On October 6 I was likely a fairly typical, moderately conservative American. I had a vague, general understanding of the Palestinian question. I politely tolerated my leftist friends pushing Jimmy Carters "Peace not Apartheid" as gospel; making concerned statements about the plight of Palestinians and the oppression by Israelis. I tolerated it as just another meaningless expression of leftist ideologues and their unrealistic views of the world. After October 7, no more being polite. I was shocked by the barbarity. I was shocked even more by those same leftist friends who start a discussion with "Hamas is not innocent, but..." Even more shocked by outright support in US for Hamas desire to rid the world of Israel. Someone said that sometimes, for principle, you will lose friends. That time is now. As it happens, my Christian son is marrying a Jewish girl soon. Our grandchildren very well may one day be at kibbutz similar to those overrun. The time for polite talk with ideological antisemites is over.
In the middle of the knife fight is a hard time to ask "How should I best respond to this threat?" The combination of twin toxins of "Intersectionality" and "Institutional Capture" is freezing the places and the voices where dialog and education should be occurring. It's not just at college levels, but rolls right down to elementary schools in the US. Moral equivalence, the triumph of feelings as primary...it's all of a piece.
Part of what makes this difficult is that we already know what misuse of the "no tolerance for intolerance" maxim can look like-- because we've seen it misused by many of the same leftists who now either minimize, or outright ally themselves with, the antisemitism of Hamas and its defenders.
I worked at Google in the late 2010s, in what was a university-like atmosphere for a lot of reasons. It was very common to see internal arguments that cited Popper's "paradox of tolerance," not to argue for intolerance of violent antisemitism, but to argue for deplatforming and/or firing those who dissented from the latest leftist orthodoxies about what rights people have in what situations and what identity claims are to be considered valid, whether around race or gender identity or sexual orientation or whatever the Current Thing was. That was in fact one reason, though not the major reason, I ended up leaving Google: even though I happened to agree with most of the orthodox positions, I thought it was obvious that reasonable people *could* disagree and that it was toxic to a culture of open discourse to punish dissent.
Frequently the "intolerance of intolerance" advocates would justify their position by some variation on "the people who disagree with me are denying my humanity, and my humanity is not up for debate." This was almost always a tendentious mischaracterization of those they were trying to punish or suppress, but you can't just dismiss the line of argument out of hand; as we've seen so horrifically this past month, there really are people who deny the humanity of others! Yet it is dangerous to grant those in power the right to decide who counts as such a humanity-denier, and from recent history we already know that danger is not theoretical.
The good thing about free speech, and the reason I remain a “free speech absolutists”, is so you know where your enemies are and understand their thinking. The reality is that there is no end to Jew hatred, or dozens of other odious ideas that seem to have permeated our institutions. In my first semester of college, I remember reading the comments of the Nazis who agreed to exterminate the Jews. They thought they were doing the right thing. That idea sticks with me: there are people who can do heinous things and believe they’re doing right. Those people still exist, they’ll always exist. But I have hope that they are the minority, the vast minority. And if they’re tempted to reveal themselves, we’ll be in a better position to deal with them and their corrupt ideas.
Any doubts about motivation of those tearing down posters of Israeli child hostages has not processed where demographic transformation of the West has wrought
> Here in Israel, we have no illusions about what we’re up against.
I imagine you are using this in a figure of speech manner, but from a technical perspective it is untrue - consciousness is fundamentally hallucinatory, it is mainly a question of the degree to which, and specific forms (much of which can be seen in this very post, no offense).
In the week after the atrocities I wanted to show my support of Israel, because I felt (rightly or wrongly) this had been lacking "in the street" so to speak (our prime-minister had been very clear and immediate in his condemnation) compared to support for the Palestininans. To that effect I wanted to buy a white t-shirt with a blue Star of David and wear it while going about my business. But then I became afraid. When I walk about in my city I meet many muslims, and I was afraid their reaction might be violent (and maybe I am completely wrong). That tells you something (and not only I am a coward), doesn't it?
An excellent summary of the problem, Russ. The crux of it all seems to turn on the right response to those who are intolerant of an open society. Like your former self, I’ve long been opposed to intolerance of intolerance on the grounds that once we establish a principle that some speech can be regulated, it won’t be long until such a tool is used against ideological minorities (eg., how long until a Democratic president uses such tools to silence religious conservatives on marriage or abortion). But it is clearly an unsustainable and untenable position to say that even those who will use the hecklers veto and intimidation against others may keep their freedom of speech and assembly even while deny others those very same rights.
On October 6 I was likely a fairly typical, moderately conservative American. I had a vague, general understanding of the Palestinian question. I politely tolerated my leftist friends pushing Jimmy Carters "Peace not Apartheid" as gospel; making concerned statements about the plight of Palestinians and the oppression by Israelis. I tolerated it as just another meaningless expression of leftist ideologues and their unrealistic views of the world. After October 7, no more being polite. I was shocked by the barbarity. I was shocked even more by those same leftist friends who start a discussion with "Hamas is not innocent, but..." Even more shocked by outright support in US for Hamas desire to rid the world of Israel. Someone said that sometimes, for principle, you will lose friends. That time is now. As it happens, my Christian son is marrying a Jewish girl soon. Our grandchildren very well may one day be at kibbutz similar to those overrun. The time for polite talk with ideological antisemites is over.
This article very much helped me understand the history of the region: https://www.hudson.org/node/44363
In the middle of the knife fight is a hard time to ask "How should I best respond to this threat?" The combination of twin toxins of "Intersectionality" and "Institutional Capture" is freezing the places and the voices where dialog and education should be occurring. It's not just at college levels, but rolls right down to elementary schools in the US. Moral equivalence, the triumph of feelings as primary...it's all of a piece.
Part of what makes this difficult is that we already know what misuse of the "no tolerance for intolerance" maxim can look like-- because we've seen it misused by many of the same leftists who now either minimize, or outright ally themselves with, the antisemitism of Hamas and its defenders.
I worked at Google in the late 2010s, in what was a university-like atmosphere for a lot of reasons. It was very common to see internal arguments that cited Popper's "paradox of tolerance," not to argue for intolerance of violent antisemitism, but to argue for deplatforming and/or firing those who dissented from the latest leftist orthodoxies about what rights people have in what situations and what identity claims are to be considered valid, whether around race or gender identity or sexual orientation or whatever the Current Thing was. That was in fact one reason, though not the major reason, I ended up leaving Google: even though I happened to agree with most of the orthodox positions, I thought it was obvious that reasonable people *could* disagree and that it was toxic to a culture of open discourse to punish dissent.
Frequently the "intolerance of intolerance" advocates would justify their position by some variation on "the people who disagree with me are denying my humanity, and my humanity is not up for debate." This was almost always a tendentious mischaracterization of those they were trying to punish or suppress, but you can't just dismiss the line of argument out of hand; as we've seen so horrifically this past month, there really are people who deny the humanity of others! Yet it is dangerous to grant those in power the right to decide who counts as such a humanity-denier, and from recent history we already know that danger is not theoretical.
The good thing about free speech, and the reason I remain a “free speech absolutists”, is so you know where your enemies are and understand their thinking. The reality is that there is no end to Jew hatred, or dozens of other odious ideas that seem to have permeated our institutions. In my first semester of college, I remember reading the comments of the Nazis who agreed to exterminate the Jews. They thought they were doing the right thing. That idea sticks with me: there are people who can do heinous things and believe they’re doing right. Those people still exist, they’ll always exist. But I have hope that they are the minority, the vast minority. And if they’re tempted to reveal themselves, we’ll be in a better position to deal with them and their corrupt ideas.
https://x.com/bandlersbanter/status/1738271988769304885?s=20
Any doubts about motivation of those tearing down posters of Israeli child hostages has not processed where demographic transformation of the West has wrought
> Here in Israel, we have no illusions about what we’re up against.
I imagine you are using this in a figure of speech manner, but from a technical perspective it is untrue - consciousness is fundamentally hallucinatory, it is mainly a question of the degree to which, and specific forms (much of which can be seen in this very post, no offense).
Watching that video was very satisfying.
In the week after the atrocities I wanted to show my support of Israel, because I felt (rightly or wrongly) this had been lacking "in the street" so to speak (our prime-minister had been very clear and immediate in his condemnation) compared to support for the Palestininans. To that effect I wanted to buy a white t-shirt with a blue Star of David and wear it while going about my business. But then I became afraid. When I walk about in my city I meet many muslims, and I was afraid their reaction might be violent (and maybe I am completely wrong). That tells you something (and not only I am a coward), doesn't it?
Those who celebrate Oct. 7 are morally repulsive but they do not threaten our open societies because they aren't themselves violent.
To give an example of where the line is: mobs attacking airplanes inbound from Israel are a threat and cannot be tolerated.
An excellent summary of the problem, Russ. The crux of it all seems to turn on the right response to those who are intolerant of an open society. Like your former self, I’ve long been opposed to intolerance of intolerance on the grounds that once we establish a principle that some speech can be regulated, it won’t be long until such a tool is used against ideological minorities (eg., how long until a Democratic president uses such tools to silence religious conservatives on marriage or abortion). But it is clearly an unsustainable and untenable position to say that even those who will use the hecklers veto and intimidation against others may keep their freedom of speech and assembly even while deny others those very same rights.