I have been puzzling over the psychological differences between people on this matter, while watching some people who are Jewish go one way on it, and other people go the opposite way on it. And it is so surprising because a lot of these people were raised in what seem like similar ways (sometimes they are in the same family), and yet this divergence opens up that’s pretty wide. It looks like such a large gulf in a person’s understanding of the world and one’s place in it—it seems like it clearly has something to do with a person’s conception of themselves. It comes from a very deep place in people. But what accounts for it? Why do some people accept this shame, and other people don’t?
Maybe we can’t fully explain it. To empathize with the people who are making what looks to be a grave moral mistake one thing I notice is that part of it might start out from something that looks benign, which is a person’s desire for safety, and how they conceive of their worthiness for safety, and what kind of world they imagine will make them safe. Some people doubt that they will be safe in the world if they embrace the shame, or embrace some of what we might call the features of the human condition that seem to come with shame, one of which is our basic human vulnerability/fallibility—and to them that feels amplified if you say everyone counts the same, none of us are so important, we’re weak and fragile and there isn’t anything special about us in the grand scheme even if we all have value. Meanwhile, we’re preferring ourselves all the time, and making ourselves the center of the universe in a certain respect. Some people respond with *oh cringe, look at my absurd hubris I better get off my high horse and acknowledge the value of everyone else* and other people respond with *no I am extra special, a very important person…somehow…oh, it’s that my group founded civilization or my nation-state kicks everyone’s ass and maybe sometimes even it is my group has suffered more than any other group in the history of humanity.* But whatever the story for different groups it comes down to—*we are so amazing —look at my amazingness, amplified through the amazingness of this larger group.*
You can of course say ‘sure we’re cool in such-and-such ways but those things are morally irrelevant in terms of how much people count when it comes to brass tacks.’ Giving up the idea of extra special worthiness doesn’t mean giving up all admiration for whatever things about yourself you appreciate or the things that come from your group that you appreciate. But it will be a loss to you if you lose that little frisson of extra-specialness, even in just in the narrative sense—of seeing yourself as part of the march of human history or whatever. There’s a sense you don’t get lost in the crowd.
So I wonder if, for some people, seeing themselves as extra special is important to making them feel safe. This is a mistake because everyone should be safe and they deny safety to others (and this can ultimately make everyone less safe) but perhaps that is why making people fearful can make them more inclined to denying the value of others in order to inflate their own worth—they don’t trust that they’ll be safe unless they have this extra golden ticket. Telling people you are giving them the extra golden safety ticket (and they’re a Gold Card Member of humanity generally) seems a great way to manipulate and control them over time.
Confronting people with the idea they are not so important that their welfare should completely dominate can feel like an existential psychic threat because who are they if they are not so extra special? This feels like an attack on what they fundamentally are. It can also feel like a physical threat if they are primed to believe the extra specialness is needed to guarantee their safety. It gets even more intense if you combine that with a moral criticism—because some moral criticisms can feel very threatening, even if you aren’t a narcissist. And they can even BE threatening because a certain kind of blame *does* come with a justification of retaliation.
If the idea ‘participating in injustice merits retaliation’ you’re probably going to go to great lengths to deny you participated in injustice. But most people who experience injustice, even really terrible injustice, DON’T retaliate once the injustice is over and they aren’t threatened (and sometimes even before). Even when they could. It’s fascinating! We should give up the idea of retaliation in general but also—we should notice that retaliation is about wielding power—it’s not justice. People who suffer injustice want to live in just conditions first and foremost.
None of this is to defend people who got into Gold Card Member of Humanity thinking on the basis of their racial or ethnic or national identity—hell no. I am just trying to understand why they seem to freak out so hard. The whole thing is incredibly dangerous and the very idea of Gold Card Members of Humanity should be attacked until we get rid of that idea since it’s a constant stepping stone to dehumanize other people.
Tl; dr—Yes, it’s narcissism. But it might be very complicated how people acquire it through their circumstances, and how it is maintained in people.
As an aside—a few of your thoughts sound so Catholic, LOL. Your podcasting friend may be rubbing off on you. I kid but the idea of owing to others what you cannot possibly fathom—that’s just an idea I was raised with. There’s a way of seeing one’s responsibility as enormous can be hubris too—but that’s just another painful thing about our powerlessness as beings. We learn these attitudes so early though—we might struggle to re-write any of these scripts in our head so I don’t know how responsible we are for them.
I left a critical comment yesterday and then deleted it because it felt kind of dick-ish.
I do agree with the emotional truth of your essay and empathize with much of your piece but disagree with the dynamics as you describe them.
I am sure you may have seen it already but most of my disagreements with your piece are put better (and more graciously) than I ever could in Jon-Danforth-Appell’s recent essay in JC:
I find this argument compelling, and in certain respects, not incompatible with my NY mag piece, especially the final line and the critique of narcissism throughout. However, I think the situation vis-a-vis trump’s crackdown (in the United States!) pretty squarely implicates us as *Jewish Americans* in a distinctive way from how Jews in the diaspora might be implicated in the Gaza genocide (or wield or reify that complicity in their organizing). Perhaps you disagree. But when the White House says “we’re deporting these students for you and your kids bc Jews are in danger,” and then they go do it, well, we just DO have a unique responsibility to act, not in a morally abstract way connected to our history or whatever, but in a straightforward democratic one.
At the end of the day, I don’t think I have a fundamental disagreement with any of that.
Frankly (and this may be part of why I reconsidered my initial comment) I have to admit that this might be me getting wound up over semantics.
I DO agree that Diaspora Jews have a responsibility to act which supersedes my subsequent thought we SHOULDN’T have a special responsibility.
But ultimately l, the first bit overrides the second which is ultimately how you ended your post.
So I guess my closest synthesis of what I can take away from your and JC’s piece is:
Jews should be moved to act with some form of specific responsibility but if that responsibility is imposed by misunderstandings (or outright fictions) pushed by actual antisemites on the right then feel like it obscures a dynamic that demands more of us in this situation than a feeling of shame.
Or, perhaps, it demands more of us outside of the (very important) conversation around Palestine which is the JC essay’s point and, ultimately, I believe is the point where your piece and theirs seem to meet.
And a conclusion I can find more to do with in my own real life context.
"We are implicated, and we are not the victims." Thanks for this incredibly sensitive approach to an endlessly complex moral issue, Mr. Ding Dong. Great job.
In my opinion, Trump is not a friend of Jews in any way. He is an opportunist who is simply using "antisemitism" as an excuse to further his despicable agenda.
I was born in the 1950s, and so never lived in a world without the state of Israel. But I remember hearing many conversations among my grandparents' generation about bad behavior by fellow Jews, and how it reflected on/affected world opinion on the rest of us.
Each of us has a responsibility to behave morally and ethically towards our fellow humans. But there is a great difference between "every man's death diminishes me..." and "this is all my fault".
We must speak and act against evil. We are not, however, required to feel guilt for the bad acts that the actors claim they are doing in our name.
The left and the universities spent 10 years enforcing the idea that feeling unsafe is sufficient cause to shut up anyone you don't like and that only the victims of bigotry get to define it, and suddenly they tried to come up with a reason why that doesn't apply for Jews alone. Of course the correct response to Jewish students claiming to feel unsafe because of the protests was to tell them to learn to live with it, but no one in academia or the left remained with the credibility to say it.
Thank you for your articulate perspective about our present crisis regarding the use of antisemitism as a foil against critics who dare to question why the USA continues to fund the criminal cabal of Netanyahu. We support the people of Israel and their right to have a nation. However, thuggery and violence have now replaced the thoughtful and moderate government. Netanyahu places Israelis , the USA and Jews everywhere in peril by unleashing attacks in Iran. All to distract from the world’s horror and outrage about the relentless attacks on Palestinians.
I have been puzzling over the psychological differences between people on this matter, while watching some people who are Jewish go one way on it, and other people go the opposite way on it. And it is so surprising because a lot of these people were raised in what seem like similar ways (sometimes they are in the same family), and yet this divergence opens up that’s pretty wide. It looks like such a large gulf in a person’s understanding of the world and one’s place in it—it seems like it clearly has something to do with a person’s conception of themselves. It comes from a very deep place in people. But what accounts for it? Why do some people accept this shame, and other people don’t?
Maybe we can’t fully explain it. To empathize with the people who are making what looks to be a grave moral mistake one thing I notice is that part of it might start out from something that looks benign, which is a person’s desire for safety, and how they conceive of their worthiness for safety, and what kind of world they imagine will make them safe. Some people doubt that they will be safe in the world if they embrace the shame, or embrace some of what we might call the features of the human condition that seem to come with shame, one of which is our basic human vulnerability/fallibility—and to them that feels amplified if you say everyone counts the same, none of us are so important, we’re weak and fragile and there isn’t anything special about us in the grand scheme even if we all have value. Meanwhile, we’re preferring ourselves all the time, and making ourselves the center of the universe in a certain respect. Some people respond with *oh cringe, look at my absurd hubris I better get off my high horse and acknowledge the value of everyone else* and other people respond with *no I am extra special, a very important person…somehow…oh, it’s that my group founded civilization or my nation-state kicks everyone’s ass and maybe sometimes even it is my group has suffered more than any other group in the history of humanity.* But whatever the story for different groups it comes down to—*we are so amazing —look at my amazingness, amplified through the amazingness of this larger group.*
You can of course say ‘sure we’re cool in such-and-such ways but those things are morally irrelevant in terms of how much people count when it comes to brass tacks.’ Giving up the idea of extra special worthiness doesn’t mean giving up all admiration for whatever things about yourself you appreciate or the things that come from your group that you appreciate. But it will be a loss to you if you lose that little frisson of extra-specialness, even in just in the narrative sense—of seeing yourself as part of the march of human history or whatever. There’s a sense you don’t get lost in the crowd.
So I wonder if, for some people, seeing themselves as extra special is important to making them feel safe. This is a mistake because everyone should be safe and they deny safety to others (and this can ultimately make everyone less safe) but perhaps that is why making people fearful can make them more inclined to denying the value of others in order to inflate their own worth—they don’t trust that they’ll be safe unless they have this extra golden ticket. Telling people you are giving them the extra golden safety ticket (and they’re a Gold Card Member of humanity generally) seems a great way to manipulate and control them over time.
Confronting people with the idea they are not so important that their welfare should completely dominate can feel like an existential psychic threat because who are they if they are not so extra special? This feels like an attack on what they fundamentally are. It can also feel like a physical threat if they are primed to believe the extra specialness is needed to guarantee their safety. It gets even more intense if you combine that with a moral criticism—because some moral criticisms can feel very threatening, even if you aren’t a narcissist. And they can even BE threatening because a certain kind of blame *does* come with a justification of retaliation.
If the idea ‘participating in injustice merits retaliation’ you’re probably going to go to great lengths to deny you participated in injustice. But most people who experience injustice, even really terrible injustice, DON’T retaliate once the injustice is over and they aren’t threatened (and sometimes even before). Even when they could. It’s fascinating! We should give up the idea of retaliation in general but also—we should notice that retaliation is about wielding power—it’s not justice. People who suffer injustice want to live in just conditions first and foremost.
None of this is to defend people who got into Gold Card Member of Humanity thinking on the basis of their racial or ethnic or national identity—hell no. I am just trying to understand why they seem to freak out so hard. The whole thing is incredibly dangerous and the very idea of Gold Card Members of Humanity should be attacked until we get rid of that idea since it’s a constant stepping stone to dehumanize other people.
Tl; dr—Yes, it’s narcissism. But it might be very complicated how people acquire it through their circumstances, and how it is maintained in people.
As an aside—a few of your thoughts sound so Catholic, LOL. Your podcasting friend may be rubbing off on you. I kid but the idea of owing to others what you cannot possibly fathom—that’s just an idea I was raised with. There’s a way of seeing one’s responsibility as enormous can be hubris too—but that’s just another painful thing about our powerlessness as beings. We learn these attitudes so early though—we might struggle to re-write any of these scripts in our head so I don’t know how responsible we are for them.
Hi Sam,
I left a critical comment yesterday and then deleted it because it felt kind of dick-ish.
I do agree with the emotional truth of your essay and empathize with much of your piece but disagree with the dynamics as you describe them.
I am sure you may have seen it already but most of my disagreements with your piece are put better (and more graciously) than I ever could in Jon-Danforth-Appell’s recent essay in JC:
https://jewishcurrents.org/against-zionist-realism
Even though I disagree with your take I do appreciate you contributing to what is clearly a necessary conversation.
I find this argument compelling, and in certain respects, not incompatible with my NY mag piece, especially the final line and the critique of narcissism throughout. However, I think the situation vis-a-vis trump’s crackdown (in the United States!) pretty squarely implicates us as *Jewish Americans* in a distinctive way from how Jews in the diaspora might be implicated in the Gaza genocide (or wield or reify that complicity in their organizing). Perhaps you disagree. But when the White House says “we’re deporting these students for you and your kids bc Jews are in danger,” and then they go do it, well, we just DO have a unique responsibility to act, not in a morally abstract way connected to our history or whatever, but in a straightforward democratic one.
At the end of the day, I don’t think I have a fundamental disagreement with any of that.
Frankly (and this may be part of why I reconsidered my initial comment) I have to admit that this might be me getting wound up over semantics.
I DO agree that Diaspora Jews have a responsibility to act which supersedes my subsequent thought we SHOULDN’T have a special responsibility.
But ultimately l, the first bit overrides the second which is ultimately how you ended your post.
So I guess my closest synthesis of what I can take away from your and JC’s piece is:
Jews should be moved to act with some form of specific responsibility but if that responsibility is imposed by misunderstandings (or outright fictions) pushed by actual antisemites on the right then feel like it obscures a dynamic that demands more of us in this situation than a feeling of shame.
Or, perhaps, it demands more of us outside of the (very important) conversation around Palestine which is the JC essay’s point and, ultimately, I believe is the point where your piece and theirs seem to meet.
And a conclusion I can find more to do with in my own real life context.
Cheers and sorry for the long comment,
John
"We are implicated, and we are not the victims." Thanks for this incredibly sensitive approach to an endlessly complex moral issue, Mr. Ding Dong. Great job.
In my opinion, Trump is not a friend of Jews in any way. He is an opportunist who is simply using "antisemitism" as an excuse to further his despicable agenda.
I was born in the 1950s, and so never lived in a world without the state of Israel. But I remember hearing many conversations among my grandparents' generation about bad behavior by fellow Jews, and how it reflected on/affected world opinion on the rest of us.
Each of us has a responsibility to behave morally and ethically towards our fellow humans. But there is a great difference between "every man's death diminishes me..." and "this is all my fault".
We must speak and act against evil. We are not, however, required to feel guilt for the bad acts that the actors claim they are doing in our name.
The left and the universities spent 10 years enforcing the idea that feeling unsafe is sufficient cause to shut up anyone you don't like and that only the victims of bigotry get to define it, and suddenly they tried to come up with a reason why that doesn't apply for Jews alone. Of course the correct response to Jewish students claiming to feel unsafe because of the protests was to tell them to learn to live with it, but no one in academia or the left remained with the credibility to say it.
Your blog name is entirely appropriate.
Thank you for your articulate perspective about our present crisis regarding the use of antisemitism as a foil against critics who dare to question why the USA continues to fund the criminal cabal of Netanyahu. We support the people of Israel and their right to have a nation. However, thuggery and violence have now replaced the thoughtful and moderate government. Netanyahu places Israelis , the USA and Jews everywhere in peril by unleashing attacks in Iran. All to distract from the world’s horror and outrage about the relentless attacks on Palestinians.
https://open.substack.com/pub/certainthoughts/p/we-did-this-only-we-can-undo-this?r=c8x12&utm_medium=ios