Are You a Fuehrerphobe?

 

As I mentioned in the previous post, you can win any debate if you are allowed to control the language used to describe things. Imagine that you had to debate a Nazi but the Nazi got to decide what the two of you had to call things during the debate. How well do you think you can do?

The Nazi gives the following opening: I believe in national democracy. The people express their will as a nation by gathering in stadiums to shout their adulation for the Fuehrer. This objectively proves that the Fuehrer embodies the collective will of the people. It is only through the Fuehrer that the people’s will can be expressed, allowing them to exist as a nation instead of a collection of squabbling individuals who will easily be conquered and enslaved by cosmopolitans, neoliberals, and Zionists. To oppose the Fuehrer is to oppress the people by robbing them of their voice and their ability to assert their nationhood.   

Essential to national democracy are the principles of freedom of speech and tolerance. The people have the right to express their will as embodied in the Fuehrer when he speaks the nation's truth. The nation is made up of many different kinds of individuals who, when left to their own devices, will inevitably disagree with each other over art, economics, and their non-Zionist religions. As the embodiment of the nation, the Fuehrer, through his person, resolves all contradictions among the people. This allows all members of the nation to tolerate each other, despite their surface disagreements, as they recognize that they have been made one through the Fuehrer.    

The elitist cosmopolitan neoliberal Zionist Fuehrerphobes seek to maintain their grip over the people and deny them their rights. They wish to replace the genuine democracy of the people with an Orwellian democracy with sham elections for politicians who do not embody the will of the people as only the Fuehrer can. National democracy is built on love for the people. Fuehrerphobes hate the Fuehrer because they hate the people. By trying to rob the people of their nationhood, they are essentially committing genocide. If you truly loved someone, you would respect them for who they genuinely are and not try to commit genocide against them.

Just as it is important not to be misled by the Orwellian democracy of the Fuehrerphobes, one should not fall for their Orwellian claims of tolerance. As we know from the Popper Paradox, it is not possible for a free society to tolerate people who reject tolerance and use the democratic process as a cover to impose tyranny. Since support for the Fuehrer is what makes someone part of the nation, Fuehrerphobes, who have separated themselves from the people in their attempt to overthrow democracy, cannot legally enjoy the rights of citizenship. They do not have the right to interfere in elections to fake the results to pretend that the Fuehrer does not have the full support of the people either by voting or by promoting fake news. 

It should be understood that underneath all of this rhetoric, lies a serious argument about the nature and purpose of democracy and liberty that liberals need to be able to effectively respond to. To understand Fascism, it is essential not to underestimate the lengths to which the common man will go to stick it to the liberal elitist intellectuals that he knows have nothing but contempt for him. That being said, liberals will never be in a position to storm this citadel unless they are first able to take the outer trench of language.

To add a further twist on this debate idea, imagine that you have a class of students raised on “national democracy.” These are genuinely good kids. They believe in freedom, tolerance, and social justice. They are eager to work for the greater good of the people by demonstrating their commitment to these principles to the administrators of elite schools. They like you but there is something a little off about you as you are different from every other teacher they have had. One day, a student asks you if you are a Fuehrerphobe. 

A hush immediately falls on the class. The students all know, with the surety that smoking is bad, that Fuehrerphobia is something simultaneously disgusting and absurd that should appeal to no reasonable person and yet is so deeply widespread in society that the Fuehrer is required to take emergency measures to protect the people against it. Fuehrerphobia is so dangerous because, unless you actively work to ally yourself with marginalized people and fill yourself with the Fuehrer's love, becoming an anti-Fuehrerphobe, it is inevitable that you will fall into Fuehrerphobic thinking. Most Fuehrerphobes do not even realize that they are Fuehrerphobes and will even deny the charge when accused. This is, of course, the ultimate proof of Fuehrerphobia.      

It would be useless to argue with these kids even if you were not threatened by secret police or with the loss of your job. National democracy honestly contains many noble ideals even as it serves to cover literal Nazism. These kids lack the language even for describing the Nazism that they are being raised with let alone for comprehending how someone might honestly be a Fuehrerphobe without being a hook-nosed villain trying to murder babies to use their blood for crackers. These kids need an alternative language where liberty, freedom, and rights have been restored to their classical liberal meanings. Alternatively, new terms for classical liberal concepts may need to be invented. 

Tolerating People Who Happen to Have Red Hair: An Explosive Problem

 

The argument that I am about to make can, to some degree or another, be applied to any minority group and not just redheads. This certainly includes people like myself who are Jewish and on the autism spectrum. There should be no mistake; the argument here is sound but it is undoubtedly a hand grenade that can take out anyone, particularly the person foolish enough to try wielding it. Besides the importance of a strong sense of individual rights, the other important lesson that I would hope that readers take from this exercise is that giving people the benefit of the doubt is an essential value for a liberal democracy.   

When discussing tolerance, it is important to distinguish between individual tolerance and group tolerance. While a happy medium is theoretically possible, any attempt to argue for tolerance for individuals is going to be undermined the moment we begin to think of these individuals as members of groups that are distinct from the political community as a whole.  

Take the example of hair color. Readers may recall the Sherlock Holmes story of the Red-Headed League where the villain tricks his redheaded employer into believing in the existence of an organization that gives money to redheads. This fraud is perpetrated in order to get the employer out of his shop for several hours every day, allowing the villain to dig a tunnel across the street into the vault of a bank. The humor of the story lies in the fact that it is patently absurd that some wealthy person would so identify himself with his red hair that he would leave his fortune to benefit total strangers simply because they share his hair color. 

Imagine that our society would suddenly develop a prejudice against redheads and passed laws that segregated people with red hair into separate schools, limited their employment opportunities, and forbade them to marry non-redheads. Fairly quickly, there would develop a community of red-haired people, who gather together because the rest of society rejects them. Other redheads would attempt to cover their red hair in order to operate within general society. For example, someone like me might diligently shave every day to cover the red streaks in his beard and get a signed and notarized document attesting to the fact that all of his grandparents were pure non-redheads. This would likely create further prejudices against redheads as they would be transformed into an unseen menace attempting to infiltrate "respectable" society. Now, non-redheads, in order to not become "tainted" with redheadedness, must be constantly on guard and check their friends and neighbors to make sure that they are not secret redheads. 

The obvious argument against discrimination against redheads is that there really is no such thing as redheads but only individual people who just happen to have hair with a red pigment. Having red hair does not interfere with being a citizen in a liberal democratic society. People with red hair can make use of their reason to faithfully hold public offices from juror to president and serve in the military. 

This is a powerful argument for legal equality but it comes at a price, mainly that we assume that redheads really are just a collection of individuals who happen to have red hair and that there really is no such thing as a redheaded collective. The moment we begin to suspect that red hair stands as a proxy for actual cultural differences and even for different ways of thinking then we have to ask ourselves whether we think there is actually something valuable about these cultural differences and whether we believe that such people are well suited to operating a liberal democracy alongside non-redheads. 

What can people with red hair do to convince us that there really is no such thing as redheadedness and that they should be granted full rights? Clearly, people with red hair should make a point, as soon as the law and society allow them, of not differentiating themselves from people with other hair colors. An obvious manifestation of this would be large-scale intermarriage. People with red hair should have no objection to marrying people who do not have red hair and be at peace with raising children who do not have red hair and in no way identify with redheadedness. Clearly, people with red hair should not form charitable trusts for the benefit of other people with red hair so no "Red-Headed Leagues." The only exception would be for insisting that people with red hair really are like everyone else and eagerly await the day when the very idea of redheaded organizations will be so unnecessary as to be deserving of parody.  

This lack of redheaded identity should also extend itself to the study of history. While redheaded (name of people who live in the country) history should be taught, it should only be in terms of the history of the persecution of people with red hair and how it came to an end. This history should not be taught in terms of a conflict between peoples of different hair colors. People without red hair should not be treated as villains. On the contrary, examples of non-redheads who worked to fight for redhead rights should be emphasized in order to make sure that non-redheads do not feel guilty and to give them historical figures to relate to. 

Since redheads do not really exist as a distinct group, discussions of the sufferings of people with red hair should be universalized as a lesson on the importance of not judging people based on their hair color. Redheads who insist on remembering their history of persecution and remain mistrustful of non-redheads, insisting instead on redhead solidarity, should be castigated for failing to learn from their own history, making them just as bad as the color supremacists who once persecuted them. Outside of the history of redheads in times and places where they have been persecuted, there should be no general history of redheads. The fact that there have been kings with red hair who lived thousands of years ago in faraway lands (like, perhaps, King David) should be of no interest to contemporary people with red hair. We all agree that people with red hair can become presidents as well as enter into unconstitutional treaties with foreign dictators, sabotage the nation's economy with trade restrictions, and father illegitimate children.  

If redheads are really just individuals with red hair, then there should be no need for culturally responsive teaching for children with red hair. Such kids do not think differently than anyone else as hair color has nothing to do with brain structure. Furthermore, there should be no need for children with red hair to see people who "look like them." The moment advocates for children with red hair start saying otherwise, it stops being obvious why such children should be allowed into regular classrooms in the first place. If these children really are different then, perhaps, they really should be placed in separate classrooms to be with their "own kind."  

To be clear, we can expect non-redheaded people of goodwill to extend redheads some degree of charity and tolerate minor acts of tribalism. This might be out of guilt for the hair colorism of their parents, admiration for redheaded music, literature, cuisine, and comedy, or simply a sense that all of this hair color nonsense will eventually blow over on its own. That being said, at some point, if people with red hair push their tribalism far enough, this spirit of charity will end. Non-redheads will decide that redheads are taking advantage of the liberal nature of the general society, demanding rights as individuals while acting as a tribe and engaging in "reverse hair colorism." 

In essence, any attempt by people with red hair to treat their hair color as something relevant to their lives licenses everyone else to take notice of their hair color and use it against them. The moment someone is different in any meaningful way then the Pandora's Box of better or worse for the functioning of a liberal democracy is irrevocably opened. Think of people with red hair arguing for tolerance as a group as Wiley E. Coyote using a jackhammer on the precipice that he is standing on.   

Contrary to popular belief, tolerance is actually quite difficult in a liberal democracy. In contrast, for example, to a monarchy ruling over a diverse collection of people's running their own day-to-day affairs, in a democracy your neighbor who is not like you gets to vote on issues that directly affect your life. Furthermore, classical liberalism implies a commitment to a set of values that have historically been far from ubiquitous within human societies. A liberal democracy in which there are groups that lack a baseline commitment to liberal values will quickly turn into a sucker's game leading to political collapse. If we do not believe that redheads really support individualism and private property for all people, regardless of their hair color, but are simply using liberal democracy and the tolerance of the general society to advance their particular agenda then we will have no choice but to embrace our own non-redhead identity at the expense of building a country for everyone. 

 

Why Christians Should Accept Me as an American Citizen

Whatever one might say about there being a First Amendment defending the freedom of religion, to be able to enjoy any such rights in practice one is going to have to convince other people to go along with these principles and include you within them. As such one needs to be capable of articulating a case to others.

I stand before the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) establishment of the United States and ask for acceptance. I might not accept Jesus as my personal savior or believe in any Trinity, but I am a Bible-believing monotheist Jew. While I may not be a follower of the Christian religion, I am still culturally very Christian. I have studied Latin, read the New Testament and the works of many Christian thinkers. I even enjoy listening to Christian pop-rock. While my academic work is technically speaking about Judaism, in practice it has largely been an education in Christianity and the different ways in which it has related to Judaism. While I do not deny that there are Christians with Jewish blood on their hands and am not about to ignore a history of some truly horrific things being done to Jews in the name of Christianity, I have a lot of respect for the Christian intellectual tradition. This even applies to people who were genuinely hostile to Jews such as Martin Luther. This is to say nothing of Christians like C. S. Lewis, who is a major influence on how I relate to God, and Augustine, my model for how to live in and even embrace a State not built around my faith. Unlike many Jews, I am not bothered by Christian symbols and images. I do not spit while passing churches. I can look at paintings of the crucifixion and even the Passion film as works of art, without getting caught up in whether Jews are being blamed for killing Jesus. I have even, on occasion, attended church services. My Judaism is one that consciously gives Christianity legitimacy and allows me to be a citizen with Christians. I practice a similar code of morality. I am looking to engage in a heterosexual monogamous relationship. (Not that I am about to butt into the lives of anyone pursuing any alternative relationships in the privacy of their own homes.) I do not use drugs nor do I drink to excess. I am honest in my business dealings with everyone, whether they are Jewish or not. If you are going to accept non-Christians into your country, I am the sort you can hope to deal with.

In addition to my Christian values, I strongly identify with the American narrative. This goes for the Pilgrims, who saw themselves as the new Children of Israel building their godly society in the new "Promised Land," to the American Revolution, a model of moderate force backed by a formal government used to defend liberty. Furthermore, the early United States offered a moderate version of the Enlightenment that was not out for war with religion and even capable of embracing it. It is from this perspective that I confront this country's very real flaws, particularly our history of slavery and racism. For me, following the American Christian abolitionist and civil rights traditions, slavery and racism are what idolatry was for the biblical Nation of Israel; a sin that challenged the very core of what we stood for and offering a narrative of salvation. Make no mistake, this country has paid a heavy price in blood for the sins of slavery and racism, but, as with King David repenting from his sin with Bethesda, the fact that a freedom-loving country like the United States could struggle with intolerance offers hope to others that they do not have to be damned for their own intolerance.

Today the United States offers the best hope for the world for many of the values I hold dear. The United States, for all of its very real flaws, offers an alternative to theocracy on the one hand and anti-religious secularism on the other. Our political tradition offers the necessary level of government to allow for liberty without turning toward the tyranny of the State-run economy. If the United States were to disappear, I doubt that these values would have much hope flourishing throughout the rest of the world, leaving us to choose between the tyrannies of the left and the right, religious and secular.

As it should be clear from this, I am probably more of a Christian than the majority of people who claim to be. I also actively embrace being an American. This is the country that offered a home to my grandfather, an orphan of the Holocaust, and my grandmother, who fled Hungary during the 1956 Revolution. This is my country and I am not about to forget that; I am not about to simply use the privilege of citizenship to enrich myself with government handouts. It is right for other people, even WASPs whose family history in this country goes back much further than mine, to take me at my word and accept me as an equal citizen.

Now compare this to other individuals from minority backgrounds, who take the attitude that "they did not land on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock landed on them." However justified there historical grievances might be, why should anyone listening to such a listing of grievances trust the plaintiff enough to turn around and offer tolerance and even citizenship. "You Americans are a bunch of racist imperialist baby killers and I want in. Trust me; I mean you no harm and would never think to abuse equal citizenship."

De-Citizenship Trials in Practice: Tolerating Fred Phelps

Vox Populi, a regular commentator on this blog, has just started a blog of his own where I have been going back and forth with him on the issue of tolerating Muslims. As I have argued here in the past, in addition to the usual restrictions on free speech such as the inability to "shout fire," incite to violence or be a public nuisance, one is also limited by inability to make statements, or even to hold beliefs, that challenge the legitimacy of the system. This disqualifies the beliefs of most extremists, whether from the left or the right, secular or religious, Christian, Muslim or Jewish. Such people would be outside the protection of the First Amendment and could be targeted by the government. In fact, it may be necessary for the government to not allow such people the protection of the First Amendment.

To be clear, this does not limit normative disagreement, even very strong disagreement. I am allowed to believe that President Barack Obama's health care plan and stimulus package are mistakes that will bring disaster to this country and even cost lives. I can believe that both Christianity and Islam are not "True" religions and do not help their believers "get right" with God. I can believe these things as long as I accept that both Obama and my Christian and Muslims neighbors are basically decent people and patriotic citizens, who came by their mistaken beliefs honestly. This allows me to accept Obama as my legitimate president, as called for by the Constitution, and Christians and Muslims as fellow citizens.

What I would like to discuss here are the practical matters involved. How would we, in practice, go about stripping such people of their citizenship and avoid turning this into a tool of legitimate free speech suppression. Take the example of Fred Phelps, the minister of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church. Phelps believes that "God hates fags" and that American tolerance of homosexuality has caused the death of our soldiers in Iraq. To make his point, he and his followers have even taken to picketing the funerals of American soldiers.




To put this in context, this is the sort of anti-gay hate speech that even Ann Coulter denounces.

I do not care if Phelps is "intolerant" or engaging in "hate" speech. What is of concern is the fact that Phelps not only does not agree with American policy but no longer accepts the legitimacy of the United State government. For example, the Hebrew prophets, whom I presume Phelps looks to as his models, could denounce the individual sins of the people of Israel without ever questioning that they were people of God. In fact, it was precisely because they were the people of God that the children of Israel had need of being rebuked. Elijah may have denounced King Ahab as an idolater and murder, whom God would punish, but he never challenged the fact that Ahab was a legitimate king. Phelps makes no such distinction. His world is one in which his small group is righteous and everyone else is wicked beyond redemption.

I see nothing objectionable with having the government sue Phelps, drag him into court and put to him some very simple questions: considering what he believes about the United States, does he consider himself an American citizen bound by American law, and if so how does he justify, not the belief in the iniquity of the United States, but his part in it as an American citizen? This exercise would be worth it just to make Phelps squirm, trying to answer these questions with a straight face. He would not have to convince any judge or jury to sympathize with his world view or even agree with how he rectifies this dilemma. All we are asking him to do is to convince a judge or jury that he believes his own answers and that, in his own mind, he is not trying to put one over them, secretly laughing at their gullibility. Failure to do this would result in his being stripped of his citizenship. He would still be allowed to live in this country; he would not be put in jail or even fined. All this would mean is that he would lose his ability to vote, access to government services and the ability to take part in public discourse.

It is important to understand that we would not be coming after Phelps for any of his beliefs per se. Our only objection to him is his breach of contract. In civil law, if one signed a contract only to find out that the other person did not believe himself bound by this contract, one would be justified in suing for breach of contract and demand to be released by the court from this contract. In this case, it would be irrelevant that the contract has yet to actually be broken. It is enough that the contract was not entered in good faith. Government is a contract signed between government and citizens. Before we can begin to talk about the parties fulfilling their parts of the contract (like the government protecting the free speech of citizens) all parties need to be acting in good faith and accept the legitimacy of the contract. If one of the parties, say Citizen Fred Phelps, is not acting in good faith then the contract is off. I am not about to lift a finger to protect his First Amendment rights unless I am convinced that he is willing to do the same for me. The Constitution is not a suicide pact.

The course of action I am outlying is not one of "I will only tolerate tolerant people." Such notions of tolerance are meaningless and can be dismissed as cover only people one agrees with as all beliefs imply some form of intolerance. I would be perfectly willing to accept Phelps as a citizen despite him being an "intolerant" person who believes in making homosexuality a crime. He can even believe that we are a sinful nation for tolerating homosexuality and that God is going to punish us as long as he believed that the United States had the "right" to make laws tolerating homosexuality and the United States government was still rightfully his government. To convince me that he holds this I would have to see him saying things like "Oh Lord! As Isaiah said: 'Behold I am a man of unclean lips dwelling amongst a people of unclean lips.' This is a nation of homosexuality tolerating sinners, but I pray that you forgive them for they have come to these sins in good faith seeking to follow a just Constitution. These are my people and as Moses prayed that if the burden of their sin is too heavy 'remove me from your book' and let me be punished with them." Phelps would still be a bigot, but I could still accept him as a fellow citizen. Whatever else he might believe, I would know that he was on my side as an American.

Stanley Fish, Arizona and the Depoliticized Classroom

Dr. Stanley Fish has an interesting post on one particular element of the new Arizona anti-illegal immigration efforts, Arizona the Gift that Keeps on Giving. Arizona now wishes to ban ethnic studies classes in public schools, which are designed to promote "race consciousness." One of the things that I admire about Fish is his willingness to stand up for a depoliticized academia and he is on form in this piece as he attacks the pedagogical theories of Paulo Freire and the Mexican American Studies Department of the Tucson Unified School District for using them as the basis for their Social Justice Education Project. Fish, though, turns around and attacks the new law for proposing "that public school pupils should be taught to treat and value each other as individuals and not be taught to resent or hate other races or other classes of people."

As readers of this blog know, I am an opponent of any attempt from either the left or the right to politicize education. When I teach history, I teach the historical method of thinking and use it to consider the who, what, when, where, and why of history; I do not teach moral or political values. I see this as part of the bargain we strike together to allow us to have the sort of free society in which one can receive the sort of meaningful education that might down the road turn someone to the right or left. My objection to someone like Freire has little to do with what I might think about the existence of hegemonic cultures and thought structures and their malicious influence. My problem is that Freire not only attacks proponents of these hegemonic cultures, who we have to assume are real people and not just theoretical constructs but delegitimizes them as well. If these proponents of hegemonic cultures are as dark and as dangerous as Freire claims, then there can be no meaningful discourse with them. Any time you take discussion off the table you have put guns on the table. In essence, the pedagogy of Freire is a call for the disenfranchisement, political slavery, and even murder of ideological opponents like me, all while being hypocritical enough to deny this fact and having the gall to ask people like me to financially support my own destruction.

While I support widening the circle of people whom, while I may disagree with them I still view as legitimate, as much as possible, there are going to be people who fall outside this circle, who believe things that not only go against the free society but make it impossible for them to take part in it and still have a free society in any meaningful sense. This leads to a situation where the free society must insist, as the price of admission, on the acceptance of certain beliefs. This is no different than the situation of rational skepticism, which allows you to question everything else, but the premises underlying itself. This is the price of belief you pay in order to be a skeptic. As a Jew, I am not capable of ever debating whether or not I am a member of an Elders of Zion organization. I ask that you accept on faith that I am a good American citizen and give me the benefit of the doubt and in return I agree to give you the benefit of the doubt. Since American society has decided to accept people like me into its bosom, it has had no choice but to expel white supremacists from its midst and banish them to places like rural Idaho. This would even apply to the government. I could not be an equal part of an American politics in which white supremacists are also allowed to take part in a meaningful way. As such, having me in the system means that we are forced to use all means, Constitutional and extra-Constitutional to make sure white supremacists are not. Nothing personal against white supremacists, but our views are so mutually exclusive that we have no choice, in essence, but to kill each other.

Because I recognize this sort of bargain we make with each other. I have no objection for the government to come in and openly insist on certain ground rules in order to take part in the system. Particularly, everyone has to accept the authority of the government, obey the law, and respect the legitimacy, as opposed to liking or agreeing with them, of all other signers of this pact. In a multi-racial United States, one has to be willing to accept, at least ex post facto, that people of all races can be legitimate American citizens. This is all of course superfluous since I oppose government-funded education in the first place. I would, though, support similar language in a bill targeting who can run for public office. Yes, it would be an ideological test, but one, in essence no different than swearing to uphold the Constitution.

The Postmodern Corporate State

In the medieval corporate state, groups negotiated for political and economic advantage. In the liberal state, individuals negotiated for the right to live as they chose so long as they did no harm to others. In the postmodern state, groups negotiate for something never before held to be the business of politics; recognition, regard, self-esteem. (Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, The Home We Build Together pg. 55)

Dr. Haym Soloveitchik has a line that I often use with my own students: "In the pre-modern State there was no such thing as rights; there were privileges that you paid for." The common perception of the Middle Ages was that it was hierarchical and oppressive, with women, peasants, Jews, and heretics being trodden underfoot by the nobility and the Church. The hierarchical part of medieval politics was certainly true, though I am hardly convinced that hierarchy, in of itself as an abstract model of the universe, is necessarily bad. Certainly, its replacement by an egalitarian model had far more to do with changes in the natural sciences than any sudden "enlightenment" as to the unjustness of hierarchy. The notion of the medieval State as oppressive misses the point. Knights were not treated better than peasants because of any assumption of their superiority (beyond the usual sense, common to all people in all times, that they are somehow better than other people). Knights performed a valuable service as professional soldiers; hence their services bought them special privileges. As with the changes in the natural sciences, the shift to mass "citizen's" armies did far more to bring down the feudal hierarchy than any realization that it was "wrong." In highly militarized societies, where the dominant issue is not suffering sudden violent death, value is going to be predominantly determined based on military usefulness. Hence knights would be "better" than peasants and men "better" than women. The demilitarization of society (where we can now worry about social security because we expect to live long enough to receive it without suffering sudden violent death) did far more to bring down the patriarchal hierarchy than any realization that there was anything "wrong" with it. Jews were tolerated sometimes in Christendom and sometimes persecuted not because Christians were "tolerant" or "intolerant," but because Jews were useful and therefore capable of directly or indirectly paying for their protection. With the economic revolutions of the late Middle Ages, Jews stopped being useful and could no longer pay for their protection; hence their expulsion from Western Europe. If there is an underlying mission to what I teach about the Middle Ages and the rise of the Modern World, it is to get students out of their modern moralism, that we are somehow "better," than those living in the Middle Ages because we are "tolerant" and believe in "equality."

While I have no desire to return to a medieval feudal hierarchy (there are certainly good reasons why this form of government disappeared), I do believe that there is something very healthy about the model of privileges as opposed to rights. To be clear, I believe, and the medieval political tradition would agree with me, that there is such a thing as rights, in the sense of right and wrong and that one should not seek to persecute others simply because they are weaker than you. That being said, while I am morally obligated to support the "rights" of others, I can have no expectation that my "rights" will be respected in turn. All I can do is attempt to negotiate for my ability to live in peace by offering something, likely similar guarantees to others of my willingness to allow them to live in peace, in return. One of the fundamental weaknesses of modern liberalism is that it sees rights simply as givens, not something to be bartered for. This creates a situation where rights become a matter of groups demanding their "rights" and holding the rest of society up for blackmail. Now many of these things, whether gay marriage, equal pay for women or protection for illegal immigrants, may be perfectly legitimate. That being said, if there is no sense of negotiating and paying, then there can be no discussion, just the stomping of one's foot, demanding what you want and insisting that anyone who does not give you what you want is "intolerant" and an "enemy of the free society." The moment we stop thinking about rights and instead start talking about privileges, privileges that we pay for, then we might come to decide that certain "rights" might be too expensive and that we can do without them.

Asperger Discrimination

As I have mentioned previously, I was let go by the high school I was teaching over the fact that, while I was a good lecturer and put together intellectually stimulating classes, I failed to properly "connect" with students. One of the administrators was kind enough to send me an email, thanking me for what I had done for them, even if they could not bring me back:


Benzion—you have done a lot of good things this year.  The effort that you have put in to your classes and to the school has been nothing short of exemplary.  Your knowledge of the material is superb, your preparation for your classes (with the Powerpoint notes) was admirable, and the level at which you taught was sophisticated and challenging.  Your willingness to engage the students in questions and discussion improved over the course of the year, and while there is much growth still necessary on this front, I applaud your effort in making some positive changes.

All of that being said, your way of relating to kids made it a challenging learning environment for them and contributed greatly to the classroom management problems that existed all year.  Whether in comments on report cards or in class, there seemed to be a constant series of difficult interactions that helped to create a gap between you and the students.  You tried hard to overcome that gap, and worked very hard to become part of the greater fabric of the school, and you deserve a lot of credit for that effort.  Still, this gap remained and I believe will continue to be an obstacle for you in teaching this age of students.


You are very bright, thoughtful and knowledgeable and I believe that you have a bright future ahead of you, but I also believe that working in a university or an adult setting—people who will appreciate your expertise and your knowledge for their own sake—is one that is better suited for you.

…

You began to explain to me on Wednesday the challenges your Aspergers poses for you.  In many ways, I don't truly understand them--just as you probably don't truly understand the way that I see and read people--the difference being that you probably have thought a lot about these differences whereas I have not thought about them all that much.  Given what you describe, though, I can tell that you have worked very hard to overcome most of these challenges and probably are conscious of it every day. 

Over time, with experience and learning, you may well become a very good high school classroom teacher, but I still believe that your strengths would be better used either with adults or in a setting such as a library, where you can be extremely helpful to those who need it but would not need to worry as much about group dynamics and classroom management. 


I must admit that I was impressed by this administrator's willingness to take Asperger syndrome seriously as a legitimate way of viewing the world and not simply as a disability. As I have said before on this blog, I view myself, as an Asperger, as a member of a minority group.

Here is a thought experiment I offer readers to consider how to understand my situation. Imagine this school had a black teacher, who was very talented, but for some reason did not relate well to the students. This is perfectly reasonable; there likely would be a major gap in terms of style and personality between such a teacher and our white student body. Maybe he teaches history as if he were a black preacher, expecting "amen" responses and likes to stick it to students as he challenges them about "white privilege," precisely to make them uncomfortable? (I actually teach very much in a preacher mode. Usually the second thing people notice about my teaching is that, besides for being very smart, I am also very intense.) What if our administrator were to write this black teacher the letter he wrote me, saying good job but you lack the right "touch" with students? There is a good chance this teacher would sue the school for discrimination on the grounds that what was really meant was that he was black. It is not clear that this person would win, but the school would certainly be hard pressed to respond. Where does one draw the line between color and ethnic background and personal relations, particularly as it is precisely the person's color and ethnic background that is causing the difficulty with personal relations?

The opposition would argue that part of multiculturalism is that the school has to prepare students, as part of their education, to deal with all sorts of people even those they might not naturally feel comfortable with. How are the students going to be prepared to deal with black superiors unless they have had the experience of being taught by black teachers? Does the school simply assume that blacks cannot or should not be in positions of authority so students do not have to worry about it. The school would be challenged to distinguish between the administrator's actions and the white shoe law firms of early twentieth century America, who did not hire Jews on the grounds that they did not "fit" with their sort of clientele.

One of the great lessons of the civil rights movement, and a confirmation of an "Asperger" truth, was the necessity of judging people by hard empirical standards as these are the only kind that are actually meaningful. All vague claims of comfort or how someone affects group dynamics are meaningless; merely cover for those in power. What these claims really mean is that "the person is not like us so we do not want him."

The Napoleonic Sanhedrin Theory of Equal Rights (Part II)

(Part I)


What does it mean to be a citizen? To put it simply it is the obligation to obey the law and the promise to not use the instruments of government to advance any private interests. A Jew who becomes a citizen of his host country agrees to place the interests of this country and his loyalty to it above the interests of Jews in other countries. In the most extreme case, if the United States were to go to war against Canada, the American government could draft me and put me on the front lines. If I see a Jewish soldier, with a beard and side-locks, charging at my unit, I am obligated to kill this Jew in order to save the lives of my Christian comrades. Keep in mind that my American Christian comrades are being asked to make the same decision regarding Canadian Christians. If I refuse to do my duty I have every reason to assume that my Christian comrades will, in turn, refuse to do their duty. They could easily decide to join forces with their Christian brothers to the north of the border to kill me in the cause of creating the United Christian States of North America. By agreeing to pull the trigger I am protecting my life and the lives of all Jews back home. It is certainly unlikely that this Canadian scenario would ever happen, but that is not the point. This system of tolerance relies on the implicit assumption of my willingness to carry through with all my obligations even to the point of killing. (It should be pointed out that American Muslim soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are actually in this situation. Their loyalty is under question and their willingness to fulfill their duty, even to the point of killing fellow Muslims, will affect how Muslims in this country will be treated.)

Having never killed another Jew in defense of this country, my fellow non-Jewish Americans are going to judge me based on more prosaic issues. It is here that Napoleon's questions become relevant and force some difficult answers. Take, for example, the issue of intermarriage. After saving my Christian comrade, he decides that I am the perfect good American for his sister to marry. What is he to make of the fact that I would not even consider the possibility, but would consider the sister of the Jew I killed? It should be noted that Orthodox Judaism's taboo against intermarriage goes way beyond what even conservative Christians have in place. We are telling American non-Jews that we are willing to kill other Jews in their defense, but we are not willing to marry their sisters. And they are supposed to believe us?

I am not suggesting that Jews should accept intermarriage. The forcefulness of the taboo, though, requires some rethinking. I can manage, with a straight face, to tell American non-Jews that I am willing to kill, even other Jews, for them, because Judaism accepts the concept of war. Just as Christianity allows Christians to be loyal citizens of the earthly State, serve in its military, and even kill other Christians, Jewish law allows me to kill other Jews in war. No Jew during World War I was refused entrance into a synagogue for shooting at other Jews. I wish to have a Jewish home and raise my children as Jews. The best way to do that is to marry someone Jewish, not that there is anything wrong with non-Jews. This is a far cry from "intermarriage is treason to the Jewish people, if you intermarry we will consider you a dead person and not let you set foot in a synagogue." To use Catholic terminology, intermarriage must be viewed as a venial but not a mortal sin.

What do Jews believe about non-Jews? If I believe that my Christian neighbors are satanic enemies of God, doomed to everlasting hellfire if they do not recognize my one true faith then I could hardly expect citizenship. "You Christians are evil sinners, hateful to God, but trust me to be on your side." On the contrary, I have to believe that Christians are moral God-fearing people, whom I may have certain minor theological disagreements with. This would mean that the doctrine of eternal damnation, in all its forms, is out. This also strengthens the limitations to objecting to intermarriage. Again, if Christians are so wonderful that I would want to join with them in citizenship then why should I object to marrying them or with having any of my fellow Jews doing so. I would also add here the issue of conversion. If there is nothing really so bad about Christianity why should I object if one of my children wishes to become one? Would I disinherit my child for voting for Obama to be president? Why should I object if my child votes for Jesus as his personal savior?

I was once told by a Haredi young man that he believed and was taught by his teachers that non-Jews were not truly of the same species to such an extent that you cannot rely on the medical studies done on non-Jews for making medical decisions about Jews. Forget about the scientific absurdity of this; let us consider the political implications. This Haredi is basically saying: "you goyim are a bunch of animals, who are not even human, but I view you as my equals and have your best interests at heart." Do you non-Jews believe him? He is making a mockery of you. There is no reason for you to tolerate him. Strip him of his citizenship or even throw him out of the country. If you were to go so far as to stick him into a gas chamber, I would have no grounds to object or complain.

The Napoleonic Sanhedrin Theory of Equal Rights (Part I)

My previous post on the American flag received some strong reactions. At least one person questioned my loyalty to Judaism. I do not blame the person or think he is entirely wrong. I take my loyalty to the United States as a citizen very seriously. I am very open to the possibility that the requirements of citizenship violate the precepts of Judaism and that I have to choose between being a practicing Jew or an American. Part of what separates me from most people today is that I do not view citizenship and the benefits that come with it (voting, equal protection before the law, holding legal office etc.) as inherent rights, but as privileges, privileges that you pay for by taking on certain obligations. These obligations are not to be taken lightly and it is quite possible that the price is too high and one should turn citizenship down. I suspect this has a lot to do with the fact that today everyone is given full citizenship, men, women, white, black, Christians, Jews, atheists. Thus citizenship becomes the norm to be treated as a given, without any thought to any consequences. Contrast this with being a citizen of the Roman Empire.

My model for gaining equal rights and citizenship is a little-known event, known as Napoleon's Sanhedrin. Before the French Revolution, Jews lived in semi-autonomous kehillot. They were not citizens of the countries in which they lived in, but were rather sometimes tolerated resident aliens. The French Revolutionary government was the first to grant Jews equal rights. It did this by disbanding the kehillot and making Jews, as individuals, French citizens. In the years 1806-07, when Napoleon was at the height of his power, he gathered together noted Jews from across the religious spectrum and put to them certain questions as to the ability of Jews to be citizens. Among these questions where:

May a Jewess marry a Christian, or a Jew a Christian woman or does Jewish law order that the Jews should only intermarry among themselves?

In the eyes of Jews are Frenchmen not of the Jewish religion considered as brethren or as strangers?

Do the Jews born in France, and treated by the law as French citizens, acknowledge France as their country? Are they bound to defend it? Are they bound to obey the laws and follow the directions of the civil code?

Does Jewish law forbid the Jews to take usury from their brethren?

Does it forbid, or does it allow, usury in dealings with strangers?


This whole affair collapsed into absurdity as members of this "Sanhedrin" attempted to balance Jewish tradition with giving Napoleon the answers he wanted to hear. Are Jews allowed to marry? Yes, sort of, not really, no, but we still are a loving tolerant religion. Today the incident is remembered simply as a historical oddity. That being said, this incident was critical in that it set up many of the issues for modern Jewry as a good example of, what I like to call, the "Enlightenment bargain." Jews agreed to make certain concessions to the surrounding culture and, in turn, they were given citizenship and equal rights. How far these concessions went was up for discussion. It could be anything from agreeing to speak the vernacular to being baptized. In essence, all Jews, even the most extreme Haredim, have made some version of this bargain and have assimilated to some extent.

In a larger sense, Napoleon's Sanhedrin is important in that it offers a different model of gaining equality from the one that modern liberalism is used to. In the modern liberal model, there are oppressed groups being denied what is rightfully theirs. Members of these groups decide to fight for these rights and, aligned with enlightened members of the general society, succeed in gaining equality for their people. For example, blacks in America were being denied the right to vote. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream and finally convinced white America that it was wrong to deny blacks equal rights. A properly chastised white America did a mea culpa and passed the Voting Rights Act of 1964. 

The story of Napoleon's Sanhedrin is not one in which Christian Europe suddenly awoke to the fact that they had been mistreating Jews for a thousand years and finally decided that Jews really were just like everyone else and should be tolerated, given equal rights and ultimately made into citizens. On the contrary, it was Jews being put on trial before European society and asked whether they were deserving of being given citizenship. Being a citizen means taking on certain responsibilities and being of a certain mindset to be able to function within society. Can you be trusted not to simply abuse citizenship for your own ends? If you cannot live up to this then no rights. This model puts the onus, not on the general society, but on the given minority group.


(To be continued …)

Am I a Misogynist Teacher? (Maybe a Little)

My previous post on the issue of bodily functions and its role in civil rights generated some very good comments. It was a risky piece in that I was almost asking to be misunderstood and accused of being a misogynist who believes that women should be sent "back to the kitchen." I am particularly heartened that Clarissa and Miss S. gave me a pass. I see them as my guiding lights when it comes to feminism. If they decide not to kill me then I feel that I can rest easy, knowing that I have lived up to my responsibilities as a gender aware male. In a sense though, the charge of sexism has some validity in that a basic argument of modern feminism does apply to me. My subconscious model of normalcy is male. The student in my head whom I prepare to teach is male. Even my approach to teaching can be regarded as very "male." I work within a very top-down model where I lecture and ask questions. My goal is to critically analyze historical texts through the rubric of clearly established rules, much as a lawyer cross-examines a witness. I am not naturally inclined to focus on forming a personal relationship with students nor am I apt to ask my students how they "feel" about a text. Obviously, I am aware that many of the students, even usually my best students, are women. As a liberally inclined person, women are welcome into my classroom and I will treat them as "one of the guys." This, though, does not solve the problem.


Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, in the Home We Build Together, criticizes the Enlightenment model of tolerance in that it treats minorities like guests in a hotel. Even when the West chooses to be "tolerant," it does not change the fact that this is a white European Christian system. Other people are allowed to take part in this system that was not created by them or with them in mind. They are just welcome to reside in it. Rabbi Sacks poses the challenge of how do we create a home in which everyone is allowed to take an active role in creating the system.

To apply Rabbi Sacks, my approach to teaching does create a very real problem for women since it creates a situation where they become "guests" being fit into the situation. This is a problem with our society in general. 150 years of women's rights have not changed the fact that we are still a male culture attempting to fit women in. Because I recognize the situation that women are in I go out of my way to make the effort to try to help female students feel comfortable in my class. This is particularly the case in terms of getting to talk in class; I consciously am on the lookout to make sure that girls in my class are not getting shouted down by some of the louder boys in class. This in of itself, though, only exacerbates the trap we are in. By the very act of attempting to compensate for my subconscious biases I am still placing them as an "other" to be brought into a system not designed for them; in essence as "guests."

I relate to this personally on two levels, as a Jew and an Asperger. For example, growing up as an American Jew, living outside Jewish enclaves such as Brooklyn NY, every holiday season I had to come to terms with the fact that I stood outside of Christmas and thus American society as a whole. The Christmas ads and the television specials were not made with me in mind. I was simply an inconvenient reality to be tolerated and worked into the system. Because of this, I developed a split perception of myself and my place in American culture. I am an American even to the extent that I have an easier time relating to American non-Jews than I do with Israeli Jews. Yet I am an American who stands outside the Christmas window display. Standing apart from American society as it celebrates Christmas becomes my part in American society and what makes me truly American. Similarly with Asperger syndrome; our society has constructed itself around the assumption that everyone is neurotypical. Of course, it is undeniable that not everyone is a neurotypical and we are in the process of working out the full implications of this. I am stuck as the outsider in society peering in and observing and even tolerated, but never truly a part of things. As an outsider, I welcome all other outsiders as allies and, may I say it, brothers.

Porno Theaters and Aryan Coffee Shops: The Libertarian Case for Legalized Discrimination (Part IV)

(Part I, II,III)

As with the houses of sexual sin, there is a defense against establishments of racism such as my Aryan coffee shop. Obviously, citizens of goodwill would have the right to congregate outside my Aryan coffee house to protest as long as no physical harm is done to any of the patrons. If white supremacists are desperate enough to walk through a protesting mob and bear their shouts (but not the spitting) in order to enjoy my Aryan coffee then that is their right. A pro-tolerance mayor would be allowed to lend his voice in moral indignation and send out the police with sandwiches to make sure that the protesters can fight for justice in orderly comfort. Besides for this, the local government would be free to put non-discrimination laws into the zoning ordinances. It is reasonable for the city to say that it is in their interest that all businesses agree to serve everyone. If the city could not guarantee blacks that they could order a cup of coffee anywhere in the city without looking out for any "whites only" signs, then blacks might choose to take their business someplace else. Furthermore, protecting white supremacists from angry protesters costs money and the city has the right not to take on added expenses. (This is one reason why the city of New York has the constitutional right not to allow the Klan to march through Harlem.) The city would not, though, be allowed to close down my Aryan coffee shop out of any interest in tolerance. The government has no more interest in tolerance than they do in promoting Christian brotherhood and the love of Christ. This would simply be the government stuffing their morals down people's throats and violating their liberty. 

Before we breathe a tolerant sigh of relief, I will warn you that there is a price to pay for allowing the use of zoning laws to eliminate segregation. The moment we acknowledge that cities can go after segregation out of purely monetary concerns, we must also acknowledge the right not only of private businesses but local governments as well to practice segregation as long as there is some reasonable monetary justification. If Mobile, AL wishes to put blacks to the back of the bus then it should be their right as long as they can show a valid city interest is at stake such as getting more whites to use the bus system or decreasing fights on buses. (If blacks wish to boycott and bring down the economy of that city then that is their right.) Obviously, the city would not be allowed to bring in segregationist laws out of any concern for "protecting the Southern way of life" or "the natural order of things." Also, the police would have to treat integrationist protesters no differently than any other non-violent group that violated city ordinances so no hoses and attack dogs.

The main Ohio State University campus is next to a large black neighborhood with high crime statistics. Naturally, this crime spills over. During my years there, I had three bikes and a front tire stolen, one assumes by a youth from this neighborhood. Now I personally believe that a tolerant racially integrated society is more important than a few bikes stolen and I am willing to pay this price, but other people might not be so generous and moral and that is their right. They may wish to pass laws saying that no black male teenager without a proper student ID should be allowed on school grounds after nightfall. (There actually was a debate in the Lantern about neighborhood youths being allowed to use school basketball courts.) I might protest such laws, but I would essentially be in the same position as if the school had voted for free student-sponsored strippers. I would have the right to sit in my room and blog about how sinful Ohio State is and contemplate moving to a more godly campus like Michigan.

Just as the government has no business getting involved in things that offend popular religious sensibilities, they have no business getting involved in general moral sensibilities. Our southern town is not doing any direct physical harm to blacks by putting them in the back of the bus or in different schools. It is not this town's problem if blacks cannot get a better deal. If blacks wish they are free to form their own black racist towns. A group that is unable to do that probably does not really deserve rights to begin with and should come back when they have further developed as a group. (This is one reason why Zionism is so important for Jews. It shows that we are capable of being full citizens and gives us something to negotiate with in terms of our host society.) I may not like it, but as a religious person in a free society, I am used to people using their liberty in all sorts of ways that I cannot approve of.

How to Destroy the Jewish Community

Today my Modern Jewish History students take their midterm exam. I wish them all best of luck. For an essay I have offered them the following question:


You have been hired by the new People's Democratic Multicultural Party of Tolerance government to construct a plan to destroy the Jewish community. As a civilized country we are only willing to engage in very moderate levels of violence and prefer that Jews simply assimilate out of their own free will. Based on what we have learned in class, what would you advise? Please give specific examples to your superiors who may not be as well versed in Jewish history as you are.

I throw open the question to member of classroom Izgad. How would you go about destroying Judaism?

Some Other Reactions to My Comments About Kupat Ha’ir

My post about Rabbi Marc Angel and his criticism of Kupat Ha'ir drew a lot of reactions and sparked some good conversations. Thank you to Hirhurim and Luke Ford for putting up links to it. Not everyone was offended by my calling Haredim and Catholics idolaters. A good friend of, who is a self-declared pagan, opened his arms to these new potential brothers in arms and sent me the following IM message:

You and I will be in different hells, I hope.  Mine will be full of Gods and impressively adorned priests, bishops, and bearded theologians arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. I'm far too sympathetic with the Catholics and fundamentalists like the Haredim to agree with anything ever say.  But I very much enjoyed reading your discussions about those things.



On a less positive note, another person, a complete stranger, sent me the following message on Facebook: "You are a hypocrite. You are as strange as any one man can be. Yet you are judgmental of others. I wish you failure in your life. Shame on you Benzion Chimp."

There is the obvious irony here; how is it not judgmental to send messages to people you have never met, call them hypocrite other rude names and wish them failure in life all without trying to get some word of explanation? (Note that in our post-modern world being judgmental has replaced being rude as the Original Sin.) I do take it as a compliment to be called "as strange as any one man can be." At least he got one thing right about me. I would wish to be able to say the following to this person:
 
Hello


My name is Benzion N. Chinn and I run the blog Izgad. I have lived my life with the awareness that I was different from other people. In more recent years that difference has been given a name, Asperger syndrome. Because I was different I have long been very sympathetic to those people who are different whose lifestyles are outside the mainstream. This goes for blacks, homosexuals, prostitutes, drug users, polygamists and even gun touting Confederate flag-waving white males. As long as you are not causing direct physical harm to other people then the government should leave you to pursue your own good in your own way. In terms of society, I believe in cultivating a space for people I may disagree with, but who have something to contribute to the greater social discourse. A large part of my professional work deals with medieval Christian and Islamic thought. I may be a nice Jewish boy, but my soul is still fed by Augustine, Aquinas, Averroes, and Avicenna. My theology is more complex than simply saying there is the group of people who are like me and everyone else is walking in darkness on a path to eternal damnation. As someone who believes in creating a non-coercive social community around certain specific ideals, I have to be willing to put my foot down and say that those people who do not fulfill these ideals cannot be part of this social community. I have the right to say that you cannot be part of my club. God knows that I have been told many times by people that I was not welcome in their club. Also, there are people that I believe are not just wrong, but insane, wicked or otherwise ignorant. These are people who hold beliefs that, by definition, make it impossible to have any sort of meaningful and rational discussion with. For example, people who do not accept Occam's razor, the validity of the scientific and historical methods. I do not believe these people should in any way be harmed by the government, but I have no reason to take them seriously and allow them to take part in the discourse of the open society. If this makes me intolerant and judgmental then please provide me with the guidance of real live reasonable and rational people, living functional lives while being less judgmental of other people than I am.

Rabbi Avigdor Miller and the Neturei Karta

One of the issues that have come up with this discussion on Authentic Judaism is that of Rabbi Avigdor Miller and his role in influencing some of the more radical Haredi bloggers. I brought it up in passing and Parshablog has dealt with it in more detail. Whatever problems one may have with the late Rabbi Miller (and believe me I do) Rabbi Miller is of little value in of himself as a target. He is no longer alive and the Haredi world has by and large rejected his more radical views. Rabbi Miller is still useful for going after Haredim because, despite the fact that most would say that they disagree with him on specific points, they still revere him as a scholar. I see this as an intellectual dodge and a moral failure to treat certain issues with due responsibility. This was brought home to me when discussing the issue of Rabbi Miller with Not Brisk, who, while not wishing to defend Rabbi Miller outright, did not hesitate to try to interest me in some of Rabbi Miller’s less polemical work. According to Not Brisk, even I “who obviously can't swallow his [Rabbi Miller’s] world opinions, can still take the ‘good’”. I do not question Rabbi Miller’s intelligence and I have no problem acknowledging that he has written things that are better than his tapes and his books Rejoice O Youth and Awake My Glory. That being said, these things are the Rabbi Miller that I know and apparently this is the Rabbi Miller that bloggers like Authentic Judaism and Jewish Philosopher know. Nothing that Rabbi Miller said could change this.

Not Brisk would have me bifurcate between the populist Rabbi Miller and the scholarly Rabbi Miller. Do not get me wrong, I have no problem with having a disagreement with someone and taking what I like about them and discarding what I do not. There are two different types of opposition; there is the opposition where the opponent is still viewed as legitimate and then there is the opposition where the opponent is cast aside as something satanic without any legitimacy. For example, I accept that different people are going to have different views on the State of Israel. You may disagree with me about the army or about settlements but we can agree that we are all good Jews here. I will still give you an aliya in shul and agree to eat in your home. That being said, a Neturei Karta person, who believes that Israel should be destroyed, would not be legitimate. (The Neturei Karta are a small but highly visible group. You can often see them at Israel rallies in Hasidic garb and waving Palestinian flags. They also gained a lot of attention when members of their group attended the infamous Holocaust denial conference in Iran.) A member of the Neturei Karta could study Torah sixteen hours a day and be the nicest person you have ever met. All of that would mean nothing against the fact that this person has plotted with and aided those who wish to murder Jews. It is a moral stance for me precisely to not bifurcate between a Neturei Karta member’s actions as a member of the Neturei Karta and his actions when off duty. (Similarly, I would not say that someone is in the Ku Klux Klan but he is nice to his mother. A member of the Klan is a member of the Klan, no ands ifs or buts.) Anyone who simply says that they do not personally agree with the Neturei Karta but still wish to accept them as another Jewish opinion is taking a stance and is morally culpable in the continued existence of the Neturei Karta. (To their credit the Haredi community has been pretty good at expelling the Neturei Karta.)

Among the many repulsive things in Rabbi Miller’s writing, Rabbi Miller took certain Neturei Karta type stances in regards to Israel. For example, Rabbi Miller has this to say about Zionism:

346. Let us see what they [the Zionists] have accomplished. They have succeeded in gaining for Jews the hostility of the entire Arab world and of most of the “Third World” nations. They have fomented bad relations with Russ and to some extent with France and Mexico. They have created animosity in the United States and elsewhere.
347. These achievements are of small benefit to Jews, but the Israelis and their Zionist proponents are persistent, because they hope to make all lands untenable for Jews (as they did in all Moslem countries) so that Jews be forced to settle in the State of Israel which is losing the population race against the local Arabs (one million Jewish babies have been slain by abortion in the State of Israel from 1948 to 1976, equal to the number of Jewish children slain by Hitler). (Awake My Glory pg. 104)

So according to Rabbi Miller, it is the fault of Zionism, not Arab anti-Semitism, for Arab hostility. It is Israel’s fault and not the Arabs that Sephardic and Yemenite Jews had to flee their homes. This is the classic Jews are responsible for anti-Semitism line. Finally, because Israel has legal abortion, the Israeli government is as bad as Hitler. Not surprisingly the Neturei Karta has made use of Rabbi Miller. Because of this, Rabbi Miller should be about as kosher as a bacon sandwich; not just some of the things that he said but everything. It is not good enough that the Haredi world accepts some things of his and ignores others.

When I was in the Yeshiva Torah Vodaath, one of the rabbis there recommended to me that I read Rabbi Miller as a good source on Jewish thought. (Little did he know that I was already a fan of listening to his tapes and yelling at them.) I am willing to give this rabbi the benefit of the doubt and imagine that if I were to show him the above passage he would be quick to say that he did not agree with it. That being said, the fact that, of all the people he could have told me to read, he sent me to Rabbi Miller raises certain questions. In a more liberal environment, where one comes expecting to be exposed to many different ideas, this would not have been such a problem. For example, someone coming to this blog has to understand that I love and value ideas for their own sake. They should not assume that just because I link to something and say that it is worthwhile to read that I agree with it. The yeshiva system, though, prides itself on the tight control it maintains on its students. These rabbis were, in essence, guaranteeing my father that they would not expose me to any questionable material. As such they cannot play innocent in exposing me to radical anti-Zionism. (This is why you never want to operate an authoritarian system. No one can live up to the implicit responsibility.) So what does it mean when this Haredi rabbi showed significantly less diligence in not exposing me to radical anti-Zionism than he did in not exposing me to say the writings of Rav Abraham Isaac Kook? (I am still waiting for it to be a common Haredi position to say that Rav Kook was a great Jewish thinker who everyone should read even though we may not accept some of his political positions.) I can only conclude that people like this Haredi rabbi do not really oppose Rabbi Miller’s position on Zionism, not in a meaningful way. Of course, when engaging in apologetics with outsiders it is important to deny this position. But, when in private, it can be tossed around as a perfectly legitimate option; something to keep in the bag for when the situation calls for some selective self-serving outrage against the Israeli government.

Luther Wanted to Burn Down Synagogues But He Was Not an Anti-Semite

I spoke about Martin Luther the other day. I asked my Hebrew Academy students to define anti-Semitism and whether Luther was an anti-Semite. (As an early modernist, one of my personal goals is that after a year of my class my students, when they hear the name Martin Luther, should not think of a black preacher with a dream but a fat, beer-drinking German.) Almost every one of my students defined anti-Semitism as hating Jews. They also all saw Luther as an anti-Semite. I sympathize with my students’ feelings. When I was younger I agreed with my students. In my ninth grade history class, I called Luther a bum. The history teacher, Mr. Jesse, responded that he was a Lutheran. I guess you can say oops. (Mr. Jesse was the perfect middle school teacher. He was physically intimidating as in over six feet tall, built like a brick wall, yelled, and threw stuff. He also had a basic command of the material, was a genuinely likable person, and had a great sense of humor.)

There are certainly good reasons for viewing Luther as an anti-Semite. After taking a fairly positive attitude toward Jews early in his career, Luther turned on Jews with a vengeance in On the Jews and their Lies (1543). Luther advises:

First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. …
Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. For they pursue in them the same aims as in their synagogues. Instead they might be lodged under a roof or in a barn, like the gypsies. …
Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them.
Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb.
Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. For they have no business in the countryside, since they are not lords, officials, tradesmen, or the like.
While this aspect of Luther was mostly ignored until the twentieth century, the Nazis made use of Luther, viewing him as a precursor of theirs. The modern Lutheran Church has officially rejected all statements of Luther’s regarding Jews.

I believe that it is important that for anti-Semitism to mean something it has to mean something more than hating Jews. The English hate the French and vice versa. At Ohio State, we have a Hate Michigan Week every November. Pretty much every group on the planet has been hated by someone else, has been the subject of bigotry, discriminated against, and even on occasion killed. Anti-Semitism is something beyond that. Jews are unique in the sort of hatred they have consistently evoked in so many different places and people. What other group of people has something to compare to the blood libel or the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, one of the best-selling books of the twentieth century? The Nazis hated lots of different groups of people yet there was something about the Jews that made them a special target. For example, the German war effort in 1944 was literally sabotaged in order to massacre Hungarian Jewry. So anti-Semitism is not just people hating Jews but people having a pathological hatred of Jews, a hatred of Jews that goes beyond reason.

When dealing with Christian-Jewish relations it is important to distinguish between Christians who were hostile to Jews for what they were and a Christian hostility that went beyond all reality. Let us be clear, medieval Jews were heretics, unbelievers, and blasphemers, who hated Christians. Toldot Yeshu was accepted as fact by Jews. They believed that their ancestors really did kill Jesus and were proud of it. To them, Jesus was a bastard, a heretic, and a magician while the Virgin Mary was a whore. From this perspective, Luther was being perfectly reasonable. All his accusations were things that Jews would have admitted to. Jews cursing Christians was a fact. When Jews, in the sixteenth century, said the curse for heretics in the eighteen benedictions they meant Christians. It was a fact that Jews referred to Christians as goyim. Jews called Jesus the ‘hanged one.' Jews practiced usury. Luther refers to the blood libel accusations. He was agnostic about these charges but argued that Jews hated Christians enough to murder Christians. Again this was a very reasonable assumption.

Luther was a polemicist, who wrote in an aggressive manner; even by the standards of the day Luther’s universe was highly Manichean one, sharply divided between the saved and the unsaved with no grey area in between. It was not just Jews whom he believed to be satanic. He believed that the Catholic Church and even fellow Protestants who disagreed with him were also of the Devil and going straight to Hell. So there was nothing particularly anti-Jewish about his demonization of Jews. The fact that they were Jews was incidental to the fact that they were people who disagreed with him.

In the pre-modern period, all government authority was inherently religious. It was assumed that it was God’s will that a certain person rule. Because of this, there was, almost by definition, no such thing as a non-political religious claim. Every religious claim had political implications and anyone who went against the established religion was by definition engaging in political subversion. For example, if God is not a Catholic then God clearly would not want the Catholic Charles V to rule over his German people and take care of their spiritual welfare like he has the Pope look after their spiritual welfare. Therefore anyone who was not a Catholic in early sixteenth-century Germany was implicitly advocating for the overthrow of Charles V. Because of this it is impossible to ever accuse a pre-modern, Luther or anyone else, of being intolerant of other religions. Luther was perfectly in his rights to advocate the use of violence against Jews or any other religious subversives just as we accept the legitimacy of the use of violence even today against political traitors. And in fact, Jews got off much easier than Luther’s Christian opponents. Luther explicitly warned against directly harming Jews. The fact that Luther only wanted to destroy Jewish property, interfere with the ability of Jews to earn a livelihood and practice their religion while at the same time advocating physical violence against Catholics and Anabaptists begs the question not why Luther was hostile to Jews but why he was not more hostile to them. One suspects that it had something to do with his strong Augustinian leanings.

In conclusion, I do not think it is accurate or helpful to view Luther as an anti-Semite. He was an active opponent of Judaism which is nothing remarkable as to be a Christian, unless you are a very liberal one, requires that one be at least a passive opponent of Judaism, along with every other religion. Luther’s opposition to Judaism was internally consistent. His accusations against Jews are all grounded in solid fact; there was nothing fantastical about them. He took these things to their logical conclusion and endorsed a very reasonable sixteenth-century solution to the problem. Jews today do not have any legitimate grounds for any personal animosity against Luther himself let alone to use Luther as a polemical club against modern-day Lutherans.