Racism and Anti-Semitism—Part 6

I mentioned in an earlier article that in America and the West, there is a minority, not the Jews, that is hated, vilified, and blamed for all the evils of the world. It is business men. I repeat an earlier quote from Ayn Rand:

Other Persecuted Minorities

“Whenever, in any era, culture, or society, you encounter the phenomenon of prejudice, injustice, persecution, and blind, unreasoning hatred directed at some minority group—look for the gang that has something to gain from that persecution, look for those who have a vested interest in the destruction of these particular sacrificial victims. Invariably, you will find that the persecuted minority serves as a scapegoat for some movement that does not want the nature of its own goals to be known. Every movement that seeks to enslave a country, every dictatorship or potential dictatorship, needs some minority group as a scapegoat which it can blame for the nation’s troubles and use as a justification of its own demands for dictatorial powers. In Soviet Russia, the scapegoat was the bourgeoisie; in Nazi Germany, it was the Jewish people; in America, it is the businessmen. “America has not yet reached the stage of a dictatorship. But, paving the way to it, for many decades past, the businessmen have served as the scapegoat for statist movements of all kinds: communist, fascist, or welfare.” [Ayn Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal “America’s Persecuted Minority: Big Business.”]

Remember, that Ayn Rand wrote the following in 1945:

“It is not a matter of accidental personalities, of “dishonest businessmen” or “dishonest legislators.” The dishonesty is inherent in and created by the system. So long as a government holds the power of economic control, it will necessarily create a special “elite,” an “aristocracy of pull,” it will attract the corrupt type of politician into the legislature, it will work to the advantage of the dishonest businessman, and will penalize and, eventually, destroy the honest and the able.” [Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal “ Notes On The History Of American Free Enterprise.”]

That there have been and are now dishonest businessmen with political power and that some of those businessmen have been and are now Jews cannot be denied. When anti-Semitics point to them is the reason for their hatred or fear of, “all Jews,” it is the same irrational hatred which is directed at all businessmen. It is racism and all racism is irrational, and that irrationality is seen most clearly in today’s hatred of the West. It is no accident that the Muslims see the “threat” to Islam as Israel, America, and the UK.

This is the link between growing anti-Semitism and hatred of the West, particularly America. Whatever other lies are spread to foment hatred of the Jews, the real object of that hatred is exactly the same as that which is despised about America:

It is hatred of created wealth. The “mistake” that confuses economic power with political power is _no mistake_—it is the intentional obfuscation of those who decry America’s wealthy but who will be the first lay their grubby hands on it, given a chance. It is hatred of individual freedom, the freedom that is necessary to Capitalism, the freedom which makes all men responsible for their own lives. It is hatred for objective values, which deny to those who have not earned or produced them the wealth and pleasures that belong to those who have. It is hatred of earned success by every second-hander who wishes to enjoy the fruits of success without achieving it. It is hatred of Capitalism, because Capitalism rewards virtue—production, self-discipline, knowledge, ambition, character, and decency, but neither forgives or rewards the vices of multi-cultural hedonism.

Jewish Anti-Semitism

Perhaps nothing illustrates more clearly the true philosophical evil behind anti-Semitism than the fact Jews cannot be characterized by their politics. I’ve already mentioned that many Zionists identify themselves as Socialist Zionists to this day—the very opposite of Capitalism. Even more surprising to some is the fact that some Jews are, themselves, anti-Semitic. David Evanier, discussing his book, The Great Kisser, says, “There is a deep masochism in Jewish self-hatred on the Left, a denial of self and a self-obliteration. [Noam] Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein are among the most odious “intellectual” examples. In Britain Eric Hobsbawm is another.” David mentions others of the present and recent past including, V.J. Jerome, Fred Newman, Helen and Morton Sobell, and Edith Segal. What we know about all these Jews that hate Jews, the thing they have in common, is their Marxism.

The real irony of Jewish Marxism is that all modern version of anti-Semitism are Marxist. Scratch an anti-Semite and beneath the surface you’ll find the vestiges of Marxism and anti-Capitalism. It might be manifested as welfare statism, some other form of collectivism, or in it’s latest manifestations, political correctness and post-modernist multiculturalism. This is the closest to a rational understanding of the nature of anti-Semitism that is possible because all racism, especially anti-Semitism, is irrational and why it is always accompanied by irrational fears and hatred.

Jews and Christians

Christian Zionism is based almost entirely on the belief that the Jews must be in the “promised land” before the second advent, the return of Christ to earth. Christian eschatologies differ, and the belief is not universal, but for those Christians who hold it, support for Israel is a basic part of their belief, and frequently their practice. Whatever one believes in this regard, there is one thing they say which happens to be true.

“Every country that has welcomed the Jews has prospered. Every country that has persecuted them, has over time, declined. It probably has more to do with the value of tolerance rather than just the Jews. As people have noted many times before — Jews are the canaries in the social coal mine.” [Emphasis mine.]

In his article, “A rabbi’s warning to U.S. Christians”, Rabbi Daniel Lapin describes what he calls a, “propaganda blitzkrieg … unleashed against Christian conservatives,“in America. What Rabbi Lapin has recognized is that, in America, it is the Christians who are the canaries in the social coal mine.

What is hated about Christians today in America is the same thing that is hated about the Jews demonstrated in the growing anti-Semitism around the world. They are hated by every morphed version of Marxism that dominates America’s politics, academia, and the media. They are hated for having standards, principles, and values by the multicuturalists who have none. They’re hated for being productive and believing no one deserves more than they have earned by every variety of collectivist that believes society owes them a living, an education, and free medical care. They are hated for believing in personal responsibility, principles, integrity, and decency.

In my article, “OINO’s Paranoid Fear of Christians”, I described the contributions to America’s culture and prosperity made by Christians “who are the ‘producers, the creators, the originators, the individualists,’ the men of, ‘independent action,’ on which all progress depends … innovators, entrepreneurs, originators who all contributed to the glory that is free America.” I said, “So long as a society has independent individualists, men of initiative and originality, men who think for themselves and stand for principles and values, clean men of integrity and vision, … it is not possible that any ideology can dominate it.“That is why the Christians are hated today—they are hated as the last force standing in the way of the socialist/collectivism agenda and those promoting it.

In my article, “An Atheist’s Defence of Christianity” I described the virtues Christianity has contributed to America: reason, purpose, values, and individualism. I said, “Christians who are true to what they believe hold the principles of integrity, decency, respect for others (and their property), honesty, and purity, that ought to be the virtues of the rationally objective, but frequently are not, at least not in the staunch and uncompromising way it is for Christians. The moral courage to live according to one’s values and principles in the face of all opposition, even to the death, which they have demonstrated throughout history and in some places, even today, is a distinctly Christian virtue.”

It is that kind of virtue that is despised by every anti-reason anti-principle postmodernist professor in nearly every college and university in America. It is that kind of virtue that terrifies every leftist collectivist PC mulitculturalist politician in America. The very frightening thing is, neither of those articles were written to defend Christianity from Marxist college professors or leftist politicians, they were written to defend Christianity from the attack of those who claim to be defenders of individual liberty and capitalism who have now joined the ranks of those spreading the very kind of hate propaganda against Christians Rabbi Daniel Lapin described.

Racism and The West

Osama bin Laden has called Western Civilization the, “worst civilization witnessed by the history of mankind,” characterized by, “oppression, lies, immorality and debauchery,” a people without, “manners, principles, honor, and purity,” but rather characterized by, “immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling …,” whose women dress like “whores”.This is not a characterization of Western Civilization, of course, but the picture of what is happening within it is not altogether exaggerated. Certainly it is the picture the West presents to the world in its music, movies, television programming, and advertising.

What is wrong with such a characterization is not that the portrayal of a growing decadence within Western society is not true, because since the late fifties the steady decline in social values and accompanying practices is obvious. What is wrong about such a characterization is the mistake of equating that decadence with Western Civilization itself, because it is, in fact, not the result of Western Civilization, but a contradiction of the principles that made Western Civilization possible. What has produced the decadence that makes a bin Laden’s criticism of the West plausible, is the postmodernist, nihilist-hedonism (which has replaced universal and objective principles of values), and PC multicultural inclusivism, (which has replaced personal responsibility and integrity as the basis of judging a person’s worth) pervading all aspects of our society, all Marxist, statist, and collectivist ideas which are anti-individualism, anti-capitalist, anti-liberty—in short, anti-Western Civilization.

The significance of Muslim criticism of the West, however, is that it is racism. The decadence pervading Western society is troublesome, and a much greater danger to Western Civilization than Islam itself. But in any society, there are always decadent elements, which can always be pointed to as characterizing that society. That kind of accusation is the worst of racism because it attempts to evaluate all individuals in a society, that is, the civilization that society represents, on the basis of its failed members. While the principles which form the foundation of Western Civilization have been abandoned by many members of Western society, there are many who still hold and live by them.

Islam is not alone in it’s criticism of the West, of course. With the exception of Japan, there is hardly a nation in the world that does not criticize the West, which is usually identified by those critics as Israel, the UK and the US, particularly the United States. More disturbing than the criticism is the tone of the rhetoric, because there is always in it undisguised resentment, and more often than not, a vicious and open hatred.

What is being put over as criticism of the West and the United States is, in fact, the very same racist hatred which is directed at businessmen, the Christians, and the Jews. It is not America’s or businessmen’s failures that are hated, but their successes, just as it is not the Christian’s or Jew’s faults that are hated, but their virtues. As Ayn Rand said, it is “hatred of the good for being the good.”

A Warning

The growth of anti-Semitism world-wide is not just a threat to the Jews, it is a symptom of a disease, a malignant hatred that is a threat to all of Western civilization, what’s left of it. It is a warning sign that was neglected before the Second World War, it is the same kind of warning sign today.

But a warning means nothing if no one pays heed to it. The warning is clear enough; what should be done about it is not so clear. What can be done will be addressed in the next and last article in this series.

—(01/22/06)