Steve Salaida’s Controversial Tweets About Anti-Semitism, With Context

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54 Responses to Steve Salaida’s Controversial Tweets About Anti-Semitism, With Context

  1. 1
    David Schraub says:

    It is of course true that Professor Salaita’s tweets should be read in context. But “context” is not simply or even primarily a function of Salaita’s other, proximate tweets. An equal (if not more important) element of context is the relevant state of the world that helps provide the intersubjective meaning listeners are likely to ascribe to his statements, regardless of what Salaita might have intended.

    For example, the “I wish all the West Bank settlers would go missing” tweet came in the context of the kidnapping of three Jewish teenagers who would soon be found dead. That context, in turn, is part of what makes the tweet so offensive, in that it suggests that all Jews in the West Bank should similarly “go missing” via something akin to a violent abduction. Whether Salaita would actually endorse such violence is of little import; the tweet exists in a discursive space where such violence is in fact actively contemplated and a genuine part of the reality of Jewish experience. Likewise, his arguments about anti-Semitism — in essence, that at present the paradigm case of what is called “anti-Semitic” is actually honorable resistance to Zionist oppression — exists in a context where the Livingstone Formulation is a tried-and-true means of dismissing Jewish concerns about anti-Semitism as inherently delusional, sociopathic, made in bad faith, or reactionary.

    In short, particularly when we are talking about -isms, “context” is not simply what the original speaker makes of it. This is why when people called out for saying something racist immediately cry out “you’re taking me out of context” (as they always do), we all wince a bit. “Context”, in this rendition, is other proximate statements by the speaker which indicate that he holds his beliefs in tandem with a stated commitment to racial equality and that his intended meaning was not to be racist (as he understands the term). This might be valid if we only cared about conscious authorial intent, but we don’t — we also care about subconscious prejudices, we also care about impacts (intended or not) on the victims, and we also care about the author’s own response once confronted with the fact that — regardless of what he intended the moment the pen hit the page — his words did in fact contain meanings perceived by the targeted group as hateful. When “context” is limited to other words by the author, what we’re functionally saying is that the speaker has the right to define not just his own conscious intent but the cultural meaning of his assertions as against competing understandings by the group that feels attacked.

    Indeed, Salaita himself made this point in his famous, ever-so-courageous, call out of Macklemore for anti-Semitism. He argued that the relevant question was not whether Macklemore “knew” he was engaging in anti-Semitic stereotyping, but rather the actual fact that such a portrayal “has been used to dehumanize Jews for many centuries, to nefarious ends. It dredges up bad memories and people know how problematic the image is in Western history.” This gets context right — far more important than whether Macklemore has been to a Seder or made statements favorable towards Jewish equality is the cultural meaning of such costuming in the context of Jewish history and experience. That meaning exists independent of however Macklemore conceptualized his own controversial actions at the time.

    None of this is to say that these tweets are not relevant context at all. Again, they are windows into Salaita’s own conscious intent, and Salaita’s state of mind is relevant (albeit not, I think, the most important thing). We can glean from these tweets that, on the one hand, Salaita self-conceptualizes his political commitments as being “fundamentally one of acknowledging and countering the horror of antisemitism,” and on the other hand, he is absolutely confident of his ability to define anti-Semitism in contrast to how it is understood by most Jews (whose allegations he reacts to with “bemused indifference”). Both of these conclusions are useful, but they are in my view only a minor element of the broader “context” which we should bring to bear in understanding Salaita’s speech. By framing “context” as a reference solely to Salaita’s own state of mind, I fear this post reinforces a very deleterious view of how we should understand anti-Semitism and other like -isms.

  2. 2
    Ben Lehman says:

    I realize this is well beside the point, but, oddly, I end up with roughly the same effect for “anti-Zionism” as he does with “anti-semitism.” When people attribute the burning of a synagogue in France to “anti-Zionist activism” it pretty much means my response is “oh, look, more justifications for racism.”

    So, in short, I’m pretty sympathetic to the actual thing expressed.

    yrs–
    –Ben

  3. 3
    Duncan says:

    I’ve been procrastinating about writing a blog post on the Salaita affair, but one thought I keep having is supported by one of his tweets quoted here, “Hard to say in short space…” I have a Twitter account myself, but mostly to follow a few writers I like. I very rarely post anything myself. It seems to me that Twitter may be good for some things, but reasoned debate isn’t one of them, and anyone who wants to use Twitter should be aware of its limitations. Salaita is not one of the more felicitous Twitter users, to my mind. Which is not to say I support Chancellor Wise and the Trustees — I don’t — but to say that serious matters, where context is important, probably should not be discussed on Twitter. That’s why we have blogs and other longer-form media. If you need more room to develop your ideas and arguments, you shouldn’t be thrashing around on Twitter, and then complaining that you were misunderstood because 140 characters. Of course, one risks being misunderstood even when one writes at greater length. But I wonder if Twitter often provides plausible deniability: ‘I didn’t mean that, I was just limited by the Twitter 140-character format!’ (It’s a version of the online standby, ‘I didn’t mean what I wrote, you should have read my mind!’) If you can’t say it clearly in 140 characters, say it somewhere else, using as many characters as you need.

    As for the anti-Semitism question, I think Michael Neumann’s article on the subject at Counterpunch some years ago did a good job of explaining in advance what (I think) Salaita was trying to say in some of these tweets. It took him more than 140 characters, of course.

  4. 4
    Gar Lipow says:

    Of course, if you are going to consider context, you may need to consider of the context of civilians being killed in Gaza, including bombing of hospitals and schools.

  5. 5
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    The issue of anti-Semitism always has to include context because both sides’ arguments are fully defensible on their own.

    Say that you assume that a country has the right to be free from terrorist attacks, for example, or that it has the right to take proactive steps to defend itself from neighbors that have stated an intent to destroy it. Those are pretty defensible positions in the abstract, but they aren’t going to support the Palestinian side very well.

    But that isn’t a proof of anti-Palestinian or pro-Israeli sentiment unless you start looking at how folks apply those same principles to other countries. It’s the difference that proves it, not the philosophy.

    Similarly people who are arguing that Palestinian actions are justified can be examined w/r/t their own approached to other situations. What do they think of attacks against the US? How do they react when a different minority–maybe one they don’t like as much–uses similar tactics against a government that they favor?

    Context is everything.

  6. 6
    Copyleft says:

    Someday we’ll reach the point where crying “Anti-Semitism” will no longer be viewed as some sort of ultimate and unanswerable trump-card argument.

  7. 7
    Duncan says:

    Say that you assume that a country has the right to be free from terrorist attacks, for example, or that it has the right to take proactive steps to defend itself from neighbors that have stated an intent to destroy it. Those are pretty defensible positions in the abstract, but they aren’t going to support the Palestinian side very well.

    I don’t see why they wouldn’t. After all, Palestinians also have a right to be free from terrorist attacks, of which there have been plenty from Israel over the decades; and they have the right to take proactive steps to defend themselves from neighbors (Israel) that have stated (and demonstrated) an attempt to destroy them.

  8. 8
    Myca says:

    Someday we’ll reach the point where crying “Anti-Semitism” will no longer be viewed as some sort of ultimate and unanswerable trump-card argument.

    Looks as though we’ve reached that point, since we’re discussing it … right now.

    This is like the folks who pop into active discussions of racism to complain that the word “racism” just shuts down all discussion.

    —Myca

  9. 9
    David Schraub says:

    Now if we can reach a point where crying about people who have the temerity to raise the issue of anti-Semitism isn’t seen as a valid way of participating in discussions of anti-Semitism, then we’ll have gotten somewhere.

  10. 10
    Ampersand says:

    Raising the question of anti-Semitism – or suggesting that someone is anti-Semitic, as many people have done with Salaida – is reasonable and not “some sort of ultimate and unanswerable trump-card argument,” as Myca correctly says.

    But, also:

    Questioning the charge of anti-Semitism is reasonable and not an “[in]valid way of participating in discussions.”

  11. 11
    desipis says:

    I originally posted this comment elsewhere, but I figure I’ll post it here to see if David (or anyone else) wants to respond.

    This might be valid if we only cared about conscious authorial intent, but we don’t — we also care about subconscious prejudices,

    Attempting to divine someone’s subconscious prejudices from their online writings (let alone from a few tweets) seems to me to be a futile exercise in creativity. It might be reasonable to ask someone to examine their own subconscious bias, it’s another thing to pretend others can do it for them (outside a controlled experiment). To attempt to do so from online writings is little more than an exercise in confirming one’s own prejudices. It’s on par with attempts to diagnose a mental illness based on what someone has written online.

    we also care about impacts (intended or not) on the victims,

    Intention is a significant factor in any moral judgement of the author. Intentionally causing harm is certainly something worthy of indignation. Comments that intentionally cause harm however are at most a sign of ignorance or poor communication. These can be corrected practically through communication and clarification. Intention is more of a moral issue.

    Importantly, ignorance and poor communication are not on the same moral level as malice. If someone who were guilty of the former were accused of the same level of culpability as those who were guilty of the later then I think they can rightly object.

    and we also care about the author’s own response once confronted with the fact that — regardless of what he intended the moment the pen hit the page — his words did in fact contain meanings perceived by the targeted group as hateful.

    Words only have the meaning that people give them. If the audience (whether intended or not) infers a meaning that the author did not intend then it might be reasonable to expect the author to clarify the intended meaning. If the audience continues to infer a meaning that is contrary to the author’s clearly implied or expressed meaning then any harm from that alternative meaning is coming from the audience not the author.

    what we’re functionally saying is that the speaker has the right to define not just his own conscious intent but the cultural meaning of his assertions as against competing understandings by the group that feels attacked.

    It’s not that the author has the right to define a cultural meaning, but rather than the author is not responsible for all possible interpretations of their words. That’s not to say that the audience is responsible for their particular cultural interpretation; with oppressed groups the meaning may have been externally enforced. However, the author isn’t responsible for the impact of that oppression.

    This means it’s not a matter of someone doing something wrong. Rather, it’s a judgement about balancing the goal to minimise harm ultimately caused by oppression against what ever other goals the author is aspiring to achieve. That’s a judgement that seems to be inherently subjective and would be difficult to reasonable make without significant assumptions about the circumstances and motivations of the author. This again comes back to the exercise being one of simply reinforcing one’s own prejudices.

    It’s one thing to suggest that it’s admirable to expend the effort to frame communication in a way that takes into account the cultural understandings of one or more disadvantaged groups. It’s quite another thing to suggest that there is a moral obligation to do so.

  12. Amp,

    When David wrote, “crying about people who have the temerity to raise the issue of anti-Semitism,” I don’t think he was talking about questioning whether a charge of antisemitism is valid or not. I think he was referring to people who insist that anyone who raises the issue of antisemitism is using it as a silencing technique and that, therefore, it is unnecessary to take the charge at all seriously.

    Despisis:

    It’s one thing to suggest that it’s admirable to expend the effort to frame communication in a way that takes into account the cultural understandings of one or more disadvantaged groups. It’s quite another thing to suggest that there is a moral obligation to do so.

    The problem I have with this line of reasoning is that it does not take into account the fact that communication is not an abstract thing that does not have real, material consequences in people’s lives in the real world. Before “marital rape” was a concept, before “child labor” was a concept—meaning before those things could be talked about, the language used to talk about married women and sex, or children and work, actually served to hide the material reality of those people’s lives. So, yes, I think there is a moral obligation when you are talking about the experience of a group of people to which you do not belong to speak in a way that takes their understanding of what you say—with everything that implies about their position in the world and your position relative to them—into consideration.

  13. 13
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    Despisis:

    It’s one thing to suggest that it’s admirable to expend the effort to frame communication in a way that takes into account the cultural understandings of one or more disadvantaged groups. It’s quite another thing to suggest that there is a moral obligation to do so.

    The problem I have with this line of reasoning is that it does not take into account the fact that communication is not an abstract thing that does not have real, material consequences in people’s lives in the real world. Before “marital rape” was a concept, before “child labor” was a concept—meaning before those things could be talked about, the language used to talk about married women and sex, or children and work, actually served to hide the material reality of those people’s lives. So, yes, I think there is a moral obligation when you are talking about the experience of a group of people to which you do not belong to speak in a way that takes their understanding of what you say—with everything that implies about their position in the world and your position relative to them—into consideration.

    RJN, I don’t entirely get your response. It seems to be an attempt to address Depisis, but
    -You don’t use a “disadvantaged” qualifier, so your reply is more general;
    -you restrict it to “talking about the experiences of the group in question,” so this part is incredibly limiting.

    I have a gut feeling that what you wrote isn’t precisely what you meant. But I’m often wrong. Can you clarify? Would a discussion “Is this action, which Salaita supports, anti-semitic?” need to take into account the understanding(s) of Salaita, anti-semites, Jews, or…?

  14. 14
    desipis says:

    Richard Jeffrey Newman,

    communication is not an abstract thing that does not have real, material consequences in people’s lives in the real world.

    Actually, I agree with that. However, I think that the ‘offensive’ component of the material consequences is not necessarily that signficiant. All the positive material consequences of communication need to be taken into account as well. Obviously for someone slinging a racial epithet directly at a member of that race, the offensive component is profoundly significant. However, I think if one is discussing a popular political issue, the material consequence of discussing the direct substance can be far more significant than the indirect and untended offense caused.

    I think there is a moral obligation when you are talking about the experience of a group of people to which you do not belong to speak in a way that takes their understanding of what you say

    The problem I have with this standard is that anyone who is not accutely aware of the understandings of a particular group is not going to be able to meet that moral obligation. This will morally prevent them from discussing anything tangentially related to that group. Given that discussions are one of the most effective ways of facilitating understanding, this seems like the loss of a rather postive material consequence. That’s not to mention that it comes across as rather elitist and serves to reinforce educational and cultural privileges that enourage the development of skills to discuss topics in a politically correct manner.

    I also think that framing the issue as one about correcting a point of ignorance or poor communication is much more likely to elicit a positive response. Telling someone they have committed a moral wrong for simply expressing an opinion is just going to put them offside.

    the language used … actually served to hide the material reality of those people’s lives.

    The problem here how to determine language that best reflects objective reality. There seems an risk that any debate about language will just devolve into people fighting for language that simply encodes their own biases rather than actually identifying language that magically sheds itself of all the problems inherenetly part of human languages in the first place.

  15. Desipis (and maybe this will answer you as well, G&W):

    Yeah, I think the way I wrote my comment makes it sound like I draw a much more absolute line than I actually do. Just because I don’t have much time, I am probably going to break my response down into a couple of different comments over the course of the day or the next two days.

    However, I think if one is discussing a popular political issue, the material consequence of discussing the direct substance can be far more significant than the indirect and untended offense caused.

    I am a little uncomfortable discussing this totally in the abstract, so let’s talk about the specific example of issues connected with Israel-Palestine-Zionism-antisemitism. I do not think it is antisemitic when a Palestinian in Israel or Palestine uses the words Jew and Israeli interchangeably because the particular circumstance in which they find themselves, especially the fact that Israel is a specifically Jewish state, makes that conflation entirely reasonable. I do have a problem with it when people here in the United States make that same conflation—and it is a very common one. I do not, of course, immediately call someone who talks about how horrible it is that “the Jewish people” are oppressing the Palestinians antisemitic, but if they persist in doing so once I have pointed out the problem with that formulation, then I do have a problem trusting them, no matter how much I might agree with everything else they have to say about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (And just to be clear, I am not talking about people who want to discuss whether, because Israel is a Jewish state, and therefore claims to exist in the name of Jews throughout the world, Jews in the rest of the world have a particular responsibility to take a stand vis-a-vis this issue; I am talking about people who assign a collective responsibility to all Jews for the specific actions—for example, the most recent invasion of Gaza—of the Israeli government.)

    Similarly, when someone like Steven Salaida makes statements about Zionists and Zionism in the context of critiquing the Israeli occupation, I agree that there is a problem when people focus a discussion on whether or not he and/or his statements are antisemitic in order to obscure the material conditions of that occupation, including obviously the material conditions of something like the most recent war. I also think, however, that it is wrong to characterize the effect of the antisemitism in such critiques simply as “giving (indirect or unintended) offense”—and, for the purposes of this example, I am going to grant that Salaida’s statements were antisemitic, even though I am not persuaded that they were.

    If that kind of antisemitic rhetoric gains ascendency, it will gain ascendency not just in how people talk about and treat Israel, but also in how people talk about and treat Jews, and while I might not feel the material effects of that immediately in my life here in the United States, I am very aware—given the history of antisemitism (and I am not referring here just to the Holocaust)—of how those effects can and do play out not only in other countries, but also over time. To ignore that history, to pretend that the antisemitism in something like Salaida’s comments—and remember I am granting that it is there only for the sake of this argument—doesn’t matter in light of the much more immediate problem of the Israeli invasion would be not just to deny a very basic fact of my own history, but also what this history teaches me about the value and necessity of being vigilant when it comes to antisemitism.

    All of that said, I want to amplify a point I made at the beginning of this comment: there is a time and a place for taking on that kind of antisemitism and I agree that doing so in a way that obscures the reality of what goes on between the Israelis and the Palestinians is a problem.

  16. 16
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    there is a time and a place for taking on that kind of antisemitism and I agree that doing so in a way that obscures the reality of what goes on between the Israelis and the Palestinians is a problem.

    Isn’t that just kicking the can down the road? Instead of arguing that something is antisemitic or not you’re merely arguing about whether even if it were antisemitic, addressing the charge of antisemitism would “obscure the reality” of some more important issue.

    If anything, this approach seems to open up the door for people to be even more dismissive of antisemitism, by claiming that it is rendered irrelevant by more important things.

  17. 17
    desipis says:

    Richard Jeffrey Newman,

    I do not, of course, immediately call someone who talks about how horrible it is that “the Jewish people” are oppressing the Palestinians antisemitic, but if they persist in doing so once I have pointed out the problem with that formulation, then I do have a problem trusting them, no matter how much I might agree with everything else they have to say about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. … I am talking about people who assign a collective responsibility to all Jews for the specific actions … of the Israeli government.

    Aren’t you shifting into a criticism of the conscious and intentional interpretation of their comments, rather than their subconscious prejudices or a potentially inadvertant interpretation of their comments? The morality of expressing particular beliefs, although an interesting topic, is a little outside the scope of my original comment.

    To shift your example a little bit, if someone were to repeated say “the jews are murdering the palestians”, and justify it with an excuse such as “well we all know I mean Israel, I’m not blaming all jews”, then I suppose it could fit into my point.

    To ignore that history, to pretend that the antisemitism in something like Salaida’s comments—and remember I am granting that it is there only for the sake of this argument—doesn’t matter in light of the much more immediate problem of the Israeli invasion would be not just to deny a very basic fact of my own history, but also what this history teaches me about the value and necessity of being vigilant when it comes to antisemitism.

    I’m not suggesting that the history of antisemisim or the risk of repeating some of that history is something that “doesn’t matter”. I’m suggesting that when considering comments that could be unintentionally interpreted as antisemetic rhetoric, the extent of their negative impact the issue of antisemitism is likely outweighed by the extent of their positive impact on the discussion about Israel’s actions. I’m just not convinced that a whole heap of comments that could unintentionally be interpreted as antisemetic represent a significant risk of causing the rise of actual antisemitism more generally; certainly not enough of a risk to project moral responsibility for the beliefs and actions of others back onto the makers of such comments.

    If there was an indiciation that comments from a particular person were being used the spread or justify antisemetic beliefs then perhaps I could see an argument about that particular person having an obligation to avoid such consequences. However, I think the mere possibility that the comments may have such an impact, because I think it’s so unlikely, isn’t enough to justify a moral obligation to not make such comments.

  18. G&W:

    Isn’t that just kicking the can down the road?

    Yes, I suppose it is, and probably I would need to rephrase what I wrote so that it is more nuanced, because I mean something more nuanced. I was, when I wrote it, thinking specifically of David Schraub’s ill-fated guest posting gig at Feministe at the start of the last Israeli incursion into Gaza. (Sorry I don’t have the time to dig up the links on Feministe, but if they are still live there, you’ll find them in this post on my blog, What We Talk About (And Don’t Talk about) When We Talk About (And Don’t Talk About) antisemitism and Israel. I tried finding the post on Alas, where I also posted it, but I could not.)

    My memory is that David—and he can correct me if I am wrong—tried to make the conversation about antisemitism in a way that seemed to erase what was actually happening to the Palestinians in Gaza, and he had a really hard time getting out from under the criticism that came his way because of that. (And some of the criticism was quite pointedly antisemitic, as I remember.)

    So, yeah, I’ll own not being clear about what I meant in that part of my comment.

    Desipis:

    Aren’t you shifting into a criticism of the conscious and intentional interpretation of their comments, rather than their subconscious prejudices or a potentially inadvertant interpretation of their comments?

    I guess I am not sure what you mean by “their subconscious prejudices or a potentially inadvertant interpretation of their comments” as distinct from the example I gave. Your example about the person who says “we all know I mean Israel, not all Jews” after being told—let’s say by me, who is Jewish–that saying “Jews” instead of Israel is problematic, does not concern either of those, it seems to me, because if the person insists on continuing to say “Jews,” then he or she is willfully choosing to ignore what I have said about my experience as a Jew, which is antisemitic. He or she may or may not have very important things to say about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but I no longer have any reason to trust the motives behind it.

    You may be right that in the immediate grand scope of things my, personal discomfort or lack of trust doesn’t matter much—especially if what the person says and/or does really does make a positive difference over there. That doesn’t mean he or she should not be called out on the antisemitism. And I will reiterate what I said above about the danger of that kind of willfulness becoming ascendant in how people talk about and therefore treat Jews.

    This is probably all I have time for today. I will try to come back later tonight or tomorrow.

  19. 19
    David Schraub says:

    I’ve been hard at work suppressing the memory of the Feministe experience (unfortunately, I’ve found myself unable to even read the website ever since then). So I can’t verify RJN’s understanding of the events.

    The problem I have with this standard is that anyone who is not accutely aware of the understandings of a particular group is not going to be able to meet that moral obligation. This will morally prevent them from discussing anything tangentially related to that group. Given that discussions are one of the most effective ways of facilitating understanding, this seems like the loss of a rather postive material consequence. That’s not to mention that it comes across as rather elitist and serves to reinforce educational and cultural privileges that enourage the development of skills to discuss topics in a politically correct manner.

    I think there are a couple of problems with this. The first is that it overstates how this norm is enforced. President Biden’s recent “shylock” slip provides a good example. He was mildly chastised for it by the ADL, he apologized and acknowledged the error, the ADL agreed it was just that — an error — and everyone moved forward. A few overzealous SJ warriors notwithstanding, the problem usually comes up not on the initial statement but when people insist on maintaining problematic discursive patterns even after they’re called out (and thus after they’re on notice).

    Second, I think this artificially divides out anti-Semitism (or racism or whatever) from how discussions “related” to the group generally. I’m reminded of Joseph Levine’s request that we debate the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state “openly on its merits, without the charge of anti-Semitism hovering in the background.” The problem being, of course, that whether or not such a position is compatible with a commitment against anti-Semitism seems to be a rather integral part of its merits. Saying one wants to talk about Israel but not talk about anti-Semitism is like saying one wants to talk about affirmative action but not racism — at best it badly distorts the conversation, at worst it renders it gibberish. There is no entitlement to be able to speak about a group without having to critically engage with that group’s experiences. It is a good thing that we frontload issues of oppression in people’s minds when having discussions about oppressed people.

    Third, I think the burden placed upon new entrants to the conversation is much thinner than you make it out to be. One doesn’t need to know the ins and outs of Jewish oppression; all one really needs to know as a beginner is that there is such a history of oppression and that one’s opinions should be informed by that history (a much smaller ask). If one doesn’t know the history, the way to engage in these conversations is to inquire about the history so one can gain the necessary tools in one’s toolkit. The problem is that people often skip this step entirely because they feel entitled to hold very strong opinions about Jews without actually knowing much about them.

  20. 20
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    The problem is that people often skip this step entirely because they feel entitled to hold very strong opinions about Jews without actually knowing much about them.

    This is…. very limiting. And bizarre, insofar as you are apparently arguing for people not to even have opinions, as a general rule, unless they know some predetermined amount about the subject.

    Perhaps you will see the problem in this example:

    Bob says “Israel should not exist as a Jewish nation.”
    You strongly disagree.
    Perhaps you even conclude, as an initial assumption, that Bob is antisemitic.

    In that example, why would you get to judge Bob given that you don’t know him? Do you get to claim–as many people do in he SJ movement on similar issues–that Bob must not know enough, because he would not otherwise say what he said?

    How would you justify YOUR strong opinions about Bob’s view without a detailed examination into Bob’s level of knowledge and understanding? Who gets to decide how much Bob “has to know” before he is permitted to opine?

    Your approach seems to be a conversation-stifling, discourse-killing, beast. Truth blossoms in open fields, not dark closets.

  21. 21
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    To be more specific: It is limiting enough that one should have to account for everyone’s interest groups in the final results of an argument. “Don’t make the outcome stick too much of a burden on the oppressed folks” can be difficult on its own, even though it makes sense.

    But it makes no sense to avoid the normal ups and downs that GET us to the destination. Asking questions like “should Israel exist?” or “should Israel annex more land?” or “should there be a free right of return for anyone who wants it?” are perfectly reasonable ways to test the validity of a position. So are ever more difficult questions.

    If you make those impossible–or if you make them too expensive by requiring a ton of caveats and apologies and etiquette–then you remove one of the age-old ways to reach a good outcome. And you end up unable to challenge any of the base assumptions of either side. That isn’t wise.

    Sure, there are times where you need to have a “given these assumptions…” conversation. A class on critical race theory isn’t necessarily the place to bring up discussions about whether blacks are at all disadvantaged by race.

    But on more public issues, that isn’t true at all.

  22. 22
    David Schraub says:

    Very poetic. But I might counter that truth is a matter of reasoned consideration and inquiry, not gut instincts (admittedly less poetic). In any event, a truly open field has to open to the possibility of anti-Semitism.

    As for your hypothetical –as you say, I know very little about Bob, and have no key to divine into his state of mind. What do I know? Well, I know quite a bit about the salience of the position he is forwarding; so to a large extent I can assess the anti-Semitism of that (a question independent from Bob’s own anti-Semitism or lack thereof). And since Bob made his statement without justification or further adornment, I know that he’s the sort that makes claims about Jewish that the reasonable person would know Jews tend to find inflammatory without justification or further adornment, which is a bit suspect. The flat declaration “Israel should not exist as a Jewish nation” is hardly an “open field” type statement, of the sort we’d expect to hear from someone who recognizes the sensitivity of the issue and how it touches on matters of Jewish equality (not, or not just, because of the substantive content; but because of the lack of adornment).

    So, I would say, let’s open the field up. I don’t need to know anything about Bob to make claims about the potential anti-Semitism in the position being advanced. And that’s a really important question in assessing the position. So I would broach the issue. And then we can actually find out if this is an aspect that Bob has or has not thought about the issue in depth. Maybe he has! But maybe not, and if not it’s perfectly fair game — as a part of the discourse — to point that out.

    Notably none of this goes to whether Bob is “permitted to opine.” I cannot stop Bob from opining. I can counteropine that his opinions are ill-founded; and I can urge that in the future he base his opinions on better foundations. To act as if such counterarguments suppress discourse, rather than are an integral part of discourse, is what really shoves discussion of anti-Semitism and like issues into a dark closet.

  23. 23
    Grace Annam says:

    gin-and-whiskey:

    …insofar as you are apparently arguing for people not to even have opinions, as a general rule, unless they know some predetermined amount about the subject.

    I don’t think that’s an accurate representation of David’s argument. He said, and you quoted him as saying:

    …very strong opinions…

    If I understand David correctly, he thinks that it would be better if people who know little about a subject refrained from forming very strong opinions about those subjects, and I have to say that I think it would be a pleasanter and happier world if that were more true. That said, humans form opinions based on next-to-nothing, when they feel like it, and in other news, water is wet.

    Why am I commenting on this sidebar, and not on the topic of this post? Because I know that I don’t know enough about the topic to be likely to discuss it meaningfully. (And perhaps you do; I’m likewise in no position to judge anyone else’s fitness on this topic; I’m speaking only of myself in that specific comment, not anyone else.)

    Grace

  24. 24
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    David Schraub says:
    September 18, 2014 at 11:39 am
    Very poetic. But I might counter that truth is a matter of reasoned consideration and inquiry, not gut instincts (admittedly less poetic). In any event, a truly open field has to open to the possibility of anti-Semitism.

    A right outcome can still come from an antisemitic motive. A bad outcome can come from a pure motive. By focusing on antisemitism in the process of seeking outcomes you are privileging motive over outcomes.

    Motive matters when examining your analyses for bias, or when you are evaluating the worth of sharing costs/benefits between different groups. But just as an MRA can make a true point regarding feminism, an antisemite can make a true point about Judaism. Feminists and Jews alike would like to fight against recognizing that truth as a means of converting people to their cause, but that is not a logically valid fight.

    As for your hypothetical –as you say, I know very little about Bob, and have no key to divine into his state of mind. What do I know? Well, I know quite a bit about the salience of the position he is forwarding; so to a large extent I can assess the anti-Semitism of that (a question independent from Bob’s own anti-Semitism or lack thereof)

    Are you claiming that a position can, independently of the motivations behind it, be anti-Semitic? A position is not hostile in and of itself. Only the motives or biases are.

    And since Bob made his statement without justification or further adornment, I know that he’s the sort that makes claims about Jewish that the reasonable person would know Jews tend to find inflammatory without justification or further adornment, which is a bit suspect.

    Eh. I call BS. Alternatively, I call “so what if Bob offends you?” A ton of people–including plenty of Jews I know–make statements like that, and they are not and should not be judged by uber-sensitive claims about what “adornments” they are required to include lest they then be tarred with the wrong brush.

    Not to mention that I suspect your “appropriate adornments” would probably require your opponents to say things that they may not actually WANT to say. This is a tactic which i refer to as “conversational affirmative action,” in which folks seek to try to control the outcome of a conversation by claiming that people must affirm certain things in order to speak in the first place.

    What sort of acknowledgments would you require? That Jews need protection? That they are oppressed on a worldwide basis? To a degree that we still need to protect their country as a religious haven? That they were entitled to Israel in the first place? Those things would be ridiculous, because it obviously leaves no room for the perfectly-valid disagreement. So I can’t imagine you’d go there.

    I suspect you’d prefer that folks go through the motions of acknowledging that some people have those strong beliefs, before opposing them. But not only would that be an utter waste of time but it switches roles: present your own argument if you want, but don’t demand that your opponents do it for you.

    To act as if such counterarguments suppress discourse, rather than are an integral part of discourse, is what really shoves discussion of anti-Semitism and like issues into a dark closet.

    They are an integral part…of suppressing discourse.
    You can talk about anti-semitism all you want. But if you bring it up in a discussion without a very good reason then you know darn well that (like accusations of “racism” and other stuff) it will either divert the arguments until the accusation is hashed out, or that it will make people avoid them entirely.

    I venture to say that most folks who throw those monikers around are pretty aware of how things work. Continuing to pretend that the stifling is only an incidental rather than an intentional result would either be ludicrous or make us obliged to consider such folks to be quite unperceptive.

  25. 25
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    Why am I commenting on this sidebar, and not on the topic of this post? Because I know that I don’t know enough about the topic to be likely to discuss it meaningfully. (And perhaps you do; I’m likewise in no position to judge anyone else’s fitness on this topic; I’m speaking only of myself in that specific comment, not anyone else.)

    Grace

    I’ll leave that to David to judge.

    David…?

  26. 26
    David Schraub says:

    Are you claiming that a position can, independently of the motivations behind it, be anti-Semitic? A position is not hostile in and of itself. Only the motives or biases are.

    I think we’ve found the crux of our disagreement. Yes, I am saying a position can be anti-Semitic independent of the motives behind it (and … really? “A position is not hostile in of itself”, only as a product of bad motives? That can’t be right.).

    In fact, I tend to think motives have very little importance in combating anti-Semitism. I care about anti-Semitism as a tangible barrier to full Jewish inclusion as equals in society. On the one hand, I care about such barriers whether or not they stem from malign attitudes about Jews. If X policy is incompatible with equal Jewish inclusion, it doesn’t matter that much whether it is adopted because of specific illicit motives or some other reason. The impact is the same. And on the other hand, I care very little about such malign attitudes except insofar as they manifest in actual barriers to Jewish inclusion. If someone privately stewed every day about how much he hated Jews, but it never manifested in any tangible anti-Jewish practice (he treated Jews equally, didn’t demean them outloud, did not promote any policies which hurt them, etc.) … honestly, what do I care?

    We care about bad motives for two main reasons. First, because people with bad motives will often pursue and implement bad practices (which emphasizes that the motive is secondary to the practice; given your MRA example I’m surprised you disagree here). And second, because motive does have significant relevance to whether someone is “a bad person” or not. That inquiry has its place, but I don’t fundamentally view the anti-discrimination project as identifying the bad guys and chiding them for their misbehavior. I view it as implementing conditions consistent with the full equality of marginalized groups (see Alan David Freeman’s distinction between “perpetrator” and “victim”-centered views of anti-discrimination). And so I want to see “adornments” not because it provides some window into the speaker’s soul, but because talking about these issues without having thoroughly considered the question from the vantage point of protecting marginalized groups means talking about the issue poorly.

    Finally, I agree that in practice many people will leave a conversation related to a marginalized group if it is insisted that they incorporate into their position a thorough analysis of racism/anti-Semitism/whatever. But that’s them “stifling conversation” — they’re laying down a marker that they’ll only talk about, say, affirmative action so long as they don’t have to talk about racism. There is no such entitlement to be free from the vicinity of racism-discussions, and such a demand is the opposite of “open fields”. As Jerome McCristal Culp put it in the racism context, this is not a request for “discussion” but rather for “a coerced argument…that concedes the key intellectual contest.”

  27. 27
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    David Schraub says:
    September 18, 2014 at 1:45 pm

    Are you claiming that a position can, independently of the motivations behind it, be anti-Semitic? A position is not hostile in and of itself. Only the motives or biases are.

    I think we’ve found the crux of our disagreement. Yes, I am saying a position can be anti-Semitic independent of the motives behind it (and … really? “A position is not hostile in of itself”, only as a product of bad motives? That can’t be right.)

    Antisemitism has a meaning, which (broadly stated) isn’t “taking a position against the interests of Jews” but rather “taking a position against the interests of Jews because of the fact that they are Jews.”

    In fact, I tend to think motives have very little importance in combating anti-Semitism. I care about anti-Semitism as a tangible barrier to full Jewish inclusion as equals in society. On the one hand, I care about such barriers whether or not they stem from malign attitudes about Jews. If X policy is incompatible with equal Jewish inclusion, it doesn’t matter that much whether it is adopted because of specific illicit motives or some other reason. The impact is the same.

    Not at all.

    One impact is–quite reasonably–antisemitic and based on prejudice, and therefore inherently immoral. A society which rewards immorality is a problem, especially since it leads to more immorality.

    The other impact is part and parcel of living in a society which occasionally sticks burdens on various different people at various different times. Sometimes the Jew at summer camp is stuck on water carrying duty; sometimes not. So long as they weren’t stuck because they were Jewish, that’s a good thing; we need water, after all. A society in which he can get out of it by claiming antisemitism is less ideal, not more ideal.

    And on the other hand, I care very little about such malign attitudes except insofar as they manifest in actual barriers to Jewish inclusion. If someone privately stewed every day about how much he hated Jews, but it never manifested in any tangible anti-Jewish practice (he treated Jews equally, didn’t demean them outloud, did not promote any policies which hurt them, etc.) … honestly, what do I care?

    These two things sum up the problem. You seems to think that
    “treating Jews equally” and “not promoting any policies which hurt them” are simultaneously possible. But almost all policies hurt someone; there’s no reason that Jews shouldn’t bear their share of the load along with everyone else. Arguing for special treatment (which includes applying the antisemitism label to bad outcomes without regard for motives or proportionality) is a net loss.

    I don’t fundamentally view the anti-discrimination project as identifying the bad guys and chiding them for their misbehavior. I view it as implementing conditions consistent with the full equality of marginalized groups (see Alan David Freeman’s distinction between “perpetrator” and “victim”-centered views of anti-discrimination).

    Probably another disagreement w/r/t equality. As I have posted a few times here there are various different types of equality (input, process, outcome) and you can’t have more than two at the same time.

    Problem is, as soon as you focus on outcome equality it requires a degree of balancing–or handicapping, if you will. And that basically turns into an unwinnable argument about the fairness, morality, and prejudices involved in the handicapping process. There isn’t ANYONE I would trust to do that right, including me.

    Perhaps there would be some truly objective person who had absolutely no stake in the argument. But usually people who are arguing have a stake (and therefore a bias.)

    And so I want to see “adornments” not because it provides some window into the speaker’s soul, but because talking about these issues without having thoroughly considered the question from the vantage point of protecting marginalized groups means talking about the issue poorly.

    Like I said above, “I suspect your “appropriate adornments” would probably require your opponents to say things that they may not actually WANT to say.” This is it.

    So here, for example, you are requiring your opponents to concede that Jews are (a) marginalized, (b) and require protection, (c) which we are obliged to provide. Not only that, but I understand (correct me if I’m wrong here) that a disagreement would be considered antisemitic.

    That puts “opponent” in a pretty limited category. It’s all well and good to preach to the choir if you insist, but it isn’t the same as preaching on the street. That isn’t an argument.

    Finally, I agree that in practice many people will leave a conversation related to a marginalized group if it is insisted that they incorporate into their position a thorough analysis of racism/anti-Semitism/whatever. But that’s them “stifling conversation” — they’re laying down a marker that they’ll only talk about, say, affirmative action so long as they don’t have to talk about racism.

    No, that’s entirely wrong. People are willing to talk about racism. Just like they’re willing to talk about antisemitism.

    What they’re not willing to do is to talk about it on your terms, with your requirements, using your preferred language, and accepting your labels of their views, with the possibility of being tarred with the “antisemitic” brush if you disagree. Which is–no surprise here–because your concept of “talking about antisemitism” involves a set of assumptions that supports your side, before the argument even begins.

    I can probably define a set of assumptions under which you would be unwilling to discuss Gaza with me, and I can probably define a set of assumptions under which a POC would be unwilling to discuss racism. But unlike you, I wouldn’t claim (at least not with a straight face) that your refusal to converse meant that you “wouldn’t discuss Gaza openly.” I understand that isn’t what “open” means. Why should I be allowed to set the rules in the first place?

    There is no such entitlement to be free from the vicinity of racism-discussions, and such a demand is the opposite of “open fields”. As Jerome McCristal Culp put it in the racism context, this is not a request for “discussion” but rather for “a coerced argument…that concedes the key intellectual contest.”

    Well, yes. My point exactly. But I think you have it pretty much backwards regarding the coercion and concession.

  28. 28
    David Schraub says:

    Antisemitism has a meaning, which (broadly stated) isn’t “taking a position against the interests of Jews” but rather “taking a position against the interests of Jews because of the fact that they are Jews.

    This “meaning” is, at the very least, a contested one (as this conversation demonstrates). Another one is “conditions which impede full Jewish inclusion as equals in society”. I agree that not every time a Jew is burdened with something does that act “impede full Jewish inclusion as equals in society” (e.g., the water-carrying example); I also agree that imposing a burden on Jews because they’re Jewish will usually have such an effect. I just don’t agree that motivation as a necessary condition for anti-Semitism. And as we’ll see in a second, neither do you.

    And on the other hand, I care very little about such malign attitudes except insofar as they manifest in actual barriers to Jewish inclusion. If someone privately stewed every day about how much he hated Jews, but it never manifested in any tangible anti-Jewish practice (he treated Jews equally, didn’t demean them outloud, did not promote any policies which hurt them, etc.) … honestly, what do I care?

    These two things sum up the problem. You seems to think that
    “treating Jews equally” and “not promoting any policies which hurt them” are simultaneously possible. But almost all policies hurt someone; there’s no reason that Jews shouldn’t bear their share of the load along with everyone else. Arguing for special treatment (which includes applying the antisemitism label to bad outcomes without regard for motives or proportionality) is a net loss.

    First, this isn’t responsive to the point I make above. You agree that someone who promotes policies that hurt Jews and who actually does harbor hatred of Jews is anti-Semitic — that’s the crux of your distinction between permissible and impermissible calls for Jews to carry water. I’m saying that, at the very least, bad impacts are a necessary condition for us to call things anti-Semitism and (as a corollary) bad motives are not a sufficient condition.

    Second, that “or proportionality” aside is a major departure from the standard you articulate above. Proportionality is all about impacts and you properly separate it out as an independent problem from bad motives. Hence, it seems we agree that at least in some cases anti-Semitism can exist absent malign motives. Of course, proportionality is just one example of many where bad motives don’t capture behavior we clearly think is wrongful. Another example is complete indifference.

    Like I said above, “I suspect your “appropriate adornments” would probably require your opponents to say things that they may not actually WANT to say.” This is it.

    So here, for example, you are requiring your opponents to concede that Jews are (a) marginalized, (b) and require protection, (c) which we are obliged to provide. Not only that, but I understand (correct me if I’m wrong here) that a disagreement would be considered antisemitic.

    I mean … yes? It may be that we discover that some people either can’t or don’t want to harmonize the positions they take with a commitment to protecting Jews’ right to inclusion as equals. I don’t see why that’s a bad thing, so much as the point of the inquiry. This argument seems to boil down to a claim that an ethics claim is invalid if it requires us to take positions we don’t want to. If I say “opposing anti-Semitism means affirming X and Y”, and someone responds “I don’t want to affirm those,” it does not follow that my formulation must be revised. This defines anti-Semitism out of existence — any definition will involve asking some people to make affirmations that they don’t want to. My understanding of anti-Semitism may be wrong, but this is not the reason why.

    No, that’s entirely wrong. People are willing to talk about racism. Just like they’re willing to talk about antisemitism.

    What they’re not willing to do is to talk about it on your terms, with your requirements, using your preferred language, and accepting your labels of their views, with the possibility of being tarred with the “antisemitic” brush if you disagree. Which is–no surprise here–because your concept of “talking about antisemitism” involves a set of assumptions that supports your side, before the argument even begins.

    That bolded part seems to be the kicker. I don’t toss out “anti-Semitism” as a slur to make people feel bad; I have an understanding of the concept as a principle which I apply in normative debates. After all, we’re having this conversation even though we explicitly are drawing on different assumptions on what anti-Semitism is. But it’s not cheating or dirty pool for me to apply the definition I advance and defend. Again, there is no special right in discourse or argument to have one’s position characterized as anti-Semitic.

  29. 29
    desipis says:

    David Schraub:

    The first is that it overstates how this norm is enforced. President Biden’s recent “shylock” slip provides a good example. He was mildly chastised for it by the ADL, he apologized and acknowledged the error, the ADL agreed it was just that — an error — and everyone moved forward.

    My criticism wasn’t about how the norm is enforced in practice, rather of the way you stated the norm in your comment. There are two factors worth noting here. The first is that as a senior politican, I think Biden has an obligation to use broadly inclusive language in his role as Vice President. I don’t think everyone has that some obligation. The second is that his comments weren’t about jews, therefore outside his obligations as Vice President, I don’t see his comments as problematic. Sure, the character might be jewish but in a modern context the metaphoric critique is targeted at the behaviour in isolation and not his race/religion.

    Second, I think this artificially divides out anti-Semitism (or racism or whatever) from how discussions “related” to the group generally.

    I’m not saying we should divide out content from the discussion, but rather keep the discussion centred away from making moral judgements of the individuals attempting to participate in it.

    Saying one wants to talk about Israel but not talk about anti-Semitism is like saying one wants to talk about affirmative action but not racism

    It’s saying that one wants to be able to criticise Israel/affirmative action without being direct accused of anti-semitism/racism. Acknowledging that anti-semitisim/racism exist in the world is different from leveling the charge at someone with whom you disagree. Conversely, state that anti-semitism/racism are not relevant to a particular issue (e.g. actions of Israel/criticsm of Obama) is not itself invalid or anti-semstic/racist.

    It is a good thing that we frontload issues of oppression in people’s minds when having discussions about oppressed people.

    I’m not sure its good to frontload anything in people minds if you’re attempting to have a free and open discussion.

    The problem is that people often skip this step entirely because they feel entitled to hold very strong opinions about Jews without actually knowing much about them.

    People are entitled to hold opinions; we live in a free society. You should be challenging those opinions and their justifications, not the person’s entitlement to hold an opinion. It should be easy to counter someone’s gross ignorance with a few curt examples. Unless of course you put them on the defensive by doing something like declaring their opinions ‘morally wrong’.

  30. 30
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    I’m saying that, at the very least, bad impacts are a necessary condition for us to call things anti-Semitism and (as a corollary) bad motives are not a sufficient condition.

    To use an old and extreme law school example, this suggests that a man who wouldn’t intentionally shoot a Jew (but accidentally does) might be antisemitic, but one who wants to (and doesn’t) would not. Since you seem to otherwise be focusing on morality here more than practicality, I don’t understand your “bad motives are not a sufficient condition” claim.

    Second, that “or proportionality” aside is a major departure from the standard you articulate above. Proportionality is all about impacts and you properly separate it out as an independent problem from bad motives. Hence, it seems we agree that at least in some cases anti-Semitism can exist absent malign motives. Of course, proportionality is just one example of many where bad motives don’t capture behavior we clearly think is wrongful. Another example is complete indifference.

    I hate to say this–it is entirely my fault for not catching it–but I think that should have been an “and.” Sorry! What i said was really not clear, and I didn’t realize it until I read your response.

    I wanted to acknowledge that proportionality matters; i didn’t want to set it out on its own. IOW, deliberately selecting a putatively-neutral test which will unduly burden a class can be (but is not always!) evidence of a motive to harm that class.

    If I say “opposing anti-Semitism means affirming X and Y”, and someone responds “I don’t want to affirm those,” it does not follow that my formulation must be revised.

    At first blush, this is the equivalent of saying “here are the foundational assumptions of critical race theory;” folks can either talk or not but you aren’t obliged to change what CRT is.

    But of course antisemitism is a word with a lot of meanings to other people besides you, so painting your own field isn’t necessarily fair play in every situation.
    If you say “discussing the war in Gaza means accepting X and Y as predicates, and/or affirming A and B, in order not to be called antisemitic” then it gets a lot more complicated and less defensible.

    This defines anti-Semitism out of existence — any definition will involve asking some people to make affirmations that they don’t want to.

    If you’re debating whether something applies, then you have to start with a rule or general definition and then agree on whether a set of facts meet that rule.

    I mentioned “requiring your opponents to concede that Jews are (a) marginalized, (b) and require protection, (c) which we are obliged to provide, and that a failure to concede that would be antisemitism.”

    The example of what I think would be appropriate would be “requiring your opponents to concede THAT IF Jews are (a) marginalized, (b) and require protection, (c) which we are obliged to provide, AND IF WE DON’T DO THAT, then it is wrong.” That still leaves you able to make the same points–but you have to argue them, not merely demand them as a precondition.

    My example requires you to agree on a process. Yours requires them to agree on an outcome.

    My understanding of anti-Semitism may be wrong, but this is not the reason why.

    Likewise, at least for the ‘may be wrong’ part. Personally speaking I am greatly enjoying this discussion, and–as always–am open to being convinced.

  31. Desipis:

    [Regarding shylock,] the character might be jewish but in a modern context the metaphoric critique is targeted at the behaviour in isolation and not his race/religion.

    I wonder how you know this.

    G&W:

    Perhaps I am missing something in your discussion with David, but isn’t there such a thing as institutionalized racism, in which racism exists independently of the motives of any one individual in the institution? Language is an institution; language, along with the meanings it contains/creates, exists independently of the motives of any individual who speaks it. That seems pretty self-evident to me.

  32. 32
    David Schraub says:

    I am enjoying this conversation as well, though if I may be cheeky I’d suggest that our mutual enjoyment performatively contradicts the claim that advancing the definition of anti-Semitism that I do is inherently toxic to discourse.

    To use an old and extreme law school example, this suggests that a man who wouldn’t intentionally shoot a Jew (but accidentally does) might be antisemitic, but one who wants to (and doesn’t) would not. Since you seem to otherwise be focusing on morality here more than practicality, I don’t understand your “bad motives are not a sufficient condition” claim.

    Two things. First, I’d much rather be alive with someone who wished me harm than dead at the hands of someone careless. Second, our slipshod friend is not himself anti-Semitic. I’ll agree that some mens rea (at least subconscious) is necessary before we label a person anti-Semitic (I’m not convinced intentionality is the motive — it may be something akin to recklessness or even negligence. But I’ll agree it is not a strict liability offense). But I of course think we can also label actions anti-Semitic. And in the hypothetical you describe, I don’t think the action is anti-Semitic because the killing did not impede the victim’s equal inclusion in society as a Jew. As a parallel, I consider gay marriage bans to be wrong on a lot of levels; including that they’re heterosexist, but I don’t think they’re anti-Semitic even though they do wrong some (gay) Jews.

    I did think we are getting somewhere with the proportionality issue, but alas, cursed typos. But I think Desipis gives us another bite at the apple. Let’s stipulate (as I have no doubt is true) that the Veep did not intend anything anti-Semitic in using the term “Shylock”. Let’s also stipulate that when negative attributes are symbolically associated with particular minority identities — regardless of authorial intent — that helps create and promulgate negative stereotypes about the group (this is hard to prove in the particular case, but there is a decent amount of psychological evidence backing up this claim as a theoretical matter). Your formulation neuters our ability to interdict the creation of anti-Semitic attitudes; practices that create anti-Semitism, so long as they come with innocent motives, would exist outside the ambit of discussion about anti-Semitism. We could address the symptom but not the cause.

    I admit I am having trouble following your process/outcome argument — possibly because I tend to be skeptical of the distinction between process and substance.

  33. 33
    Ampersand says:

    I don’t have time to participate in this conversation, but I’m really enjoying being a spectator here.

    David:

    (see Alan David Freeman’s distinction between “perpetrator” and “victim”-centered views of anti-discrimination)

    Is this a reference to “Legitimizing Racial Discrimination through Anti Discrimination law: A Critical Review of Supreme Court Doctrine”? And if so, do you happen to have a copy you could email to me? It sounds like something I’ve been thinking about for a while but having trouble articulating, so I’m interested in reading it.

    Also, if I’m understanding you correctly, you’re defining anti-Semitism as “conditions which impede full Jewish inclusion as equals in society.” How would you apply that definition to discussions and proposals regarding Israel, since Israel is itself a society? Would we replace “in society” with “among nations,” for instance?

  34. 34
    desipis says:

    Richard Jeffrey Newman :

    Desipis:

    [Regarding shylock,] the character might be jewish but in a modern context the metaphoric critique is targeted at the behaviour in isolation and not his race/religion.

    I wonder how you know this.

    The lack of any indication that the bankers exploiting servicemen were jewish or any indication anyone actually thinks they were?

  35. 35
    desipis says:

    David Schraub:

    Let’s stipulate (as I have no doubt is true) that the Veep did not intend anything anti-Semitic in using the term “Shylock”. Let’s also stipulate that when negative attributes are symbolically associated with particular minority identities — regardless of authorial intent — that helps create and promulgate negative stereotypes about the group (this is hard to prove in the particular case, but there is a decent amount of psychological evidence backing up this claim as a theoretical matter). Your formulation neuters our ability to interdict the creation of anti-Semitic attitudes; practices that create anti-Semitism, so long as they come with innocent motives, would exist outside the ambit of discussion about anti-Semitism. We could address the symptom but not the cause.

    Let’s consider another example. Let’s stipulate that those criticising Salaita’s tweets aren’t intending to be racist towards Palestinians. Let’s also stipulate that calling various criticisms of Israel as anti-semitic creates the impression that all criticisms of Israel are anti-semitic (simple classical conditioning if you want a reference to psychology here). This implies that by complaining about their treatment by Israel, the Palestinians are just a group of anti-semitic bigots. Thus, by labelling criticisms of Israel as anti-semitic you’re actually creating racist attitudes towards Palestinians.

    I don’t know about other people, but I don’t think it’s really fair to use the label ‘racist’ for those criticising Salaida’s tweets for being anti-semitic, even if by the logic above their comments might cause a racist effect.

    If we’re going to acknowledge history in all of this, I think it’s important to acknowledge the history of terms such as ‘racism’ and ‘anti-semitism’. They have a substanial history of refering to peoples beliefs about races and are loaded with a fairly significant negative moral judgement of those beliefs. Using those terms against a person or their comments is (intentionally or not) inviting quite a harsh moral condemnation of that person along with a (potentially false) implication about their beliefs.

    Stretching these terms to cover unintential and difficult to prove outcomes just seems to be an attempt to stretch the moral judgement without a serious discussion about whether the circumstances are morally comparable. I have similar issues with the way terms such as ‘sexism’, ‘misogyny’, etc have been stretched.

    And yes, I realise I’m undermining my case for supporting the use of ‘Shylock’.

  36. Desipis:

    The lack of any indication that the bankers exploiting servicemen were jewish or any indication anyone actually thinks they were?

    So you were talking about this one specific instance, not making a generalization about modern usage of the term Shylock? That makes more sense. Your original formulation made it sound like you were saying something else, which directly contradicts my own experience with the epithet.

    Let’s also stipulate that calling various criticisms of Israel as anti-semitic creates the impression that all criticisms of Israel are anti-semitic (simple classical conditioning if you want a reference to psychology here).

    Why would I stipulate this? “Calling various criticisms of Israel anti-semitic” is so vague as to be meaningless. I, for example, don’t call various criticisms of Israel anti-semitic, just very specific types. You may agree or disagree with my characterization of those criticisms, but it’s not like I apply the antisemitism label willy-nilly, wherever and whenever I please.

    One more thing, before I forget:

    Stretching these terms to cover unintentional and difficult to prove outcomes just seems to be an attempt to stretch the moral judgement without a serious discussion about whether the circumstances are morally comparable.

    Could you give a specific example of what you mean by the text I’ve bolded?

  37. 37
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    Richard Jeffrey Newman says:
    G&W:
    Perhaps I am missing something in your discussion with David, but isn’t there such a thing as institutionalized racism, in which racism exists independently of the motives of any one individual in the institution?

    Different racial outcomes can result from institutional actions, to be sure. And of course some of those differences can be either caused by malice, or are the result of prior malice with some sort of continuing circumstances. I’m leery of the term “institutional racism” because I think it is often applied too broadly, but I certainly understand what it is and think it exists. Also, in this context it’s necessary to use a different term than “institutional racism.”

    That’s because using a single term to apply makes it impossible to discuss the distinctions I’m trying to make. (which is, I’m sure, at least partly intentional.)

    Language is an institution; language, along with the meanings it contains/creates, exists independently of the motives of any individual who speaks it. That seems pretty self-evident to me.

    But of course language relates to motive. To use the example of racism: defining racism as “intent irrelevant” means that the language itself has mooted the argument of “I didn’t intend to be racist therefore I’m not.” Defining it as “requiring power” means that the language itself has mooted the argument of reverse racism, since that cannot exist. This was part and parcel of the motives to redefine the term. (a redefinition which I oppose–mostly because it makes it more difficult to discuss some very important things that need discussion. I disagree with the semantics much more than I disagree with the theory.)

  38. 38
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    David Schraub says:
    September 18, 2014 at 10:38 pm
    I am enjoying this conversation as well, though if I may be cheeky I’d suggest that our mutual enjoyment performatively contradicts the claim that advancing the definition of anti-Semitism that I do is inherently toxic to discourse.

    Well, like I said above, “if you bring [antisemitism] up in a discussion without a very good reason then you know darn well that (like accusations of “racism” and other stuff) it will either divert the arguments until the accusation is hashed out, or…

    Your definition isn’t a problem in the context of a discussion about what antisemitism means. It’s a problem elsewhere, though.

    I did think we are getting somewhere with the proportionality issue, but alas, cursed typos. But I think Desipis gives us another bite at the apple. Let’s stipulate (as I have no doubt is true) that the Veep did not intend anything anti-Semitic in using the term “Shylock”.

    OK.

    Let’s also stipulate that when negative attributes are symbolically associated with particular minority identities — regardless of authorial intent — that helps create and promulgate negative stereotypes about the group (this is hard to prove in the particular case, but there is a decent amount of psychological evidence backing up this claim as a theoretical matter).

    OK.

    Your formulation neuters our ability to interdict the creation of anti-Semitic attitudes; practices that create anti-Semitism, so long as they come with innocent motives, would exist outside the ambit of discussion about anti-Semitism. We could address the symptom but not the cause.

    What makes you say that? Here is one of a universe of examples:
    “Biden isn’t antisemitic and his statement was made in good faith. But we should remain cognizant of the fact that “shylock” is offensive to some folks and that, unlike here, it is often used in an antisemitic fashion. It’s best off avoided.”

    I admit I am having trouble following your process/outcome argument — possibly because I tend to be skeptical of the distinction between process and substance.

    I’ve written a lot on this in the past; I’ll try to find a link.

    But to give a broad explanation of the distinction:

    If you focus on process, then you basically have to agree on the rules ahead of time. Committing to a process means that you don’t (and can’t) know what the outcome will be of everything, but you’ve developed a process that you think is just and fair. The ultimate proof of a process argument is when you get a result that you don’t like–and you accept it as a reasonable and acceptable risk of the process.

    If you focus on outcome, then you are refusing to agree on ANY set of rules. Outcome proponents will adjust the rules on a per-issue or sometimes per-test basis, in an effort to meet the outcome they want. If they get a result they don’t like, they reject the process as having been unfair and demand a different result.

    Because there is so much history and testing involved, AA is usually a good source for an example. Taken from a real case: When the fairness of a firefighter test is disputed, a process person would say “write the test you want. Decide that it’s fair. Give it to all potential fire fighters. However many applicants pass must be OK, because the test was already predetermined to be fair.” An outcome person would, if they didn’t like the results, say “who cares? Even if I participated in writing the test, the test didn’t produce the results that I think it should produce, so therefore the test was unfair.”

    Process folks like me are easy to convince. If you can get me to buy into a process (here is a set of criteria for what constitutes antisemitism) and can demonstrate the process (these examples meet the criteria) then we are fine with the results (I concur that is antisemitism, even if I thought otherwise before and even if the concurrence is grudging.)

    Outcome folks are almost impossible to convince, because most evidence that doesn’t agree is merely discarded as unreliable… because after all, if it were reliable it would agree with their point.

  39. 39
    David Schraub says:

    I think global society is a society. And of course also discourse about Israel can affect Jews outside of Israel (as we’re regrettably seeing in South Africa, where a prominent political leader called for “eye for eye” retaliation against the umbrella Jewish organization for every civilian death in Gaza). [I should have a copy of Freeman’s article at home; I’ll look for it and email you].

    What makes you say that? Here is one of a universe of examples:
    “Biden isn’t antisemitic and his statement was made in good faith. But we should remain cognizant of the fact that “shylock” is offensive to some folks and that, unlike here, it is often used in an antisemitic fashion. It’s best off avoided.”

    (1) I agree “Biden isn’t antisemitic.” As noted, I distinguish between anti-Semitic people and positions or statements — while I would say the usage of “shylock” is anti-Semitic, the statement is not.

    (2) Why, under your framework, is it “best off avoided”? Two reasons are presented — (a) because it “is offensive to some folks” and (b) because it is “often [albeit not here] used in antisemitic fashion” [i.e., with bad motives]. But so what? We could easily say the same about your Jewish water-carrier example — it (a) burdens Jews and (b) may often be motivated by anti-Semitic instincts. I thought the whole point of your framework was that what distinguishes licit and illicit burdens is entirely dependent on the motivations of the particular speaker. Now it seems the rule is different: we should avoid placing burdens on members of particular groups if they often are associated with illicit motives, regardless of the actual motives in any particular case.

    (3) My hypothetical doesn’t actually depend on Shylock “often” being used in an anti-Semitic fashion. Maybe Desipis is right and it rarely is (at least in the terms you define anti-Semitism) — that today almost all usages of Shylock are not motivated by any animus toward Jews. Rather, the hypothetical postulates that irrespective of authorial intent the consistent association of Jew with greed produces anti-Semitism in others. You bootstrap on a descriptive claim that most of these authorial intents are anti-Semitic, but that isn’t a given. If we lack that, but still have the anti-Semitism-producing effects, are we up a creek?

    Your defense of process-based arguments is quite lucid, and emphasizes their important role in providing predictability and reliance. But it is incomplete on at least two levels. First, at the margins everyone agrees that we’ll abandon adherence to agreed-upon rules if the outcomes are terrible enough. If we agree upon a set of rules, plug in a given set of facts, and out pops “genocide” or “total global annihilation”, nobody will go “sad, but Rules are Rules and we agreed.” We test our commitment to rules by following them even when they lead to outcomes we don’t like, but we also test the validity of rules by checking to see if they lead to outcomes that are tolerable. Fundamentally, the reason we have moral norms of any kind (including rules) is to create good states in the world; rules are useful because reliance and predictability are important to creating such a good state — a world in which we never or rarely could rely on any set of predictable, ex ante principles would not be a good one. But that still places them within the ambit of consequentialism, and they can be outweighed.

    Second, this approach provides no guidance on what values we bring to bear regarding how we identify “good” rules in the first place; and seems to render entirely incoherent any argument regarding reassessing rules already in place. I’m in agreement with Iris Marion Young that the search for overarching principles of justice does not describe how everyday moral inquiry occurs in practice; rather, we are searching for means to solve particular problems in particular contexts. But even if we were to adopt an approach of identifying and agreeing upon a set of broad ex ante rules — how we would know what rules are good ones, save by some conception of the state of the world we hope to create?

    It seems obvious that the way people assess ex ante whether a rule is good or bad is based on a prediction regarding the state of the world that rule will create; i.e., its expected outcomes. On the one hand, it cannot be the case that any deviation from one’s expectations is grounds for abandoning the rule. On the other hand, it equally cannot be the case that a rule which leads to results sufficiently divergent (and worse) than expectations is sacrosanct simply because it was agreed-upon in advance. Certainly, that doesn’t describe how things work in practice: It isn’t the case that we assert a set of moral rules at age 18 and then are stuck with them come hell or high water. All of us are perpetually in the process of reassessing the moral principles we adhere to; the way we do that is by checking the principle against the outcomes it leads to and deciding whether it is still worthwhile as against competitors. Both as an initial matter and going forward, the way we make that assessment is inherently consequentialist in nature.

  40. 40
    Harlequin says:

    Process folks like me are easy to convince. If you can get me to buy into a process (here is a set of criteria for what constitutes antisemitism) and can demonstrate the process (these examples meet the criteria) then we are fine with the results (I concur that is antisemitism, even if I thought otherwise before and even if the concurrence is grudging.)

    Outcome folks are almost impossible to convince, because most evidence that doesn’t agree is merely discarded as unreliable… because after all, if it were reliable it would agree with their point.

    This distinction bothered me, and I think I’ve figured out why*. You seem to take “disagreed with the outcome of a process” as “disagreed with the criteria used to set up the process” and not “perceived a failure of that process to meet its own criteria.” That is, if the criterion was “find people who are best able to perform the tasks of a firefighter”, then your position casts the objection “but this lets through fewer women than I thought it should” as a failure to meet the criterion “produces the number of women I expected”, when the objection may as easily be the failure to meet the criterion “finds the best potential firefighters” by artificially and preferentially excluding capable women.

    Basically, your position assumes that a carefully considered construction of a process means that that process is free from unintended error, and so critiquing an outcome cannot have anything to say about the process itself.

    Now, it’s not true that all such objections would be like that: some people would want equality of outcomes regardless of process. But your construction dismisses the possibility of a reasoned objection out of hand.

    *(I mean, apart from the “I am reasonable and make evidence-based decisions, unlike those circular-argument folks on the other side of the aisle!”)

  41. 41
    Harlequin says:

    (Um, or I could crosspost with David Schraub making a much better argument than I! Thanks, that was very interesting reading.)

  42. 42
    Daran says:

    My understanding is that the term “Zionist” refers to someone who supports Israel and/or its government. I construe anti-Zionist accordingly. With these definitions in place:

    But just as an MRA can make a true point regarding feminism, an antisemite can make a true point about Judaism.

    This is offensive. MRA is not analogous to antisemite. Reasonable analogies would be

    Anti-feminist v. feminist ~~ anti-Zionist v. Zionist
    Misogynist v. women ~~ misandrist v. men ~~ antisemite v. Jew

    MRAs don’t fit into this framework at all, since they aren’t strictly speaking necessarily in opposition to women’s rights or feminism. This is of course muddied by the fact that many MRAs are also anti-feminists and many anti-feminists claim to be MRAs but aren’t.

  43. 43
    Myca says:

    To piggy-back on what both David Schraub and Harlequn have said as regards process vs. outcome, there are plenty of cases where we see a wildly divergent outcome and use that as evidence of a tainted process.

    See: “Saddam Hussein won re-election with 97% of the vote!” I’d wager that the reaction of the overwhelming majority of readers is not, “My, what a fine example of the process working.”

    Why on earth would we evaluate, “97% of the people who pass the firefighter exam are white,” any differently?

    —Myca

  44. 44
    Jake Squid says:

    The disagreement about the use of Shylock has gotten me curious…

    Is the phrase “Jew you down,” anti-semitic? Why or why not?

  45. 45
    Eurosabra says:

    One of the things that bugs me about Salaita’s tweets is that (within the conflict, and seen from within the conflict) power is seen to be instrumental: you use it to hurt the other side and help yours, and morality is a luxury of outsiders. As an emergency services worker in Israel who dealt with suicide terrorism, I approach Salaita’s “Israeli settlers should just go missing” tweet as a conscious attempt to normalize kidnapping and murder of certain Israelis and one type of American Jew (the dual-national “settler”, with the quotes indicating it as a category of person, a legally/spatially-defined identity) in American academic discourse, to empower the Palestinian militants who carry out such operations by forestalling American objections and *especially* to create a context to begin law enforcement interference by American agencies with American-Jewish involvement in and support of “settler” security in Judea and Samaria/West Bank.

    As with the Holy Land Five, this is an area where American Palestinian and Jewish diaspora communities’ financial involvement (and more importantly) influence on *American political discourse*, including the discourse of legitimacy about who may provide material support and what material support may be provided, and who constitutes a legitimate victim of terror and who doesn’t, have a direct and meaningful influence on bank accounts and body counts. It’s another front in a total war, or at least the parts of this conflict along the Seam Line which are perceived as a total war, if not fought as such.

  46. 46
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    David Schraub says:
    September 19, 2014 at 12:00 pm
    I think global society is a society. And of course also discourse about Israel can affect Jews outside of Israel (as we’re regrettably seeing in South Africa, where a prominent political leader called for “eye for eye” retaliation against the umbrella Jewish organization for every civilian death in Gaza). [I should have a copy of Freeman’s article at home; I’ll look for it and email you].

    What makes you say that? Here is one of a universe of examples:
    “Biden isn’t antisemitic and his statement was made in good faith. But we should remain cognizant of the fact that “shylock” is offensive to some folks and that, unlike here, it is often used in an antisemitic fashion. It’s best off avoided.”

    (1) I agree “Biden isn’t antisemitic.” As noted, I distinguish between anti-Semitic people and positions or statements — while I would say the usage of “shylock” is anti-Semitic, the statement is not.

    I don’t mean to ignore this precisely, but it is seeming more and more like a non-ideal hypothetical. Can we move on from Biden?

    (2) Why, under your framework, is it “best off avoided”? Two reasons are presented — (a) because it “is offensive to some folks” and (b) because it is “often [albeit not here] used in antisemitic fashion” [i.e., with bad motives]. But so what? We could easily say the same about your Jewish water-carrier example — it (a) burdens Jews and (b) may often be motivated by anti-Semitic instincts. I thought the whole point of your framework was that what distinguishes licit and illicit burdens is entirely dependent on the motivations of the particular speaker. Now it seems the rule is different: we should avoid placing burdens on members of particular groups if they often are associated with illicit motives, regardless of the actual motives in any particular case.

    I’m having a helluva day, so I may be unusually obtuse, even for me, which is saying something. But I really do not understand the point you are trying to make here.

    (3) My hypothetical doesn’t actually depend on Shylock “often” being used in an anti-Semitic fashion. Maybe Desipis is right and it rarely is (at least in the terms you define anti-Semitism) — that today almost all usages of Shylock are not motivated by any animus toward Jews. Rather, the hypothetical postulates that irrespective of authorial intent the consistent association of Jew with greed produces anti-Semitism in others.

    Hmm. (This, FWIW, seems to be your clearest statement yet of this point, and the most compelling.)
    So let me try this generally, which is my usual strategy as a “process person:”
    irrespective of authorial intent the consistent association of Jew with greed produces anti-Semitism in others.
    becomes, for example
    irrespective of authorial intent the consistent association of black people with violence produces racism in others;

    Huh. I can see that this might be true.

    You bootstrap on a descriptive claim that most of these authorial intents are anti-Semitic, but that isn’t a given. If we lack that, but still have the anti-Semitism-producing effects, are we up a creek?

    Well, then, let’s hypothesize (a) no intent by the author; and (b) bad effects of other people. I don’t think you’re up a creek, but I do think your claim ought to be “this word might cause other people to enact antisemitism,” rather than “using that word is antisemitic.”

    Your defense of process-based arguments is quite lucid, and emphasizes their important role in providing predictability and reliance. But it is incomplete on at least two levels.

    Yes, I certainly admit it’s incomplete.

    First, at the margins everyone agrees that we’ll abandon adherence to agreed-upon rules if the outcomes are terrible enough. If we agree upon a set of rules, plug in a given set of facts, and out pops “genocide” or “total global annihilation”, nobody will go “sad, but Rules are Rules and we agreed.” We test our commitment to rules by following them even when they lead to outcomes we don’t like, but we also test the validity of rules by checking to see if they lead to outcomes that are tolerable.

    Yes, agreed. That said, from a process perspective it is still good to try to define the outcome margins before you start.

    Fundamentally, the reason we have moral norms of any kind (including rules) is to create good states in the world; rules are useful because reliance and predictability are important to creating such a good state — a world in which we never or rarely could rely on any set of predictable, ex ante principles would not be a good one. But that still places them within the ambit of consequentialism, and they can be outweighed.

    Sure.

    Second, this approach provides no guidance on what values we bring to bear regarding how we identify “good” rules in the first place; and seems to render entirely incoherent any argument regarding reassessing rules already in place.

    Why? The process argument doesn’t prevent lengthy discussions of which process to use. Nor does it prevent iterative processes–federal sentencing and drug policies are examples of things where we say “huh, that didn’t work, let’s tweak it and try again.”

    I agree that it doesn’t provide guidance, and I don’t dispute that you can have moral issues that are very relevant. But those come up when forming the process.

    It seems obvious that the way people assess ex ante whether a rule is good or bad is based on a prediction regarding the state of the world that rule will create; i.e., its expected outcomes.

    Yes and no. Often it is really about a judgment of fair process–which, thouhg it technically involves looking at outcomes, doesn’t do so in the way that I think you mean. To use a parenting example akin to the Fox and the Cheese, my kids are often more concerned that things are distributed according to a fair process; and less concerned about what they actually get. So are many of my clients: hoping for “a fair ruling, whatever that is” is a process argument.

    On the one hand, it cannot be the case that any deviation from one’s expectations is grounds for abandoning the rule. On the other hand, it equally cannot be the case that a rule which leads to results sufficiently divergent (and worse) than expectations is sacrosanct simply because it was agreed-upon in advance.

    No, which is why I advocate some advance decisions about how to look at things, or what would cause us to start again.

    Certainly, that doesn’t describe how things work in practice: It isn’t the case that we assert a set of moral rules at age 18 and then are stuck with them come hell or high water. All of us are perpetually in the process of reassessing the moral principles we adhere to; the way we do that is by checking the principle against the outcomes it leads to and deciding whether it is still worthwhile as against competitors. Both as an initial matter and going forward, the way we make that assessment is inherently consequentialist in nature.

    That depends on the person. Some people (like me) evaluate their moral rules, and try to form processes which are evenly applied. Personally speaking this is one of the ways in which I try to avoid the effects of my own biases. By developing moral rules and trying to stick with them even for people or circumstances which I might not like the results, I can attempt a larger degree of moral consistency. The consequences for me are mostly relevant as a means of tuning the process.

    Other folks–perhaps you’re one of them though I don’t know–adopt a “no process process,” by which they are seeking individual best results rather than consistency. I freely admit that in its ideal form, this type of approach will lead to the superior results. Any process has tradeoffs, and if you can avoid them all then you’re the equivalent of having King Solomon as a benevolent and perfect dictator. But in my experience (and I don’t mean to target you here, as I am only talking generally) the “no process process” is more commonly a way for people to justify immorality than it is for them to achieve morality. The “no process process” allows people to make very immoral decisions without ever having to face, or discuss, the justifications behind them, since they “just know” what to do. And since it also makes people unusually resistant to change IMO, I think it’s a bad thing.

  47. 47
    David Schraub says:

    I’m having a helluva day, so I may be unusually obtuse, even for me, which is saying something. But I really do not understand the point you are trying to make here.

    I’m trying to figure out why — under your framework — someone who has no bad intentions should nonetheless avoid saying “Shylock.” You conjoined two reasons: first, that it is offensive (hurts) Jews, and second, that though the particular speaker may have fine intentions, many people who use it don’t. The problem is this seemed inconsistent with your general rule that all that matters is the intention of the particular speaker; not the intentions of other (even most other) people. In the Jewish water-carrier example, for example, you said the only issue was whether the particular decision was motivated by Jewishness — what distinguished licit versus illicit water-carrying demands was not how frequently these demands were motivated by anti-Jewish sentiment, but whether the specific case was so motivated. Why not the same thing for Shylock?

    Why? The process argument doesn’t prevent lengthy discussions of which process to use. Nor does it prevent iterative processes–federal sentencing and drug policies are examples of things where we say “huh, that didn’t work, let’s tweak it and try again.”

    I don’t understand how you square this with your Ricci inspired hypothetical wherein it is supposedly illegitimate to alter the process in response to it not working the way one would like. Perhaps we should state in advance what sorts of results would render the process intolerable. But then we are back in the realm of mandating substantive, outcome-based preconditions — which I thought was what you objected to way back in #30.

    The point is that we pick the processes we pick because they give us most of the results we want, most of the time (as River Tam might put it, it’s not just “part of the job”, it’s why you took the job). A process which doesn’t do that won’t be appealing to us, a process which fails to do that will be rejected. So what processes do and don’t appeal to us will generally depend on what outcomes we want to see, and debates about creating or reforming process will always primarily be debates about substantive entitlements. That we will accept some deviation from our Solomonic preferences doesn’t mean that the debate is not primarily substantive in nature. And that we care primarily about substance doesn’t mean we never care about adhering to ex ante rules (because I can and do substantively care about values like predictability, consistency, and reliance).

    Also — yes, I consider “Jew you down” to be anti-Semitic; as it both creates and depends upon an understanding of Jews as embodying negative behavior.

  48. 48
    David Schraub says:

    Oh, I almost forgot:

    Well, then, let’s hypothesize (a) no intent by the author; and (b) bad effects of other people. I don’t think you’re up a creek, but I do think your claim ought to be “this word might cause other people to enact antisemitism,” rather than “using that word is antisemitic.”

    I think we’re getting close to a semantic distinction here. Surely at the very least we can agree that the project of combating anti-Semitism includes opposition to statements which produce anti-Semitism. That is, part of our commitment to oppose anti-Semitism include opposing practices that produce anti-Semitism. From there, it seems a very short leap to say that anti-Semitism conceptually includes the (re)production of anti-Semitism.

  49. 49
    desipis says:

    Richard Jeffrey Newman:

    So you were talking about this one specific instance, not making a generalization about modern usage of the term Shylock?

    Yes and no. It was that instance and the fact that when I learnt about what ‘Shylock’ was referring to it was also when I learned about the historical connection people had made between money lenders and jews, and how the stereotype was outdated (and racist). Thus using the term in a racist way always seemed like it would be quite anachronistic.

    Why would I stipulate this?

    I was putting the stipulation forward as an equivilant to yours:

    Let’s also stipulate that when negative attributes are symbolically associated with particular minority identities — regardless of authorial intent — that helps create and promulgate negative stereotypes about the group

    Perhaps I could have been more clear that I was suggesting my stipulation as a way of illustrating why I don’t accept your stipulation.

    Could you give a specific example of what you mean by [unintentional and difficult to prove outcomes]?

    See your stipulation I quoted above.

  50. 50
    desipis says:

    David Schraub:

    That is, part of our commitment to oppose anti-Semitism include opposing practices that produce anti-Semitism.

    Why do you draw the line though? Legitmate criticism of Israel may produce anti-Semitism in those who conflate Israel with all jews. Bombing Hamas may help spread anti-Semitism with Palestine. People who hold anti-Semitic views having children may produce more people who hold anti-Semitic views. How incidental does the production of anti-Semitism have to be before it falls outside your scope?

  51. Depisis:

    I wrote this comment before I noticed what I am now going to ask you about, but I would appreciate your answering this question first: Why do you consistently write “jew” or “jews” without a capital letter, but capitalize Israel, Palestine, Hamas, anti-Semitism and so on? Thanks. I appreciate it.

    Thus using the term in a racist way always seemed like it would be quite anachronistic.

    Why? Because your ignorance of the epithet’s history is by definition generalizable to the entire population? (And I am using the term ignorance here descriptively not pejoratively.) What about the people who use it knowing full well it’s history? Is that somehow a different word? Are you, now that you know the word’s history, not responsible for taking that history into account when you use the word?

    What do you say about my non-Jewish relative who used the expression “don’t Jew me down” in an argument with another cousin and had not idea that the word Jew in that expression might have anything to do with me? Is it suddenly a different word? Or does my cousin need to be educated? And if he keeps using the expression after he is educated?

    Let’s also stipulate that when negative attributes are symbolically associated with particular minority identities — regardless of authorial intent — that helps create and promulgate negative stereotypes about the group

    This was part of David Schraub’s argument, not mine, so I am not sure why you are attributing it to me, but it is not a specific example of anything. It is a generalization and so does not really answer the question I asked you.

    Legitmate criticism of Israel may produce anti-Semitism in those who conflate Israel with all jews.

    You have it backwards. Conflating Israel with all Jews is already antisemitic.

  52. 52
    desipis says:

    Why do you consistently write “jew” or “jews” without a capital letter, but capitalize Israel, Palestine, Hamas, anti-Semitism and so on?

    I don’t capitalise “jew” because I don’t capitalise “caucasian” or “muslim”; I see them as more descriptive terms than proper nouns. I probably wouldn’t normally capitalise semitic or anti-semitism, but I cut-and-pasted the term the first time and was just being consistent with myself going forward.

    This was part of David Schraub’s argument…

    Sorry, must have got my wires crossed there.

  53. Desipis:

    I don’t capitalise “jew” because I don’t capitalise “caucasian” or “muslim”; I see them as more descriptive terms than proper nouns. I probably wouldn’t normally capitalise semitic or anti-semitism, but I cut-and-pasted the term the first time and was just being consistent with myself going forward.

    Thanks.

  54. 54
    Jim C says:

    If the day comes when a Second Holocaust begins, you don’t think the Jews will go quietly this time, do you?

    If Israel is finally defeated, the Jews won’t be going out ALONE.

    Not this time.