studies in casual anti-semitism
what would you do if you blogged this:
"Watch the late great Michel Foucault lay out his entire philosophy to the impossibly irritating Noam Chomsky on You Tube: ..."
and this:
"I have to say, I find Chomsky's politics and the field of linguistics equally insupportable... but that's just me."
And received, as a comment, this:
"I find your blog interesting. I still, however, waver between interest in your academic/cultural criticism random thoughts, and complete disgust at how you allow yourself to be influenced by the typical Jewish-American stubbornness of "whoever tries to understand and rationalise our foes' opinions, is a 'provocative activist' and 'impossibly irritating'--"
I think it would have been interesting to interact with you at uni (I have an MA in English from the Sorbonne), but my sneaking suspicion is I would have found you impossibly irritating most of the time... The genius that was Scott Fitzgerald once said, "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function."
You, seemingly, prefer to go to the bathroom when the ideas you disagree with are being propounded."
and then you responded with this:
"[name removed], I still have the right to an opinion, F. Scott Fitzgerald notwithstanding, do I not?
As for your comments about "typical Jewish-American stubbornness"... wow. Pot/kettle/black much? In the words of another great genius, 'that was wonderful, I love being reduced to a cultural stereotype.' "
and they wrote this:
"You're right, Lauren, you especially have a right to an opinion on your own blog. But in the words of Jamie Whyte, whose book I sincerely recommend - http://www.amazon.com/Crimes-Against-Logic-Jamie-Whyte/dp/0071446435 - it is one of the egregious crimes against logic to invoke the right to one’s opinion as a counter-argument.
Cultural stereotypes are unfortunate and I expected you to rebel against this one, in particular. However, no matter how objective one tries to be, at least a residue of cultural upbringing usually - sometimes unnoticeably to ourselves - sneaks its way into our thoughts/comments. In other words (since we’re onto famous quotes), "a great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices." And I will not be the first person to throw a stone, either...
This said, I am hoping this exchange will be more of a dialogue than an argument."
and then in an email, away from the blog, you replied with this:
I agree that dialogue is more productive than argument but I think in this scenario your ability to reason is hampered by a basic prejudice against a certain kind of "cultural upbringing"-- in this case, you are implying that growing up jewish would somehow predetermine my comments on a given issue.
what a lovely way to challenge your unfortunate stereotype by informing you that I grew up catholic.
and then they replied with this doosy, to which you elected not to reply:
"An intriguing twist indeed!... But then again, my phrase "Jewish-American" was hyphened not in the sense of "African-American", as an ethnic identity tag, but more as a combination of a certain type of culture which I see emanating from the hugely Jewish-influenced (even for non-Jewish people, that is!) circles of important world cities like New York. I guess the reason I posted was my surprise that you deemed Chomsky's politics insupportable and you found him guilty of "provocative activism". I was disappointed, perhaps because I expected, a little too naively maybe, that people at a certain level of intelligence in the US are able to work together against the general brainwashed hype that seems to be de rigeur in a lot of the mass media and mass society. Through watching Stephen Colbert on the Internet, I stumbled upon a guy called Bill O'Reilly, of Fox TV - I thought the guy was a caricature, until I found out he's one of the top TV anchors in the US! In the light of that, I don't understand why clever people capable of well-informed, rational judgement (i.e., the opposites of O'Reilly and his audience) seem less able to form a common perspective. We should be grateful there are people like Chomsky around to diffuse some of the intellectual dimness that, regrettably, plagues so much of Western society."
until, at least, they read this blog post and commented with this:
Of course, there’s hardly any point in stopping to consider the deaths of anyone that might be called Rachida out there. They’re not on the same level of humanity, are they, Lauren? All you could muster to feign impartiality was a half-baked comment on wanting to see the Palestinians installed “in their own country”. You mean, whatever scraps of land left out by the wall that the Israelis would like to shove them onto. But then you couldn’t help showing your true self - proudly wearing an Israeli army t-shirt? Well, let me tell you, there are a number of people out there proudly wearing swastika tattoos and shaved heads because they believe in the right of the Aryan race to exist above others. Or they’re proudly wearing their KKK army gear because they st rongly believe in white supremacy. One of the most illogical, most partial and arrogant statements about the Israeli military I’ve heard out there is that “no other army on earth is more concerned with its public relations and its world image, which certainly curbs any impulse they might have to act out of protocol”. Well, that's it, of course! Except the whole point of PR is damage control - but hey, in Israel they do it the other way around, they hone their PR skills by not providing the opportunity for damage control in the first place! Ça alors! I'm sorry. Until you see the ridiculousness of these comments, you're no better than any foaming-at-the-mouth Islamic fundamentalist out there. They wear army gear with pride, too. And innocent people die on all sides. Regrettably, this has to be the end of my readership of this blog. I think I've tried hard enough, but all the interesting literary links can't make up for this bigoted piece of yours. And, yes, I can hear you say, we're all entitled to an opinion.
and you replied, simply:
wow. you are one twisted chick to have written this-- nothing I have written on my blog merits this kind of comparison. I have deleted this comment because it is extremely offensive. Thank you for never visiting my blog again.
"Watch the late great Michel Foucault lay out his entire philosophy to the impossibly irritating Noam Chomsky on You Tube: ..."
and this:
"I have to say, I find Chomsky's politics and the field of linguistics equally insupportable... but that's just me."
And received, as a comment, this:
"I find your blog interesting. I still, however, waver between interest in your academic/cultural criticism random thoughts, and complete disgust at how you allow yourself to be influenced by the typical Jewish-American stubbornness of "whoever tries to understand and rationalise our foes' opinions, is a 'provocative activist' and 'impossibly irritating'--"
I think it would have been interesting to interact with you at uni (I have an MA in English from the Sorbonne), but my sneaking suspicion is I would have found you impossibly irritating most of the time... The genius that was Scott Fitzgerald once said, "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function."
You, seemingly, prefer to go to the bathroom when the ideas you disagree with are being propounded."
and then you responded with this:
"[name removed], I still have the right to an opinion, F. Scott Fitzgerald notwithstanding, do I not?
As for your comments about "typical Jewish-American stubbornness"... wow. Pot/kettle/black much? In the words of another great genius, 'that was wonderful, I love being reduced to a cultural stereotype.' "
and they wrote this:
"You're right, Lauren, you especially have a right to an opinion on your own blog. But in the words of Jamie Whyte, whose book I sincerely recommend - http://www.amazon.com/Crimes-Against-Logic-Jamie-Whyte/dp/0071446435 - it is one of the egregious crimes against logic to invoke the right to one’s opinion as a counter-argument.
Cultural stereotypes are unfortunate and I expected you to rebel against this one, in particular. However, no matter how objective one tries to be, at least a residue of cultural upbringing usually - sometimes unnoticeably to ourselves - sneaks its way into our thoughts/comments. In other words (since we’re onto famous quotes), "a great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices." And I will not be the first person to throw a stone, either...
This said, I am hoping this exchange will be more of a dialogue than an argument."
and then in an email, away from the blog, you replied with this:
I agree that dialogue is more productive than argument but I think in this scenario your ability to reason is hampered by a basic prejudice against a certain kind of "cultural upbringing"-- in this case, you are implying that growing up jewish would somehow predetermine my comments on a given issue.
what a lovely way to challenge your unfortunate stereotype by informing you that I grew up catholic.
and then they replied with this doosy, to which you elected not to reply:
"An intriguing twist indeed!... But then again, my phrase "Jewish-American" was hyphened not in the sense of "African-American", as an ethnic identity tag, but more as a combination of a certain type of culture which I see emanating from the hugely Jewish-influenced (even for non-Jewish people, that is!) circles of important world cities like New York. I guess the reason I posted was my surprise that you deemed Chomsky's politics insupportable and you found him guilty of "provocative activism". I was disappointed, perhaps because I expected, a little too naively maybe, that people at a certain level of intelligence in the US are able to work together against the general brainwashed hype that seems to be de rigeur in a lot of the mass media and mass society. Through watching Stephen Colbert on the Internet, I stumbled upon a guy called Bill O'Reilly, of Fox TV - I thought the guy was a caricature, until I found out he's one of the top TV anchors in the US! In the light of that, I don't understand why clever people capable of well-informed, rational judgement (i.e., the opposites of O'Reilly and his audience) seem less able to form a common perspective. We should be grateful there are people like Chomsky around to diffuse some of the intellectual dimness that, regrettably, plagues so much of Western society."
until, at least, they read this blog post and commented with this:
Of course, there’s hardly any point in stopping to consider the deaths of anyone that might be called Rachida out there. They’re not on the same level of humanity, are they, Lauren? All you could muster to feign impartiality was a half-baked comment on wanting to see the Palestinians installed “in their own country”. You mean, whatever scraps of land left out by the wall that the Israelis would like to shove them onto. But then you couldn’t help showing your true self - proudly wearing an Israeli army t-shirt? Well, let me tell you, there are a number of people out there proudly wearing swastika tattoos and shaved heads because they believe in the right of the Aryan race to exist above others. Or they’re proudly wearing their KKK army gear because they st rongly believe in white supremacy. One of the most illogical, most partial and arrogant statements about the Israeli military I’ve heard out there is that “no other army on earth is more concerned with its public relations and its world image, which certainly curbs any impulse they might have to act out of protocol”. Well, that's it, of course! Except the whole point of PR is damage control - but hey, in Israel they do it the other way around, they hone their PR skills by not providing the opportunity for damage control in the first place! Ça alors! I'm sorry. Until you see the ridiculousness of these comments, you're no better than any foaming-at-the-mouth Islamic fundamentalist out there. They wear army gear with pride, too. And innocent people die on all sides. Regrettably, this has to be the end of my readership of this blog. I think I've tried hard enough, but all the interesting literary links can't make up for this bigoted piece of yours. And, yes, I can hear you say, we're all entitled to an opinion.
and you replied, simply:
wow. you are one twisted chick to have written this-- nothing I have written on my blog merits this kind of comparison. I have deleted this comment because it is extremely offensive. Thank you for never visiting my blog again.