, then someone might want to make Blacks equal too.
ReplyDeleteAs for everyone in historical society believing in being anti-jewish, no, for just as Hollywood actors in the 1950's were not against homosexuals, so too were the actors of Shakespeare's day not against Jews. A Jewish columnist, Horace Golding, in his fond collection Only in America, has a column where the Merchant of Venice is anti-anti-Jewish: call it a satire on the audience. Key parts of his Merchant column are on the web.
Sean: Well, yes, I guess there have always been pockets of pro-Jewish and pro-gay sentiment, but unfortunately anti-semitism is still very much the norm.
DeleteMost of society looks upon actors and show biz people generally as immoral weirdos and highly suspect, and that's probably always been true.
DeleteInfidel: I don't think that's true. I would say actors in general are admired and loved and not seen as weirdos at all.
DeleteMaybe it's different in the UK. In the US there's a long-standing habit in a lot of the country of denouncing Hollywood as a cesspit of promiscuity, homosexuality, far-left politics, etc, alien to real American values. Certainly American movies and TV tend to promote culture and values very much at odds with what the country is actually like. You can't take actors' views on anti-Semitism, or on anything else, as representative of society.
DeleteInfidel: This post was about the causes of hate, it was nothing to do with acting. I don't know why you're bringing up other subjects I never mentioned.
DeleteI was responding to Sean Crawford's point about attitudes among actors being evidence that anti-Semitism has not been so widespread -- same as you did.
DeleteInfidel: Fair enough. I didn't realise you were responding to Sean.
DeleteI guess if actors were once looked down upon, it would. be back in the days when everyone lived and died within walking distance of where they were born, like in a traditional overseas country even today. A traveling troupe would not be subject to village gossip and thus might be suspect.
ReplyDeleteToday we are expected to be inner-directed, however far we travel for a job. If my sister is alone and out-of-sight with you, and you chaps could easily throw trash on the ground, I would trust you both to not sin. (Unlike in certain regions)
At university the mountaineering students might climb up a doorjamb, delighting in their new skill, and the theatre students off in their own lunchroom might be flamboyant, delighting in that new ability... but away in the real world they would act as dull as the rest of us. In their professional lives, actors strive not to wall off emotions—and I respect that.
Script writers strive not to wall off what they see. Mark Twain scandalized the villagers when he could see that Huckleberry Finn's companion was equal to a white man.
I wish I were more like the best actors and writers.
Sean: That's a complicated argument. I'd rather not generalise about actors and writers, they're all very different.
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