oh god, i'm going thru this psychological minefield.
just an amazing amount of bullshit pushback in my blogging reality. i seem to fluxuate between periods of self doubt with respect to the 'tone' of my blogging (basically just being me which apparently really drives some people nuts in not a good way) or feeling fine about it. i'm not 'sensitive' enough to others (jewish) suffering. i know i should just blow it off and not worry about it or completely quit, but i consider it a battlefield of public opinion and i simply can't let them own the narrative. it is so emotionally exhausting sometimes i just have to turn off my computer. i have to work on my 'niceness'. after getting heavily penalized for making a snarky comment alleging i could totally relate to what it feels like to want to return to my great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandmother's back yard (i just counted them, 72, like the virgins, double the amount of greats for historical accuracy) it finally occurred to me (but only yesterday after someone relinked to this great offense thing i said last month that i had actually forgotten saying it but i was 'reminded' about how rude i was) why is it that I, as a non religious basically non ethnic person (whatever 'white' represents) am supposed to show deference and respect to religious people as a matter of course yet nobody has to honor my atheism ( a general 'the force be with you' belief energy making it happen if i really wish upon a star type atheism, sometimes if i'm in the mood). religious people are victim of ritual brainwashing procedures week in and week out. why is my belief not respected? why do i get penalized for being in the reality based community?
Because you’re not using reality-based punctuation? Seriously, Annie, even e.e. cummings used periods properly. Your posts are very difficult to read.
But seriously, it’s not your ideas or outlook. IMO, the zionists who inhabit dkos have some moving to do, and you’re too far out ahead of them.
You have a blog, Annie? I’d like to read it. Where is it?
Annie,
I am not sure what you are referring to, but having read many of your posts on here I can see where they are coming from. I find many of your comments offensive and extremely one-sided. In your mind you know who the the good and bad guys are and you’ll never condone the actions of the’ bad guys’ or ridicule the actions of the ‘good guys’
Your inability and the inability of your comrades to grasp the situation and understand there are two sides to each conflict does a huge disservice to those actually suffering. You can go visit Gaza and be wined, dined, and brainwashed by Hamas figures all you want, but in the end your hatred and your inability to look at all of the angles of the conflict will only perpetuate Palestinian suffering.
Yeah, Annie, you think it was easy to take on those creeps who jammed themselves in the Warsaw Ghetto? Some of them had kitchen knives and pistols you know.
Yes there are two side, one an ugly murderous colonial beast trying to say this is all about being Jewish, and their victims that they slowly genocide. Than there are the rancid supporters of the activity like you Schwartzman, who have all the appeal of someone defending a mass murderer because he/she has “issues.” All the victim juice has drained from the Zionist plea, and all of the antisemitic appeals for the state of Israel and self-hating accusations are useless fodder, made so by Israeli atrocities. The time clock is ticking.
Amazing comment Shwartzman, please stay here and let your moral compass be a guide for those who lack empathy and understanding.
Schwartzila, that one was a classic! It’s keeper! You were doing pretty good until you got to the word “comrades”. I could hear the hiss when the ziocaine ducts opened up. And next thing you know, you’ve got Annie selling her integrity for a few pieces of flat-bread. And then the old thinly-disguised threat.
What a treasure you are, Schwartzila. But I liked you better, I must confess, as your old Zionist schlemiel cum macher self. And you can’t help going right back there, so why not be yourself? After all, you have that most precious of Zionist advantages, being out of arm’s reach.
Say, Schwartzy, are you making sure to save all those posts where you plead for reason and lack of personal animus? You;ll need them all when you indict us for “hate” so you can say, like the apocryphal fellow who can’t get enough of that funky stuff: “I tried, I tried!”
Schwartzila! lol. yer too funny mooser.
He was transformed, and by virtue of his ideology he received a pay grade bump.
gee schwartz, ‘offensive and extremely one-sided’
ouch
speaking of “your inability to look at all of the angles of the conflict will only perpetuate Palestinian suffering” reminds me of a theme i just read elsewhere. maybe you should google “Demonizing Israel Harms Palestinians” , rush right over and put in your 2 sense worth.
“…will only perpetuate Palestinian suffering”
Don’t tease the mad dog, children, it’ll go nuts and bite your friends.
‘offensive and extremely one-sided’
Yes, who wil stand up for the rapistts and pedophiles? Surely, they deserve to be heard?
On trial was a serial killer. He was still alive and well and giving his testimony to the courtroom. The victims were long gone, murdered. The bereaved families of some of the victims sat in the courtroom. The prosecution represented the state, the people.
And so, as the serial killer was giving his testimony, everyone in attendance realized how one sided his account has been, for the point of view of the victims was absent, missing, silenced forever. This was a one sided testimony. Israel’s “testimony” is one sided too, for the victims are voiceless.
“but in the end your hatred and your inability to look at all of the angles of the conflict will only perpetuate Palestinian suffering”
Yea…I love this ploy…it’s the world inability to be ‘fair’ because of their inate Jew and Israel hatred to see Israels actions as ‘only equal’ to Palestine actions that is responsible for Palestine suffering.
Don’t ya love it?…lets discuss this here conflict another 65 years while Israeli teenagers lounge around on the furniture of their homeless victims. Yea, gotta perpetuate those peace talks another 40 years so we can examine all the ‘angles’.
these israeli teenagers ? The “Summer Camp Of Destruction:” Israeli High Schoolers Assist The Razing Of A Bedouin Town
“Your inability and the inability of your comrades to grasp the situation and understand there are two sides to each conflict does a huge disservice to those actually suffering.”
Spot-on, Schwatzmann. I couldn’t agree more with you on this. Annie and her fellows aren’t playing a fair game here.
errata corrige – Schwartzmann.
“Annie and her fellows aren’t playing a fair game here.”
That’s right Jonah, the pedophile and the rapist are victims too. I’m sure their victims are a threat to them in some way.
fair????
bwwwaaahhh
“fair????”
Bias and double standards.
oh you poor thing. can you be a little more specific, i’m not fully comprehending your complaint.
never mind, i better turn off my computer before my mouth gets the better of me.
cheerio folks. keep the faith.
jonah, when i consider those actually suffering in real time (as in today..right now) i do consider those stressful bus rides the soldiers must endure to arrive and the village they may soon be demolishing. and let’s not forget the sweat on long hot summer days manning those checkpoints. however i was there on the beach in tel aviv last summer amongst all the boys on the beach playing hacky sack w/the music blaring away to tanned drunken dancers and lordy bee i’d never seen so many 70-8o yr old women tanned to a crisp in their bikinis. that wall was so close and yet so far away.
Those people on the beach in Tel Aviv can enjoy the summer because of the wall, which prevents terrorist infiltrations and suicide bombings. Even Palestinian Islamic Jihad admits that:
link to terrorism-info.org.il
And the footage of the interview:
link to terrorism-info.org.il
False. Try again. Cite a source that’s not directly related to the Israeli government.
Fact:
Thousands of Palestinians cross the apartheid wall on a daily basis on their way to work in Israel. If these laborers can get to their places of work, then so can any attacker or bomber.
The fact is, there haven’t been bombings since 2005 because Hamas and other factions have decided that the suicide bombings were counter productive.
And I have no need for hasbara propaganda, when I know what I’m talking about, unlike someone who’s detached from reality and relies on official government statements and prepared talking points. That would be you.
to jonah and the government of israel the phrase “if the wall weren’t there it would be entirely different” gets morphed into “admits the wall is preventing attacks”
sheesh.
Of course it’s not ONLY the wall, annie.
link to jpost.com
Get real, sweetie.
I fully agree that the wall and the roadblocks are unrelated to the fact that there are no more suicide bombings, but I’m not sure if the only reason is that Hamas decided the bombings were counterproductive. The Shabak also made it much harder over time. Someone should make a comparison with the Stasi sometime. The degree to which everyone could be an informant
I agree, there are two sides, unfortunately, we Americans are pulled into the conflict making it three-sided.
As far as one-sided, why not call out the U.S. govt for being one-sided? Vote counts like 410 – 4 seem pretty one-sided to me.
Wined and dined? Last i checked there have been countless junkets for U.S. congressmen/women to Israel to be wined and dined and lobbied. Remember, a group of from congress went to Israel during a break at a time when we were suffering the worst effects of the financial meltdown.
I honestly believe you want to see an end to the conflict. The bottom line is what does that end look like? If it’s two states, how do you get the settlers out of there? If they stay, they are armed and mostly radical, and I just don’t see them living under Palestinian rule.
Schwartzy, I’m going to put a curse on you…here we go….may you and other zionazis like you spend a day in Gaza and live and be treated like a Palestinian. I doubt you’ll survive one day.
Btw., I noticed how you called Ahmed an American. Believe me, even though we were never allowed to step into Beer saba’ or Barbara we never and will never forget were we came from. We spent most of our childhood outside of Palestine, but as you can see neither of us forgot. Nor did our two other siblings. Our niece may decide not to live in Palestine, but she too will know where we came from and our history. You can’t take that away from us :-).
Ask any refugee in Gaza and each person from the oldest to the youngest and they will tell you where they came from pre 1948 diaspora. Our parents never forgot Beer saba’ and Barbara, we will never forget and our children will not either. We have survived the Romans, Ottomans, British and countless other colonizers. We will survive you too.
The above comment, would be much more applicable when talking about the Jewish people. Since naturally it was the Jewish people that fought the Romans and regained Sovereignty.
It’s revisionism pure and simple and a strange attempt to hijack the Jewish narrative.
“Since naturally it was the Jewish people that fought the Romans and regained Sovereignty.”
I’m glad you recognize that the story of Israel’s expulsion from the land by the Romans and its destined return, the central doctrine underlying the Israeli denial of the claims of the Palestinians, is but a myth maximalistNarrative, but how having your ass kicked regain sovereignty?
By your logic, the Arbas established sovereignty by losing the 1948 war.
earth to dingMax: it was a Jewish civil war. Jews lost.
Most modern scholars argue that the king was intervening in a civil war between traditionalist Jews in the countryside and Hellenized Jews in Jerusalem.[13][14][15] According to Joseph P. Schultz, modern scholarship “considers the Maccabean revolt less as an uprising against foreign oppression than as a civil war between the orthodox and reformist parties in the Jewish camp.”[16] In the conflict over the office of High Priest, traditionalists with Hebrew/Aramaic names like Onias contested with Hellenizers with Greek names like Jason and Menelaus.[17] Other authors point to possible socio/economic factors in the conflict.[18] What began as a civil war took on the character of an invasion when the Hellenistic kingdom of Syria sided with the Hellenizing Jews against the traditionalists.[19] As the conflict escalated, Antiochus prohibited the practices of the traditionalists, thereby, in a departure from usual Seleucid practice, banning the religion of an entire people.[20] Other scholars argue that while the rising began as a religious rebellion, it was gradually transformed into a war of national liberation.[21](from Wiki)
Herzl says at least three times in, Der Judenstaat, “the Maccabees will rise again.”
give it up, Teddy; you lost fair and square.
PG,
I would say the same about the Palestinians, they lost, get over it, the world is a nasty place.
I used to believe that too Schwartzman. I felt that eventually the Palestinians would simply get over it. But I was wrong. They have continued their resistance. And that is your problem, not mine.
My interest in all of this is that because the Israelis have failed in suppressing Palestinian resistance they have ended up in perpetual war against Moslems AND somehow convinced the US to join their tribal conflict. That I oppose. It is not in the interests of the US to engage in Israel’s wars. I want us to withdraw.
Right now the simplest path to that end is to convince the American people about the truth of the conflict. That might make me seem pro Palestinian, but unfortunately for you the truth supports them not you. Just the way the cookie crumbles.
Oh, and would you say that about the Holocaust? You really are a nasty hypocritical piece of work, Schwartzman. I’m rather offended that you consider yourself to be American. You clearly don’t have (traditional) American values with regards to justice, democracy and overcoming oppressive regimes.
If they lost, why does Bibi want to negotiate with them? What is aipac’s purpose if they lost? If Israel won and is “in the right”, they wouldn’t need aipac & norpac.
if anyone won or lost this would be a non issue and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
sheesh.
Maxipad,
Hysteria and lunacy are NOT attractive qualities.
Denying that Palestine belongs to the Palestinians doesn’t change the fact that Palestine is in fact ours. As I said before, we survived the Romans, Ottomans, British, Egyptians and will most certainly survive you. It’s only a matter of time. I hope you live to see it :-).
“Black is white and night is day ”
Maximus Retardus..
my guess is — were Schwartzman to go to Gaza he would be treated with warmth and hospitality and dignity.
the way anybody and everybody — certainly every American — who goes to Iran is treated.
Well. Until he would start killing men, women and children, at any rate.
Schwartzman:
Hamas figures don’t drink wine or alcohol. Is it possible that you have never experienced a Muslim hospitality–a la “chai” and sweets? Do you have any Muslim friends who can help you understand the basics of a daily Muslim life? Perhaps a little homework, really at a grade school level of understanding Islam would help you.
I think you’re asking too much of Schwartzy and your average American. It’s easier to be spoon-fed propaganda.
It’s interesting though the reaction you get when Americans actually meet and get to know a Muslim. My husband is from a nice, Irish-American, protestant family located in the middle of nowhere PA. When his family met me his mom told him I have “good Christian values” :-).
I don’t have any problem with Arabs or Muslims, I simply think that they should not be illegally occupying Jewish land in Palestine contrary to international law.
I simply think….
No, you don’t, not at all. A bunch of stuff short-circuits in your head, your ductless glands go wild, and something pops out of your mouth.
You want to call it thinking, be my guest.
Oh Maxipad, it really makes me sad to see what ziocaine did to you. The Palestinians aren’t going anywhere. We’re out-breading you ;-).
*Breeding
“I don’t have any problem with Arabs or Muslims, I simply think that they should not be illegally occupying Jewish land in Palestine contrary to international law.”
Well then, you do gave a problem with them Maximalist because they simply (and rightly) think that you should not be illegally occupying their land in Palestine contrary to international law. And black is not white, day is not night contrary to what you’ve been taught at your local yeshiva..
illegally occupying … international law
I see they had an orthodox jew (& doctor) on this year’s Big Brother. (He just got booted off in the last episode for reasons that had nothing to do with his religion.) It was interesting to see how the others reacted to him and his actions. And visa versa. Basically, he was accepted easily as a fellow American by the (mostly undereducated) other players. Now, how long will it be before the show has an American muslim player?
Here he is, indespair, describing himself: link to cbs.com
Maybe you should apply to be on Big Brother?
Lots of average Americans watch Big Brother, what a way to spread the wealth: link to jewishjournal.com
Ha! For a second I almost considered it. There’s a Lebanese, Muslim girl on some other show I think….in New Orleans.
actually context is somewhat important and this post doesn’t contain much because it was actually a kvetching email to phil which he liked and requested posting.
in it’s original form this was my response to someone who blew off a thoughtful post about what return means to palestinians.
there is this general narrative we are supposed to easily accept a dismissal of palestinian’s internationally sanctioned right of return while at the same time completely accept as normal a right of return to some far away grandparents from the bronze age.
so, when someone became indignant and demand we not question the jewish connection to the land i went a tad bonkers.
whatever. funny how the word ‘return’ can be interpreted and either dismissed or elevated.
i think i might have been lurking near the lockers when you had that dustup with the 5th grade hall monitors, annie.
pieces o work, ain’t they?
take away their cats and their instant access to BigNurse at admin central and they’re bupkis.
i like that word bupkis. it has it’s own wiki page.
sometimes it feels like an emotional battlefield out there, it can’t go on like this forever. there has got to be an end to this craziness at some point.
yup kiss in peace, for your persistence. in peace.
back atcha PG
Annie, Since I’m headed to Gaza in 23 days…could you let me know how I can get on the Hamas “wined and dined list”?
Organized religions are one of my least favorite things.
#1, They believe there beliefs are The Belief.
#2 They are better than everyone else because they’ve found “The Way”. #3 Many, but not all, are out to convert you and the rest of the world.
#4 Their God forgives if you ask …therefore you can be a total jerk and all’s forgiven and forgotten …over and over again; just say you’re sorry.
#5 God choses some groups of people over others ….even though he’s fair. #6 Most have a holy book recording “the word” written hundreds of years ago, translated many times…by who? men out to prove a point.
#7 most of their rituals true and holy are based on pagan practices…having nothing to do with God.
#8 …I can’t go on…I’m getting really angry. If I use bad language., become deliberately offensive, etc….I have no one to forgive me. (but myself)
The arrogance of believing you are chosen people, due entitlement and above question is criticism drives me wild. What % of wars and injustice are based on religious differences or have God’s blessing?
Back to the wine and dine with Hamas, isn’t alcohol forbidden by Islam?
Not to worry, Susan, the Christian fundis at least, will pray for you.
Here you go Susan –
ITS GODS WILL
susan, i think perhaps we went on the same delegation last year at the invitation of the UN beginning around the very end of may. i don’t specifically remember you by name, tho surely if i saw you. i’m terrible w/names.
if in fact we were on the same delegation did you per chance attend the evening conference thrown together at the last minute upon our request to meet women in the hamas government? if so helena cobban is very interested in recollections and impressions of this evening. would you contact her? you may want to get in touch w/her either way before you leave because she is collecting info about palestinian women involved in the political process. here is her blog.
i’m jealous of you going back. i can’t express how rich an experience it was for me. in solidarity dear.
But where’s your blog, Annie? You can build it into your ID on here, you know; I did.
I think it’s this one.
link to anniesnewletters.blogspot.com
I catch anybody from here ay my blog, and there will be trouble, big trouble. Okay, you’ve all been warned!
i do not have a blog rowan. my post was in reference to my participation on another blog but i find the same narratives across the web and in many msm comment sections whenever palestine and israel are discussed.
thank you for the link huraok, i will have to check it out further. it belongs to a different blogger.
What’s your goal?
To go to Gaza, obviously. But don’t worry, we’ll be sure to warn her against the Gazan food that buys your soul for the Palestinian cause.
Why does she have to have a “goal”?
BTW, Richard, you are desperately needed on the post two flights up.
Max Blumenthal is saying awful things about Israeli High School students. We need you to combat the anti-Semitism!
Otherwise, Richard, next thing you know, god forbid, those Israeli High School kids won’t even be allowed to self-determine who’s furniture they want to sit in. Help them with their existential dilemna.
What’s your problem? Seriously, why do you have to attack anything and everything that remotely touches Palestinians as if it has no rational purpose? Are you that blind, Witty?
Chaos, Witty never went to that thread to defend those poor Israeli high school students from our calumnies! Gosh, I wonder why?
I suppose that psy minefields, like physical ones, are laid deliberately to protect a position. Some people are absolutely determined both to take offence and to change any other subject into the subject of the offence that they have taken, thereby (if they succeed) controlling all discussion and making everyone else feel ashamed of themselves. They mustn’t be allowed to succeed. It’s obvious, even to the people who attack you (though they won’t admit it), both that you are absolutely not a malicious person and that your style is as completely lucid, with the right amount of passion, very well suited to the medium in which we are having this discussion.
thank you so much mhughes.
Some people are absolutely determined both to take offence and to change any other subject into the subject of the offence that they have taken, thereby (if they succeed) controlling all discussion and making everyone else feel ashamed of themselves.
i think often the purpose is to make certain the actually topics are not discussed. the incidence of this particular post above was used as ‘evidence’ against me more than once. i was asked to explain myself as if it wasn’t already clear what my meaning was or that i had anything ot explain for. what normal person feels attachments to relatives from the bronze age? the only way this could happen would be some kind of brainwashing.
and the funny thing is now the state of israel is making people prove they are jewish from four generations back! well what about 100 generations back? it is completely crazy.
i think it was beinart (perhaps not but someone recently) mentioned over 1/2 the jewish marriages now are mixed. what are the chances in the last 2000 years there have been other periods in history with this trend in intermarriage? over many generations it could mean many people have dubious root to this actual place. it doesn’t mean they are not jewish, it just serves to elevates jewishness or something. tho i can understand a religion instilling this ‘memory’ for survival or whatever reason. but it is too much to expect other people to adhere to this sense of ‘belonging to the land’ because we have not been indoctrinated this way and many many people feel very attached to the land they grew up on. most people who consider attachments to home family and land relate more to their family in the last few generations. this is why it is so important for many of them to persist in this ugly co meme ‘there are no palestinian people’. the home page of the ‘think israel. org’ site james mentions in this thread opens w/2 posts. one about how most muslims are extreme, the other that there are no palestinian people. it is horrible propaganda that is being drummed into our mind and continually reinforced. it is a cruel lie and it very much messes w/us psychologically because when one pulls away the lie you get chastized as if it is their ‘return’ that is supposed to be understood and acknowledged while they do not afford any regard of respect for the kind of return a normal person might relate to, the return of palestinians to homes their families still have a key to the door.
Listen honey, you aren’t ever going to get any respect from the kind of people that use religion in the way you are ranting against….just ain’t gonna happen.
Write them off or just ridicule them with humor before you melt down.
Hear, hear! Mind you, there are people who call themselves secular and rational who scare me just as much as the religion-users.
MHughes, that’s one of the reasons becoming an ungulate (North America’s Largest), at least in spirit, was so helpful to me. Not to mention the massive increase in size.
These Jewish people who say you’re insensitive to them – how have THEY suffered?
annie,
in my experience you can be 100% right but if you don’t comment diplomatically, you’re words will be almost automatically rejected.
but when you are dealing with hasbara zionists, all bets are off; any kind of reasonable dialogue is met with deception, denial and slander.
“but when you are dealing with hasbara zionists…”
Insecticide, use it liberally.
diplomatically
yeah, i went off the rez
Feeling down because the crazies are s.w.a.r.m.ing? Bummed because they never listen? Well, there is another way. Join them. When you get s.w.a.r.m.’d, don’t be down, play around. Give them what they want. Post a spiritual hymn:
link to youtube.com
The fundies love these guys for their deep, religious spirituality:
Kumba ya my Lord, kumba ya
Kumba ya my Lord, kumba ya
Kumba ya my Lord, kumba ya
Oh Lord, kumba ya
heyhey (7x)
Go, tell it on the mountains that you believe
It’s the word of the only commander-in-chief
He’s got the whole world in his hands,just say yo
He gotcha by ya balls,swing it low sweet Chariot
I was a sinner,a bad girl,lord pardon me
I was deaf,dumb and blind,but now i can’t see
I’m the Oko-Christ with my guitar
I say Give it to me Jesus – aha aha
kumba kumba a kumba ya
kumba kumba a kumba ya
kumba kumba a kumba ya
kumba kumba a kumba ya
kumba ya my Lord, kumba ya
kumba ya my Lord, kumba ya
kumba ya my Lord, kumba ya
Oh Lord, kumba ya
Can’t you feel,when the faints are marchin’in
You don’t know the fucking trouble I’ve seen
You’re the Savior, you’re the real big player
and I’m standing here alone in the need of a prayer
Judgement is comin’ high
I heard a sucker rumbling in the sky
kumba kumba a kumba ya
kumba kumba a kumba ya
kumba kumba a kumba ya
kumba kumba a kumba ya
kumba ya my Lord, kumba ya
kumba ya my Lord, kumba ya
kumba ya my Lord, kumba ya
Oh Lord, kumba ya
Can’t you see the judgement is coming
Kumba ya my Lord kumba ya
You all keep the rythm of the Lord
Kumba ya my Lord kumba ya
Yeah of course life can be summer
Oh Lord, kumba ya
We are the raiders of the lost chord
kumba ya my Lord, kumba ya
kumba ya my Lord, kumba ya
kumba ya my Lord, kumba ya
Oh Lord, kumba ya
kumba kumba a kumba ya
kumba kumba a kumba ya
kumba kumba a kumba ya
kumba kumba a kumba ya
hey hey, kumba ya
hey hey, kumba ya
hey hey, kumba ya
hey hey
And the ziobots, well, they’re thrilled because, well, both MM and the Apes are Deutschies.
;D
that definitely put a smile on my face. great video.
Well, that Annie’s New Letters blog could almost be yours. The attitude seems very similar. But no matter. I have some thoughts for you and for people in general about your actual topic in this post.
First of all, public opinion can be manipulated in a completely and purely technical way, and in fact I would go so far as to say that the functions involved are merely arithmetical sums: number of plugs, intensity of plugs, duration of plugs, all relative to airtime as a whole, or page space as a whole, devoted to pushing a given point of view. I think that’s all there is to it. The larger the aggregate, the simpler the function, as in statistics generally. A roomful of particles will behave completely predictably, but the smaller the sample of air particle the greater its unpredictability. And as you know, public opinion polls are based on exactly this same statistical principle. I think it is because a very large part of the mind is devoted simply to working out what everybody else thinks, and this part can very easily be bluffed by the monopolists who control the mass communication channels. I am still aware of this part of my own mind, as sometimes being virtually dominant, and I have been fighting it all my life.
Now turning to the issue itself, secular jewish identity: you may have noticed on an adjacent thread I mentioned the “jubus”, the jewish buddhists. This story is worth thinking about from several angles. First, just descriptively, one can imagine the would be organiser of the jubu community saying, korean buddhists, japanese buddhists, thai buddhists, indian buddhists, nepali buddhists, tibetan buddhists, etc ad infinitum, all have their own communities, their own meeting halls, even their own rituals in their own languages, so why not us? It sounds perfectly reasonable, but… on the other hand… ‘jewish identity’ is itself exactly the sort of rationalist, conscious-mind-based problematic that buddhism is all about overcoming. See what I mean?
I say that ‘jewish identity’ is a ‘problematic’, because it is not a way of looking at things so much as a way of formulating a problem: if i am a jew, then what does that mean? And this problem appears to be insoluble, unless at some point you buy the faith package. Everything else melts away into mere auto-suggestion: we’re nice, we’ve always been progressive, if only people didn’t hate us we could find out what we are.
Well, I like you, anyway, for whatever that’s worth. I think that in general western jews are exactly like other westerners but more so. The quest for some basis for believing in oneself is quite universal among westerners, and it would be childish to say that they all learned it from jews. It’s omnipresent. But a buddhist would surely say, it’s all just mind chatter, ego chatter.
The Jewish Buddhist. Interesting concept, as the two are at seemingly opposite poles. One is a system of rules to enforce tribal unity. The other, the rules are there to help transcend tribal unity – sort of ;D (good post, btw, RB).
Actually, I met this Jewish Buddhist about 20 years ago, over at a Buddhist enclave at the foot of Mt. Tam. His uncle was out from ny, one of those kosher 2 refrigerator types, but a liberal union man. The uncle was curious about how Buddhism and Judaism mixed in the nephew’s case, and the nephew explained that one can be a Buddhist and still be Jewish, or any other religion, as Buddhism is not a religion in the western way of thinking, but more away of living life as one learns to transcend it. If that makes any sense. ;D We were talking in the nephew’s living room and I noticed their cat was sleeping atop their vcr and I mentioned that cat hair and vcrs didn’t mix well. The nephew gently moved the cat off the vcr and placed a vase that had been nearby upon the vcr to deter the cat returning. Now that was Buddhism at work.
One of the favourite descriptions that I’ve heard about this whole thing called life is from a French film made in the early 70′s, a “hippie” film in fact (imagine that, skulkers ;D).
“For example, there is the ocean. The ocean is love. And then there’s a bottle in the ocean, full of water, floating in the ocean. The bottle is you. And if you break it there’s no bottle alone, there’s the ocean.”
La vallée link to amazon.imdb.com
For me, that seems to the essence of what Buddhism is about, without actually saying so directly.
I forgot to mention,the uncle replied “is that so” or something to that effect, to the nephew’s explanation. He (the uncle) seemed unconvinced, but also unsure, about being unconvinced also. That’s a bit of Buddhism, as well. ;D
Anyway, there’s a long way to go….
green gulch?
I remember that film (obscured by clouds) with the pink floyd soundtrack. I took my elder sister to it, and she was not impressed, and seeing it through her eyes (a left wing geography teacher) I was rather enbarrassed myself.
Ah, well….win some, lose some.
:D
Geez, annie–I just saw the same lovely scene depicted on the Wolf Blitzer show and repeated on the Rachel Maddow show and Hannity’s, O’Reilly’s and Beck’s. As if that was not enough to make you puke, it was repeated on PBS’s Week In Review. No wonder so many Americans like Sarah P and Joe The Plumber have AIPAC on their minds!
Sarah Palin’s response (on Fox News channel interview yesterday) to her interviewer characterizing her political position as, “So, you go with the flow:”
SP: “Only dead fish go with the flow.”
Interviewer’s lame response: “You always manage to bring Alaska into it.”
hmm. not sure how real ‘jewish identity’ exactly fits into this unless what you mean by jewish identity is the particular narrative i’m referencing. i think each person has their own identity and then chooses to adopt or co opt or identify in degrees w/others.
i’m addressing a phenomenological construct with a history. the interactions that take place to impose a narrative.
are you familiar w/the delphi technique?
what i’m referencing is not about any particular jewish charactaristic anymore than it’s german. ( husserl was jewish, hegel german)
re the technique
this idea that ‘god gave land’ to an ethnic group is absurd on its face but then lots of religious myths are absurd. the difference is we (global community) are not being required to accept political frameworks based on mary’s virginity. accepting ethnic cleansing justified by a religious myth..is that ‘jewish’? no. christianity did that too. it’s how it is done. people are psychologically threatened w/the accusation of anti semitism by even the expression of the absurdness factor. logic is met w/aghast!
oh well. it’s mind games.
i should have bolded “while making opposing views appear ridiculous”
annie- I am tempted to attempt engaging you in conversation, but the price of commenting on this blog is a bit too steep for people who are not anti Israel. Let me just say that two things are necessary for “dialogue” on any topic. First honesty and second curiosity.
Regarding curiosity- this is a concession to human nature. The highest level would in fact be compassion, but in fact compassion is not something that we can demand. But curiosity is.
The following is besides the point, it is curiosity regarding you, rather than curiosity regarding the dispute. (As someone who is pro Israel, I need to be curious about the condition of the Palestinians.)
How long have you been interested in the conflict?
how marvelous you brought up curiosity. after just posting about the delphi technique i recalled how the US military uses it a lot (just google it and military, i did, tho i recommend reading my previous link first). seems it was first incorporated into our strategies during the cold war in the early 50′s by the rand corporations, but that is here nor there. anyway i was just googling around philosophers who were influential to the founders of the technique and ran across Spinoza’s Rational Techniques of Emotional Therapy. fascinating.
interesting: Spinoza’s Relevance to Modern Psychotherapy
isn’t it interesting that a technique used to create consensus by use of conformity would be influenced by a philosopher who noted emotions were intregal in understanding how man “is often forced, though he may see what is better for him, to follow what is worse.”
hmm. why do you ask?
Reminds me of the millions now being spent to brainwash US soldiers individually under cover of “the power of positive thinking”–we are training our drill sergeants to deliver the message to our grunts. Wonder what Hegel would’ve thunk of the dialectics hidden in Freud’s key methaphor of Id, Ego, Superego? And Husserl? What’s the hegalian synthesis for the I-P contest, 1s or 2ss?
i don’t know what 1s or 2ss means
husserl? he has to do w/the development or acceptance of myth or narrative re phenomenology (husserl).
just mind fartiing wrt how you brainwash people to accept an idea of ‘return’ as meaning to a place you have no memory of ever being.
Ha, you mean like the concept of heaven?
I meant one-state or two-state solution (synthesis). BTW, Hegel is big in the intellectual history of Reform Judiasm (along with Mamonides). Don’t know how big he is in historical jewish-gentile relationship history; maybe Buber tackled that? Tom Hanks should have had two balls on that island? The one he had was merely his own projection; he made it over in his own image. Hollywood’s Genesis?
both heaven and hell i would presume.
no i didn’t know that re reform judaism. re one state vs 2 i really wasn’t addressing that. my comments were about the rand corporations development of delphi technique (check the ‘i did’ link in my 6:02 comment) for use in cold war strategy.
furthermore i’m not addressing the jewish-gentile relationship, at all. in fact i argued in my 4:57 comment not sure how real ‘jewish identity’ exactly fits into this unless what you mean by jewish identity is the particular narrative i’m referencing. i think each person has their own identity and then chooses to adopt or co opt or identify in degrees w/others.
psychology in not about ‘jewish thought’, the phenomena of accepting myth as reality pertains to any religion i would imagine.
annie- On the specific charge of brainwashing, because of purported Jewish trumpeting connection to the land regarding ancestors from 2000 years ago, is a topic I will skirt.
But since I mentioned the question of your involvement in the issue I wrote down my initial involvement in the issue from the ages of 12 to 15 primarily. Maybe the earliness of my awareness of the issue paints me as brainwashed. I prefer to emphasize that I have been aware of the basic issues for over 40 years.
I learned to read Hebrew in Winnipeg in the first grade from a Canadian born male librarian. I learned to speak Hebrew from an Israeli woman (born in Czechoslovakia) in the second grade. My third grade and fifth grade Hebrew teachers were Israelis as well.
Israeli students were added to my class in the third and fourth grade.
Before I ever went to Camp Moshava I was sent one Sunday to attend a meeting of Bnei Akiva. A map of tiny Israel was placed on the blackboard. The fact that they spoke Hebrew there did not scare me. But the fact that they only had a few hours of television every day on only one channel I found truly frightening.
In 1964 I attended Camp Moshava for the first time. Singing Hatikva was already familiar to me as was the Israeli flag. Now there were new nuances- kibbutz, a motto of Torah and labor, and the Bnei Akiva (Sons of Akiva) youth group anthem.
“A brotherly hand is extended to you,
O’ beloved youth
Around our flag all of us
Will encamp ourselves.”
I had started reading the newspaper in the aftermath of the JFK assassination. When we moved to Chicago in 66 after the fifth grade the newspaper changed from the Winnipeg Free Press to the Chicago Sun Times.
Soon after Passover of ’67 saber rattling was heard from the Middle East. The chanting of Psalms now joined the regular prayers as a constant feature. “From the depths we cry to you, o’ Lord.”
On the first Monday in June the war broke out and by Wednesday the political cartoon in one of the papers featured the God of the Jews beating the Arabs. On Thursday the report of the attack on the U.S.S. Liberty interrupted the celebration of my class. On Friday when a report of Nasser’s resignation caused joy from my classmates, I demurred. I was politically sophisticated enough to anticipate that the resignation was just a ploy.
Reading the magazines after the war I discovered the Arab refugee problem. Arab families were shown in a photo crossing the barely usable Allenby Bridge in the direction of Jordan. New refugees were being created and the older refugee problem was for the first time revealed to me.
In the eighth grade debates were one mode of teaching us English and history. My subject was school busing. Among the other topics was the war in Vietnam and the concept of trading land for peace. We got to vote after the debates. The boys class voted against trading land for peace and the girls class voted in favor.
In the ninth grade we moved again this time to Queens New York. In Social Studies class (1969) for extra credit we held a debate regarding what to do regarding the Israeli Arab conflict. My side was in favor of returning territory for peace. Although my partner emphasized the beauty of peace, I emphasized the demographic problem. If Israel held on to the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians would be 40% of the population by 1990 was the key quote from Time Magazine.
In my sophomore year for Jewish history class (1970) I wrote a report on the Palestinian refugee problem . That was when I first heard of Deir Yassin. I reported various possibilities for what caused the flight of the refugees. I came out in favor of compensation as the cure for the refugee problem, no matter what the cause.
In September of 1970 Palestinian fedayeen (guerillas, terrorists, choose one) hijacked a bunch of airplanes headed out of Israel on one day. I had relatives on the flight that avoided getting hijacked through the maneuvers of the pilot putting the jet into a deep dive in order to throw the hijackers off their feet. My great uncle Favish was interviewed on the national news, “I wasn’t feeling so well and I had just asked the stewardess for an aspirin, when all of a sudden…”
wj, it’s hard to say exactly when i started getting involved w/this issue but it wasn’t that long ago relatively. it was absolutely off my radar most of my life.
about 7 or 8 years ago i got a computer. prior to that i had been somewhat of a news junkie but israel was still off my radar. i started hanging on iraqi blogs during the war. they were heavily trolled. all the trolls liked and defended israel. everyone who supported the war in iraq supported israel also. it didn’t take long for me to realize the injustice once it came on my radar but it was gradual because i was focused on iraq. i’d say a defining moment was when i heard about the pnac/a clean break and the connection to israel. i can’t remember exactly when that was. . i became much more active about 3 years ago.
annie, thanks for the answer.
I understand the impulse to support the Palestinians in their desire to return, particularly when given the realities of the Gaza Strip and Israel’s inability to deal with that situation. (I consider it both an inability and an unwillingness. I think Iran’s support for a rejectionist policy by Hezbollah and Hamas hampers any search for a modus operandi that doesn’t fit Iran’s vision of a solution.) (I don’t think Israel can afford to be calm about Gaza arming itself with any and all rockets, but on the other hand I would want to see a more normal policy vis a vis Gaza, that allows people and ships to enter and exit, with constraints on weaponry, enforced by NATO or some other dependable force (the UN in Lebanon has been an undependable force) ).
I suppose I understand the atheist’s incomprehension when it comes to the element of religion involved in the Jewish “claim” on the land. I think the more important factor is that a large percentage of the world’s Jewish population lives in Israel. (More important than the factor of a religious claim.) But then when you get down to cases like East Jerusalem and the Western Wall and even the Temple Mount, my hesitations are based upon a religious attachment, so even I wander into religious attachment territory.
I “respect” the Palestinians’ sumud, stubborn attachment to the land, but stubbornness (an attribute of the Children of Israel as well, according to the Hebrew Bible) is not always a virtue. The flow of events seems to indicate that there won’t be a two state solution any time soon and there has been little (or no news) in recent times to encourage those who wished for the Oslo peace process to yield fruit. The distrust in the Palestinians’ good will as regards to a one state solution is overwhelming and thus there seems to be no solution on the horizon.
The distrust by Israeli Jews of the Palestinians’ good will as regards a one state solution is overwhelming and thus there seems to be no solution on the horizon.
The distrust by Israeli Jews of the Palestinians’ good will as regards a one state solution is overwhelming and thus there seems to be no solution on the horizon.
ok, i heard you the first time, but since you repeated it i’ll repsond to this first. The distrust by Palestinians’ of the Israeli Jews good will as regards jut about everything is overwhelming and thus there seems to be no solution on the horizon.
I suppose I understand the atheist’s incomprehension when it comes to the element of religion involved in the Jewish “claim” on the land. I think the more important factor is that a large percentage of the world’s Jewish population lives in Israel. (More important than the factor of a religious claim.)
thank you, i appreciate that. me too (wrt a large percentage of the world’s Jewish population lives in Israel, (More important than the factor of a religious claim.). i’m glad you said that. the politics are difficult enough as they are. it is perfectly fine w/me israeli jews believe in this myth (or ‘reality’ as they see it) i just think it is too much to require our acceptance. it takes the argument/conflict into another realm, one we cannot accommodate for obvious reasons (similar to me not ‘accepting’ jesus’s immaculate birth). the reality based narrative is difficult enough as it is.
when you get down to cases like East Jerusalem and the Western Wall and even the Temple Mount, my hesitations are based upon a religious attachment, so even I wander into religious attachment territory.
right. i get that and i respect it. i just think we (you and me and both sides) have to place your ‘religious attachment’ in its proper place, that of religious attachment. your religious attachment does not supercede other peoples human rights, because if it did then it would make sense that others religious attachment might supercede your human rights and in my book they don’t. does that make sense?
i understand why after ww2 the global community agreed the jews needed their own state (even tho many jews disagreed). imho that is neither here nor there, it is done, over and jews are there and can/should remain there. my issue is that we have a problem to solve and intermixing religious narrative into the equation is not helpful. it demands too much of us (global community). does that make sense. iow wrt your ‘hesitations are based upon a religious attachment’, keep them to yourselves. everyone has hesitations. i will respect yours if you will respect mine.
I understand the impulse to support the Palestinians in their desire to return, particularly when given the realities of the Gaza Strip and Israel’s inability to deal with that situation. (I consider it both an inability and an unwillingness.
you mistake me. my impulse is not to support the Palestinians in their desire to return. my impulse might best be defines as tikkun olam. i want resolution, justice, fairness and human/civil right everywhere. i would be orgasmicly satisfied in whatever format both israel and palestine agreed upon, it is not for me to decide. my mission is not to support palestinian return my mission is to support a solution both sides agree. it just so happens it is unlikely palestinians would relinquish their international right of return and it would set horrid precedent for mankind wrt geneva, it would set mankind backward.
we have the opportunity afforded to us by consensus resulting in the horrors of the holocaust and ww2 to be the beneficiaries of the geneva accords. this is unprecedented for mankind and human rights. jews paid the price to teach us what never again meant and the world spoke. do we throw that out in the dustbin of history? no. we learn and incorporate geneva.
this is difficult and complicated. the ‘branding’ of the land as ‘jewish’ is a hard pill to swallow. it is one thing to accept a nation as jewish, or a state. it is altogether different to expect secular people to consider ‘land’ as being ‘jewish’. frankly it is inconceivable.
For Christs sake, Wondering Jew, I thought you were 55 years old! Isn’t that what you told us? And you are still kvetching about some stupid crap you did in your sophomo….. Oh, your sophomore year. And there you stayed ever since. Sorry, WJ, I’m not the kind of guy who would jeer at your glory days.
” I am tempted to attempt engaging you in conversation, but the price of commenting on this blog is a bit too steep for people who are not anti Israel. “
Oy, the price he pays! Such sensitivities! Oh, how his knish aches when somebody throws his own crap back at him.
And Oy, how it hurts him when we waste any of our empathy or sympathy on those awful Palestinians. Let’s face, can a Palestinian being shot to death feel as much pain as a Zionist with a paper cut?
can a Palestinian being shot to death feel as much pain as a Zionist with a paper cut?
the pain ratio is 100 to one except emotion pain. then it hovers around 1000 to one.
I like Husserl. He is somewhat zen-like in his incessant attempt to get us “to the things themselves.” His method, the so-called “phenomenological reduction,” is similar to a zen method; it attempts to see “the things themselves” without interposing any kantian “synthetic a priori“s, and the point of it, like zen, seems to be that it can’t be done. However, people have gone in a great many different directions while still waving husserlian flags, such as Heidegger, whose mystical concept of “the gods” derives I think from a belief that we had fewer preconceptions before we invented monotheism, and Sartre, who I’m afraid got precisely nowhere with it.
There are some phenomena that I think behave in a hegelian way: intellectual trends and fashions seem to me to do so. In the process, they detach themselves from physical reality and not infrequently become their own opposites while preserving some elements of their original forms, exactly as Hegel’s ideas do. I do not think Marx and Engels were wise to use the hegelian method to develop their own views of history (let alone “nature”), but it was the intellectual fashion of the day. I don’t think the dialectical method applies to things which are not the products of human minds in the first place.
Spinoza actually believed in universal determinism and the absence of free will. His therapeia is the same as that of the Stoics: the recognition of necessity. I should think twice before adopting this view. My own opinion is that we have free will, thanks to something in our brains that acts as a sort of randomiser, like in “The Dice Man”, and makes us generate random alternatives, and occasionally try them out experimentally.
From an abstract arguing that individual duty derives from free will: “Key to understanding Hegel’s conception of
freedom is his conception of rights as being grounded on the concept of
free will, which constitutes a “person,” and his claim that abstract
right entails having duties to self. Hegel’s argument in Philosophy of
Right is that at the level of abstract right one has a duty to oneself
not to disclaim one’s own moral status as a person with rights; one has
a duty to oneself to realize and affirm one’s right to freedom. For
Hegel, to be aware of one’s subjectivity is to have the consciousness
of oneself as having the capacity for rational agency and the capacity
to realize one’s essential nature as free.”
citizen, wrt the delphi technique i think they were probably more interested in this.
So were the Germans; similarly they abused Nietzsche’s concept of master and slave.
i’m not adopting spinoza’s view, merely noting how a technique used to create consensus by use of conformity mined his ideas about emotional slavery..and use to for purposes of coercion.
“[M]en believe themselves to be free,” Spinoza wrote, “because they are conscious of their own actions and are ignorant of the causes by which they are determined.” Said coercive technique offers initially apparent adequate ideas of our actions, and canned knowledge of their causes, so we may immediately see our former “free will” as the delusion that it is?
Sounds like an adaption of Freud, yes?
I don’t think the analogy is exact. The freudian Id is alive, it isn’t some sort of automatic mechanism. The difficulty in discussing psychoanalysis is that we have to learn to distinguish between the discursive self, the voice in the head that constantly chatters away and defines in words who or what we are supposed to think we are, and the Id, which is the real self, but doesn’t talk at all, and sometimes sulks for years or even decades before suddenly erupting, after which we say, somewhat mendaciously, that “we don’t know what got into us.”
Sartre argued that there could not possibly be any such thing as an unconscious self, that it was a contradiction in terms, and that our disavowal of its contents was sheer “bad faith”. I’m afraid this is just frecnh rationalism. It does exist, and it is the real us, and yet at the same time it seems quite alien to our discursive, thinking pseudo-selves. Jung is I think better on this, because he freely uses religious and mystical imagery to illustrate what he means.
But in any case, the unconscious self is alive, not a mechanism.
What I mean by way of contrast is that for Spinoza the entire universe is one single deterministic mechanism, working itself out in every detail by rigorous cause and effect. It may be conscious, as a whole and also in every part, but this consciousness or self-awareness does not affect its behaviour, which is completely determined in a mechanical way. As I said, this is the same as the classical stoic view. What it might mean to say ‘conscious as a whole and also in every part’ is very hard to conceive, and in my opinion Spinoza is not too good here; I suggest reading Leibniz alongside Spinoza for this.
But the freudian Id is a creature of free will. It even indulges in what something akin to what I described as ‘randomisation’; this is what Freud means by calling it ‘polymorphously perverse’.
I am not sure why I am writing all this; possibly it’s an obscure way of asking Annie for a date :-)
What is it then, simply a name for an aggregate of past events moving us now that we don’t immediately remember? Sort of an on-going traumatic neurosis? Who’d argue with that?
You hear voices in your head, chattering away? I always hear music, completely arranged, and the only trouble is getting it out from my head to the keyboard.
No, it’s alive. It’s the real self. Thinking of the ego as the self is like thinking of the rear view mirror on your car as the car. The part of your mind that thinks and chatters isn’t actually the real self, but it constantly attempts to speak in the name of the real self, in the transparent hope that if it constantly flatters the real self and offers it ready excuses for everything it might conceivably do, the real self will remain supine and let the chattering pseudo-self go on pretending to be in charge.
I prefer Jung to Freud because he manages to make the conduct of the real self more intelligible. For him, it isn’t just a reservoir of instinctual impulses as it is for Freud, it is a sort of mystical total self, and it cares surprisingly little about everyday life; even a whole life wasted may not perturb it, rather suggesting it has one foot in eternity, or knows that reincarnation is a fact, or something like that, that makes this particular life seem fairly trivial by comparison.
The way politics reflects these behaviors is also interesting. We all know certain countries, don’t we, that seem all too ready to play the role of ever-understanding spokesmen and explainers for other, bigger countries that remain inexplicably docile?
Sounds like an adaption of Freud, yes?
i don’t know, maybe freud was adapting spinoza but it couldn’t have been the other way around since spinoza lived in the 15th century.
RB, not happening
well, it would be a long trek, from London, anyway ;-)
oy vey
how pleasant to hear music, not words, in your head, struggling to make their way to the keyboard.
Graphomania, “the midnight disease,” is the name of the disease that afflicts people with words stuck somewhere between the cerebellum and the Sony.
“I am not sure why I am writing all this; possibly it’s an obscure way of asking Annie for a date :-)”
Reported for abusing the comment section.
I’m all for people expressing their sincerely held beliefs.
Now you might say that this is misguided, and that the idea should be beaten or intimidated out of me, but misguided (and I’ve had a few, misguided ideas that is) or not, I’m sticking with it for now. :-)
As for your aethism, annie, even though I have a different view, not only do I respect your position, but I would go further and say that if you pretended to be anything else, then you would be a hypocrite. That said, I reserve the right to my own beliefs and the right to debate the issue where appropriate and with the appropriate degree of restraint.
Now I wonder if I can say the same thing about Judaism… :-)
I think the default is less presumptious: agnostic
agnosticism is just ‘weak atheism’. And atheism itself sounds pretty weak as a metasystem too. “no God”? If you take the statement “I take issue with your overanthropomorphizing of organisational concepts and your tendency to plop an authoritarian character onto them”, that’s not a metasystem. But it’s of course a significant statement when everyone around you is very religious.
“agnosticism is just ‘weak atheism’”
Agnosticism is sitting on the fence…
I don’t really agree. Jung’s approach is agnostic in the sense that he tries not to make any statements implying that the beings people encounter in their dreams and visions are ‘real’ or ‘unreal’. I should say he leans towards the idea that they are ‘real’ in the sense that they are the product of more than just the individual’s unconscious fantasy life, or the individual’s learned cultural imagery. They are innate, or to be exact, the propensity to generate them is innate. The contents, the ‘archetypes’, derive from a ‘collective unconscious’. Whether this ‘collective unconscious’ is encoded in the genes somehow, he is a bit vague on, understandably, since he really does not want to get into the question of ‘racial’ differences.
Rowan, that’s not the same thing. In practice atheism makes the truth of ‘does God exist’ a central matter, and people who consider themselves agnostic in that context leave a little bit room for doubt(science arguments), but it’s still a central matter. It’s quite platonic.
As soon as you pick a different center, for example the use value of the belief, the whole antagonism is very much weakened. When you explore richer meanings of ‘existing’(“it depends on what kind of existance you’re thinking off” ) then the dichotomy exists/does not exist also disappears.
moon I’m all for people expressing their sincerely held beliefs.
Now you might say that this is misguided, and that the idea should be beaten or intimidated out of me
i’m not addressing people merely expressing their beliefs and i agree w/you about forcing narrative. the problem as i mentioned upthread (4;57)
this idea that ‘god gave land’ to an ethnic group is absurd on its face but then lots of religious myths are absurd. the difference is we (global community) are not being required to accept political frameworks based on mary’s virginity. accepting ethnic cleansing justified by a religious myth..is that ‘jewish’? no. christianity did that too. it’s how it is done. people are psychologically threatened w/the accusation of anti semitism by even the expression of the absurdness factor. logic is met w/aghast!
that’s why i mentioned spinoza reference to emotions and slavery
“is often forced, though he may see what is better for him, to follow what is worse.” which is connected to the military’s delphi doctrine.
where’s the ‘proper degree of constraint’ afforded to non zionists when the acceptance of religious myths are required for current day politics? that’s what the crusades were about and the inquisition. enough already. i don’t care who believes the bible but the idea of israel or setters justifying expansion because god ordained it is not something any of the rest of us should have to accept. and there are limits wrt how that ‘expression’ you reference is expressed. when it includes burning down olive trees and hostile takeover i absolutely think it falls in the category of ‘intimidation’. so no that is not any part of some people’s interpretation of judaism i will restrain myself from rejecting.
I cannot bring myself to look at that Delphi link. Call me highbrow, call me snooty, call me an intellectual elitist, I don’t care, but when the military give themselves philosophical airs and graces it is even worse than when business management gurus do it. They drive their mental bulldozers over the delicate flowers of thought and preen themselves on their sophistication. I could give examples.
the link i presented in 88 is an outing on how it is actually applied as opposed to the way it’s dressed up to sell. it is worth checking out, it may seem quite familiar to you.
Oh, I see what you mean. It’s intended to work as an exposé of how the manipulated consensus is engineered. I hadn’t grasped that.
exactly. authoritarian voices most of us are conditioned (from childhood) not to cross.
Funnily enough, people on the US extreme right, basically the christian right, from the John Birch Society through to Alex Jones and co., have always claimed that the crypto-communists who run the democrat party and the UN, or the ‘globalists’ (which are the villains in place of the communists nowadays), use ‘the hegelian dialectic’ to manipulate the US public. I have seen explicit and extensively argued examples of this from as far back as the Clinton era, but as I say I think it goes back to the JBS. Anyway, they formulate it in terms of ‘problem-reaction-solution’, by which they mean that the ‘globalist’ government creates a false ‘problem’ such as a faked-up emergency or security threat, waits for the ‘reaction’ of public anxiety, and then proffers a ‘solution’, viz. increased domestic security via a police state. Needless to say, all this has nothing to do with Hegel, but to these characters Hegel is right alongside Marx as a sinister European manipulator. Whether your experimenters got the idea from this popular literature I do not know, but there’s plenty of it out there.