Any way you look at it, no matter how long you hold your breath - the phenomenon anti-Semitism will continue to be a crucial issue for Germany. Everybody sighs we could easily dispense with the discussion but will let himself be carried away into a comment, as soon as the next debate emerges. By now we have grown accustomed to the public discourse so that we can quite easily recognize a pattern of topicalization. All you need is a scandal. Do not worry if there is none - you can just as easily produces your own. Then everything will go its own way - in five steps.
I) An event, maybe concerning foreign affairs, triggers off a (halfly-) public evaluation of Israel or single Jews or all Jews and their relationship to Nazi Germany or the Federal Republic.
II) Someone retorts this evaluation and raises the objection of anti-Semitism.
III) Hey presto! Providing there is nothing more important lurking in the background (the world championship in football, for instance), the journalistic outcry breaks.
IV) Depending on cold-bloodedness the principle debate (Germanys's attitude towards its past) might be delayed. But to no avail - sooner or later it will emerge.
V) After one or two weeks the turmoil is over and we can turn to daily politics again.
The interesting thing about the debate is it continues to return - restlessly, endlessly, nearly just the way anti-semites have always imagined the eternal pariah Ahasverus, thus making their special contribution to the issue projecting complexes. Since the babble cannot be exterminated, we may conceive it as a kind of dynamic system - a system of thought, to be more precise. Dynamic systems must have a minimum of self-control, which means they cannot simply created by a few intelligent engineers and governed all the time. Self-control second order cybernetics calls autopoiesis means the system produces its elements it consists of by itself - while keeping up constant contact with its environemnt. In relation to anti-Semitism we might draw the conclusion its elements, resentments against Jewish people, make no difference at all what is happening on the outside - providing it can be fit into its ideology. Needless to say, an anti-semite in the flesh can do so effortlessly - if a Jew behaves badly, he will feel just as confirmed as if he behaves well (which he is quick to demask as typically Jewish, crafty dissimulation) or even does not do anything at all. Anti-semites can always conjure up the spectre of wirepuller.
What distinguishes the term anti-Semitism from traditional hatred of Jews historical research for a long time has described as secular, modern forming. While in the Middle Ages Jews had been despised for their religion (anti-judaism), this aspect became of second importance in comparison with racist depreciation during the modern times. Racial argumantation lays the foundation of modern anti-Semitism which refuses to treat Jewish converts in the least. But this does not mean religious resentments did not play a part at all. It seems to be more precise to say that modern anti-Semitism rather establishes a different coupling between the elements of thought; instead of tightly linking Jewish inferiority with the confession it looses the connection between the various relations - no matter if they are moral, religious, economical, racial, political, hygienic. And it is just this kind of ambiguity, the strict depreciation of the Jews on the one hand, the extremely flexibile (if not exchangeable) invention of examples on the other, which makes anti-Semitism a constant threat. Its examples create the impression to be inductive, even though they are only illustrative. There is no objective proof when you know what you will know in the first place.
The purpose anti-Semitism is to serve is obvious. It is the cement which keeps ethnic groups together which long for being regarded as a nation but suffer from a severe inferiority complex - by rigorously excluding people of a (supposed) Jewish descend. There is no use in pointing out the lack of factuality it has, for, as has been said, it is the social function which counts. Were there no Jews, they had to be invented. And, as a matter of fact, it is done. It works so insidiuously well, because the persevering use of anti-Semitic stereotypes conceals their fictional status. It is hard to tell reliable rumours from truth.
Anti-Semitism is so complicated, because it is so unbelievably simple. For that reason it can back its claim by anything, unites various ethnic groups, outlasts the centuries. That is why its counterpart for Reason's and Humanity's sake is similarly simple. At worst it quotes documentaries to give the anti-semites watertight evidence they are mislead, the holocaust really happened and so on. This is an entirely useless endeavour which at best helps to clarify one's own, anti-anti-Semitic position, but not to refute the hatred of Jews. Confrontations induces self-trivilization (just like the antisemites), but just the other way round. One runs the risk of becoming a biasedfriend instead of an enemy of the Jews. At least the public discourse works along the tertium non datur principle. Who is not for the Jews, is against them - including Israel. In a way (quite a tragical irony) both parties deny Jewish people are human beings: The anti-semites by defaming them as subhuman creatures, the philo-Semites by regarding them as mere victims who make no human mistakes on principle. But as philo-Semitism is more intelligent than the anti-Semitism its public argumentation is a little more unseasy, for contrarily to the enemy of the Jews it is aware of its self-trivilization. To put it differently: It is not only the antisemite who thinks there is a taboo of political correctness (that is to say Jews are not Israelis, we are not allowed to criticize Jews), but the philo-Semite does the same - but not to denounce it, but to keep it uo at all costs. Just because of that decreed philo-Semitism is problematic. Fearing one could involuntarily back anti-Semitic hallucinations one does not want to know anything about the lapses the group to be defended makes. As time goes by the boundary between criticism and hatred becomes blurred; the code phrase is 'freedom of opinion'. Today's anti-Semitism is not dangerous, because it is latent (for who can judge from the outside if someone rejects someone because he is Jewish by chance or because he represents all Jews?), but because it is derived: Watching a group be defended all the time against criticism will convert the denied potential into hatred. That way the philo-Semites generate by fear of existing anti-Semitism its derived form - unintentionally and excusably. Their mistake is simply they want to seriously tackle the anti-Semites, thus entering a kind of argumentative symmetry, thus upvaluing anti-semitism. Following the understandable motto to nip things in the bud they put any kind of criticism under a general suspicion. Some critics actually desert to the people who hate.
As can be seen, the hatred of Jews will continue to exist; regardless if one is against it or not. However, it will be much to any human's relief if the first alternative is chosen.
I) An event, maybe concerning foreign affairs, triggers off a (halfly-) public evaluation of Israel or single Jews or all Jews and their relationship to Nazi Germany or the Federal Republic.
II) Someone retorts this evaluation and raises the objection of anti-Semitism.
III) Hey presto! Providing there is nothing more important lurking in the background (the world championship in football, for instance), the journalistic outcry breaks.
IV) Depending on cold-bloodedness the principle debate (Germanys's attitude towards its past) might be delayed. But to no avail - sooner or later it will emerge.
V) After one or two weeks the turmoil is over and we can turn to daily politics again.
The interesting thing about the debate is it continues to return - restlessly, endlessly, nearly just the way anti-semites have always imagined the eternal pariah Ahasverus, thus making their special contribution to the issue projecting complexes. Since the babble cannot be exterminated, we may conceive it as a kind of dynamic system - a system of thought, to be more precise. Dynamic systems must have a minimum of self-control, which means they cannot simply created by a few intelligent engineers and governed all the time. Self-control second order cybernetics calls autopoiesis means the system produces its elements it consists of by itself - while keeping up constant contact with its environemnt. In relation to anti-Semitism we might draw the conclusion its elements, resentments against Jewish people, make no difference at all what is happening on the outside - providing it can be fit into its ideology. Needless to say, an anti-semite in the flesh can do so effortlessly - if a Jew behaves badly, he will feel just as confirmed as if he behaves well (which he is quick to demask as typically Jewish, crafty dissimulation) or even does not do anything at all. Anti-semites can always conjure up the spectre of wirepuller.
What distinguishes the term anti-Semitism from traditional hatred of Jews historical research for a long time has described as secular, modern forming. While in the Middle Ages Jews had been despised for their religion (anti-judaism), this aspect became of second importance in comparison with racist depreciation during the modern times. Racial argumantation lays the foundation of modern anti-Semitism which refuses to treat Jewish converts in the least. But this does not mean religious resentments did not play a part at all. It seems to be more precise to say that modern anti-Semitism rather establishes a different coupling between the elements of thought; instead of tightly linking Jewish inferiority with the confession it looses the connection between the various relations - no matter if they are moral, religious, economical, racial, political, hygienic. And it is just this kind of ambiguity, the strict depreciation of the Jews on the one hand, the extremely flexibile (if not exchangeable) invention of examples on the other, which makes anti-Semitism a constant threat. Its examples create the impression to be inductive, even though they are only illustrative. There is no objective proof when you know what you will know in the first place.
The purpose anti-Semitism is to serve is obvious. It is the cement which keeps ethnic groups together which long for being regarded as a nation but suffer from a severe inferiority complex - by rigorously excluding people of a (supposed) Jewish descend. There is no use in pointing out the lack of factuality it has, for, as has been said, it is the social function which counts. Were there no Jews, they had to be invented. And, as a matter of fact, it is done. It works so insidiuously well, because the persevering use of anti-Semitic stereotypes conceals their fictional status. It is hard to tell reliable rumours from truth.
Anti-Semitism is so complicated, because it is so unbelievably simple. For that reason it can back its claim by anything, unites various ethnic groups, outlasts the centuries. That is why its counterpart for Reason's and Humanity's sake is similarly simple. At worst it quotes documentaries to give the anti-semites watertight evidence they are mislead, the holocaust really happened and so on. This is an entirely useless endeavour which at best helps to clarify one's own, anti-anti-Semitic position, but not to refute the hatred of Jews. Confrontations induces self-trivilization (just like the antisemites), but just the other way round. One runs the risk of becoming a biasedfriend instead of an enemy of the Jews. At least the public discourse works along the tertium non datur principle. Who is not for the Jews, is against them - including Israel. In a way (quite a tragical irony) both parties deny Jewish people are human beings: The anti-semites by defaming them as subhuman creatures, the philo-Semites by regarding them as mere victims who make no human mistakes on principle. But as philo-Semitism is more intelligent than the anti-Semitism its public argumentation is a little more unseasy, for contrarily to the enemy of the Jews it is aware of its self-trivilization. To put it differently: It is not only the antisemite who thinks there is a taboo of political correctness (that is to say Jews are not Israelis, we are not allowed to criticize Jews), but the philo-Semite does the same - but not to denounce it, but to keep it uo at all costs. Just because of that decreed philo-Semitism is problematic. Fearing one could involuntarily back anti-Semitic hallucinations one does not want to know anything about the lapses the group to be defended makes. As time goes by the boundary between criticism and hatred becomes blurred; the code phrase is 'freedom of opinion'. Today's anti-Semitism is not dangerous, because it is latent (for who can judge from the outside if someone rejects someone because he is Jewish by chance or because he represents all Jews?), but because it is derived: Watching a group be defended all the time against criticism will convert the denied potential into hatred. That way the philo-Semites generate by fear of existing anti-Semitism its derived form - unintentionally and excusably. Their mistake is simply they want to seriously tackle the anti-Semites, thus entering a kind of argumentative symmetry, thus upvaluing anti-semitism. Following the understandable motto to nip things in the bud they put any kind of criticism under a general suspicion. Some critics actually desert to the people who hate.
As can be seen, the hatred of Jews will continue to exist; regardless if one is against it or not. However, it will be much to any human's relief if the first alternative is chosen.
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