On Friday, Jeffery Goldberg published a letter written to him and asked a serious question:
What makes people think like this? I'm not asking rhetorically. I really want to know. What makes people blame Jews for everything that goes wrong in the world?To the jew Goldberg,
Hi. I was just reading your Goldblog piece on those who insist that the world economy is controlled by Jews, and that Tim Geithner is a Jew. As a matter of fact I was one who googled 'Geithner Jew' to see if he was one, and I'll admit to a suspicion that he was Jewish even after discovering that he wasn't. This is partly because Wikipedia had Geithner listed as Jewish before changing its listing; and partly because there is a trend for the financial positions in the United States government to be weighted towards the Jewish side - which makes a supposition that Geithner might be Jewish perfectly natural. I am semi-literate, I believe, with a degree in English literature from Oxford University. [Emphasis mine-SW] I believe that the world economy is constantly extremely involved with the position of Jews. For example, the current recession is not unrelated to the pretence that nothing needed to be addressed in the world order after September 11 (which was an attack upon Jews). The Jews have this secret (even from themselves) which they don't want people to know about, which is that they are using America and Americans to keep them masters of Arabia. Instead of publicly mentioning or privately recognising this secret and its relation to the deaths of 3000 innocent Americans, simple-minded George Bush and his team of oil crooks embarked on an aggressive consolidation of previous policy, in collusion with the interests of zionists, which implicitly encouraged economic growth at home based on misconceived premises, growth which is now being reversed. The point I am making is that this economic growth and now recession was based on an misconceived philosophy that significantly related to the interests of Jews. I suspect this recession would not have been so possible were it not necessary for the business of Jews to be suppressed from the thoughts of humankind! In fact the recession and other world issues have a lot to do with Jews and their publicly unrecognised issues. It is regrettable that we aren't able to talk about it openly and in a mature fashion (or an immature one for that matter). Even more regrettable, perhaps, that those who are not in a position to understand may now start to take it out on innocent Jewish people.
I have reproduced the letter in its entirety and hope that Jeffrey Goldberg understands that it was necessary to impart the full flavor of the author's "learned" anti-Semitism. Since Jeffrey Goldberg asked a question that seems to warrant a Psychoanalytic explanation (and recognizing that a Psychoanalytic explanation can never be a complete explanation) I thought I would give it my attention.
Professor John Ray has attempted, on a number of occasions, to shed some illumination on the problem of anti-Semitism. In his words, he is a friend to Jews and to Israel but is properly cautious whenever he ventures into a critique of Jews, who have a tendency to be appropriately paranoid; historically Jewish paranoia has usually been rewarded (even as the paranoid tends to create the conditions he most fears, ie a self-fulfilling prophecy.) John Ray wonders if the Jewish drive for success is politically wise:
Another small meditation on antisemitism
I can't help myself, can I? I can't leave Die Judenfrage alone. I can never quite free myself from the dangerous delusion that my goodwill towards Israel in particular and Jews generally should permit me to speak freely about why I think Jews have the horrendous problems that they do have.
There has been much said about Ashkenazi IQ and I think that there is no doubt about a substantial Ashkenazi advantage in that regard. Much less noted is something that I think is equally important: High Ashkenazi drive. By that I mean motivation to "succeed" in various ways. And the combination of high drive and high IQ does put Ashkenazim into society's prestigious positions with great frequency -- a frequency which enraged Hitler and has enraged many others before and since.
It would be easy to say that the drive to succeed and grow rich is a natural response to persecution: Because of their horrendous past, Jews feel a need to "make up" for that past somehow or protect themselves in the event of a new Pogrom. And I think there must be an element of that. But I think, for what it is worth, that there is a genetic component too. There is plenty of evidence that personality is strongly inherited genetically so that is a fairly safe conclusion. The environmental influences that selected for high IQ could well have selected for high drive too. Jews should be brimming over with energy, and I think many are, from what I see.
There are two points here. First, as has been confirmed over and over again, Ashkenazi Jews tend to be smart. They are especially smart in fields that require manipulating large data streams (science, technology, medicine, finance) and language (law, politics.) The origins of Ashkenazi intelligence and speculations about the selective pressures that encouraged the evolution of high intelligence are irrelevant at the moment, but the fact of higher Ashkenazi intelligence means that the resentment that is so common a part of the human condition is very easily directed at an easily identifiable group. Envy and resentment have always been problems without easy solutions. People who stand out are as often resented as admired, and the line between the two can easily shift and reverse polarity when situations warrant. When I reached Middle School (which was fairly evenly split between Jewish, Italian, and Irish) everyone appreciated that >90% of the students in the Honors classes were Jewish, Not surprisingly this led to resentment, even among those who had not been raised to believe there were no differences between groups; this was pre-victim culture and prior to the pedagogical and ideological insistence that all people were not only created equal but that unequal outcomes could only be attributed to one or another -ism. Jewish success in academia stands out and thereby facilitates anti-Semitism.
The second point that John ray brings up is that the Jewish pursuit of success, combined with their intellectual gifts, means that Jews, when allowed, become powerful and visible members of the elite.
These two points are not sufficient to explain anti-Semitism but they certainly offer far more data than necessary for those inclined to see the Jew as part or whole of the "invisible they" who control the world. Which leads to the next point. An unpredictable world is a source of intolerable anxiety. At the core of our character is our infantile mind. To the infant the world is a terrifying place, filled with danger. As I noted in Political Deification:
We are better equipped than our distant cave dwelling ancestors to understand the world, but on an individual level, we remain surrounded by monsters and magic. Fate can separate us from our loved ones in an instant and we have no mommy or daddy who will hug us and tell us everything will be all right (which our children might believe; even if someone tries to reassure us, we can not even comfort ourselves with the reassurance because we know better.) The only way we can keep our irrational (and sometimes rational) fears from destabilizing our minds is to find something more powerful than ourselves to believe in; we need God, and in the absence of God, we will invent the equivalent to protect us.
Random chaos is terrifying to the insecure and vulnerable human. Our ancestors invented (or discovered for those who prefer) G-d in order to help deal with an unforgiving and unpredictable world. The Jews, the inventors of Monotheism, brought G-d to life and have been inseparably identified with Him, in all his apparent capriciousness, ever since. That ancient identification survives today, when those who consider themselves pious followers of Allah insist that the Jew is the cause of all that is bad in the world. If the Jew causes all evil, destroying the Jew will please G-d and usher in Paradise on Earth. The alternative, that G-d allows or causes disaster, creates contradictions that have proven to be extraordinarily difficult to dispel. For most people, it is so very much easier to find a scapegoat upon whom to direct blame and rage. The Jew has served admirably, assisted by his successful accumulation of wealth by virtue of his drive and intellect; he is the perfect scapegoat. Attack the Jew and get rid of evil while enriching yourself; its win-win!
Further, the misunderstood concept of "the chosen people" has caused a great deal of mischief through the years. For those who came after and were not among the "chosen" the idea that they had arrived at the final, perfect word of G-d, must be accompanied with some anxiety that they just might be wrong. A demanding G-d whose words are perfect does not lend Himself to error. Generally the more overtly certain (fanatical) a fundamentalist is that his Word is the only Word, the more intense his hatred of the non-believer must be; the very existence of the Jew in his own state is an affront to Allah, just as in the Middle Ages, Jews were so often considered anathema.
This is by no means an exhaustive consideration of anti-Semitism, yet it does go a ways to explain the letter to Jeffrey Goldberg form someone who is obviously intelligent and considers himself thoughtful. In the face of anxiety and great stress, people and societies regress to more primitive mental states. In such states, unconscious envy and resentment can easily fuel belief inc conspiracy theories which alleviate anxiety. ("The world is falling apart!" becomes replaced by "They are trying to destroy our way of life!" The danger has a name and a face - the Jew - and is no longer superhuman and beyond approach.) Our "sophisticated" Brit, the product of a two thousand year old culture has incorporated all the ancient tropes about the Jews, marinated in his envy of their success and visibility on the world stage, and come upon a plausible explanation for his anxieties. The protean nature of anti-Semitism reveals that its roots remain deep in the unconscious, festering amidst anxiety, envy, and hatred. At the opportune moment, of severe stress and regression, the paranoid solution appears and the internal contradictions and anxiety can be externalized and disavowed. If we didn't have the Jew to blame, our Oxford intelligentsia would need to invent him.
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