Lately, there has been a lot written about the re-branding of Neo-Nazis as the alt-right, because a lot of people hate Illinois Nazis. Similarly, the term anti-semitic has negative connotations among polite people, so Jew-haters have coined a neologism, a neo-nazilogism, if you will- counter-semite. The prefix 'counter' implies defense... the new term is supposed to evoke people who don't hate Jews because of fictional, irrational reasons, but because they are opposing a worldwide Jewish plot to arglebargle why do you hate Jesus and America? As reported in the forward, the term is meant to obfuscate, to direct attention away from the purveyors of hate to an amorphous Jewish threat- it's an attempt of linguistic judo (note- I've met Ole Bischof, and he's one hell of a nice guy, and a terrific judoka), flipping the narrative in order to counter (there's that word again) the mainstream narrative that hatred of Jewish people isn't acceptable in a decent society.
It's amazing to see the constant development of an Orwellian vocabulary on the Right- a cryptolect meant to mislead outsiders and cement in-group loyalties. Given a decade or so, they'll all be speaking Ascian... and they say that it's the Left which is trying to impose Political Correctness on people.
They're writing their own narrative - for everything. Basically, toss out a subject you learned about in school, and they will have a "counter" narrative to what the experts say.
ReplyDeleteAnd the fact that it appears THEY were right and all of the media was wrong about the election last month "proves" that their take on history, economics, race, geology, the media, etc. is right, too.
If I can wander a bit, in a society like ours, people have specialized knowledge. I have no idea how physics works or how computers work, but someone does. Other people have no idea what I do. The fringe right is negating that specialization, claiming that what they see on some weird website in 5 minutes is as valid as the collective knowledge of an industry or specialization.
Experts exist. Collective knowledge, accumulated over the centuries, exists. Unfortunately, it appears that the forces of "Nuh uh!" have ascended into power.
Argh.
The term - indeed, the entire concept - of 'Antisemitism' has been diluted into uselessness over the last 15 years or so anyway. As a longtime supporter of the Palestinian people, I've been branded as an Anti-Semite for a long time. Apparently, you are no longer an Anti-Semite if you simply hate the Jewish people. Now, you are included if you disagree with Bibi Netanyahu and his Likudnik fellows.
ReplyDeleteIt's kind of ironic that in order to NOT be considered Anti-Semitic these days you have to hate Arabs. It's like a hate litmus test. If you merely question the ethics of blowing up apartment buildings full of women, children and old men, you clearly oppose the Jewish/Israeli right to self defense, and are therefore certainly Anti-Semitic.
They're writing their own narrative - for everything. Basically, toss out a subject you learned about in school, and they will have a "counter" narrative to what the experts say.
ReplyDeleteOrwell really nailed it with his 'Memory Hole'. You should read up on physics a bit, it's not as scary as it seems at first.
As a longtime supporter of the Palestinian people, I've been branded as an Anti-Semite for a long time. Apparently, you are no longer an Anti-Semite if you simply hate the Jewish people. Now, you are included if you disagree with Bibi Netanyahu and his Likudnik fellows.
Yeah, that's a puzzler, certain people really love to conflate Likud with Jewish.