The theme of this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) was “uncancel America.” But when news broke that one of the speakers, a hip hop artist named Young Pharoah, had called Judaism “a complete lie,” CPAC cancelled him.
I agree with the gist, but you need to be more precise in your criticism. For instance you criticise the IHRA working definition for its "double standards" criterion by claiming that under it, "Palestinians who boycott Israel but not China can be penalized as bigots". But the definition explicitly talks of "other *democracies*" - China is a lot of things, but a democracy it ain't. You should have used a state generally accepted to be a democracy instead.
You also claim that Israel can't be accused of being racist under the IHRA definition. But that criterion is narrower - it's confined to claiming that "the *existence* of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor”. This means, in a straightforward understanding, that Israel can be accused of being racist for specific laws, policies, actions etc. - and there's plenty of those - but not for its very existence.
Irrespective of whether the latter accusation should be considered antisemitism, this criterion is narrower in scope than how you portray it.
Personally I think the first half of this criterion "Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination" is valid, the second half (which comes with an "e.g.") less so - I believe you can, without being antisemitic, acknowledge the Jewish people's right to self-determination while arguing that the specific way some Jews went about applying it in practice (I.e. the establishment of the state of Israel in the way it was established) was racist.
Finally I take issue with the idea that "my identity places me on the side of accusers, not the accused." I strongly believe that only *my actions* can place me on the side of accusers - that is if I accuse, support accusers or am (voluntarily) a member of a body or institution that accuse.
If I believed that I'm "on the side" of every male, white, Jewish, atheist, heterosexual, vegan, lefty, human rightsy or old-ish person who hurls accusations of whatever at whoever, I'd probably commit suicide.
Thanks for this thoughtful response. You're right, i should have used a democracy as my example--either way I think the point stands. I've written recently on why I don't think the right to national self-determination can mean the right to a state that privileges one group over another. Best, Peter
First of all, no, I don't want to fight cancel culture. Is it excessive, yes. But this is what you get when you build a society on slaveries of various kinds and then rob the kids until they have to be virtually superhuman just to organize what used to be ordinary middle-class existences for themselves. While trashing the planet they and their children will have to live on.
I'll tell you right now, Peter, as a woman, I can say plainly that my job is not to rush to the defense of men who are in a panic over their precious reputations after they've said or done something that's at best thoughtless and at worst predatory -- something that used to be business as usual and isn't any longer. I am not here to be grabbed at for that purpose. To be used to salvage your rep.
Nor do I want to hear defenses about what a good guy you are. If you're a good guy who behaved in a reflexively bigoted way, then just say, "My god, you're right, that was terrible, and yes, it came from me, and I'm trying to do something about it, but it will likely be slow and in some way always part of me; someone who's less reflexively bigoted, maybe, should be doing this thing I'm in charge of, how nice that these things have finally become important, well done you."
I've done it myself. I was born a long time ago, and the past can still come out of my mouth. The children do not owe me prizes for nice things I've done, the young everywhere and always are busy living and not doing service to the egos of the old. They were right and I was wrong, and I guarantee that when I took my lumps I was more vulnerable than you are. Do I love how they did it, no. I'm not sorry they did it. Long overdue societally.
In the meantime, your friend Bret was so thoroughly odious in the Times in the last day or so that he reminded me of a promise I made myself long ago. I'd been living in Providence, which is a pretty poor and shabby place, and I lived and worked near Brown, where the campus police did go after Black students at night, and I saw it with my own eyes. Brown also had a habit of taking over public parks for their events and kicking residents out, but the thing that made me angriest was how they hoarded their libraries. Providence had a terrible public library -- grimy, loud, well overcrowded, bare -- and I didn't know where a poor kid was supposed to go to get some quiet and hear themselves think. But they weren't allowed into Brown's majestic velvet-silence libraries. Guards and all in front of the libraries. You could buy an annual pass to their libraries, but the price was well out of reach of a poor kid. I didn't have any money either, at the time, but I promised myself that when I did I would buy any kid in Providence who wanted one an annual pass to the Rock, and Brown would just have to suck it. All these poor kids trying to get somewhere, the whole multiracial lot of them, showing up with their bookbags, taking up table space and librarian time, doing homework, reading, writing, researching in the beautiful expensive quiet.
So I went to see if the PPL was still the wreck it was, and it seems they've just finished a renovation. Which is great. Looks much, much better. But it also...it also looks very modern-library, which is to say a community space, not a shushing space. The problem is that the young serious readers and thinkers and writers will still need a quiet space, so -- now that I have more money, and can buy at least a few passes, -- I will make good on that promise. And Brown can suck it.
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
― Rumi
Excellent. Thank you.
Great Essay; Timely and of Very High Value. Many Thanks
Great essay Peter. Really good stuff.
I agree with the gist, but you need to be more precise in your criticism. For instance you criticise the IHRA working definition for its "double standards" criterion by claiming that under it, "Palestinians who boycott Israel but not China can be penalized as bigots". But the definition explicitly talks of "other *democracies*" - China is a lot of things, but a democracy it ain't. You should have used a state generally accepted to be a democracy instead.
You also claim that Israel can't be accused of being racist under the IHRA definition. But that criterion is narrower - it's confined to claiming that "the *existence* of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor”. This means, in a straightforward understanding, that Israel can be accused of being racist for specific laws, policies, actions etc. - and there's plenty of those - but not for its very existence.
Irrespective of whether the latter accusation should be considered antisemitism, this criterion is narrower in scope than how you portray it.
Personally I think the first half of this criterion "Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination" is valid, the second half (which comes with an "e.g.") less so - I believe you can, without being antisemitic, acknowledge the Jewish people's right to self-determination while arguing that the specific way some Jews went about applying it in practice (I.e. the establishment of the state of Israel in the way it was established) was racist.
Finally I take issue with the idea that "my identity places me on the side of accusers, not the accused." I strongly believe that only *my actions* can place me on the side of accusers - that is if I accuse, support accusers or am (voluntarily) a member of a body or institution that accuse.
If I believed that I'm "on the side" of every male, white, Jewish, atheist, heterosexual, vegan, lefty, human rightsy or old-ish person who hurls accusations of whatever at whoever, I'd probably commit suicide.
Thanks for this thoughtful response. You're right, i should have used a democracy as my example--either way I think the point stands. I've written recently on why I don't think the right to national self-determination can mean the right to a state that privileges one group over another. Best, Peter
First of all, no, I don't want to fight cancel culture. Is it excessive, yes. But this is what you get when you build a society on slaveries of various kinds and then rob the kids until they have to be virtually superhuman just to organize what used to be ordinary middle-class existences for themselves. While trashing the planet they and their children will have to live on.
I'll tell you right now, Peter, as a woman, I can say plainly that my job is not to rush to the defense of men who are in a panic over their precious reputations after they've said or done something that's at best thoughtless and at worst predatory -- something that used to be business as usual and isn't any longer. I am not here to be grabbed at for that purpose. To be used to salvage your rep.
Nor do I want to hear defenses about what a good guy you are. If you're a good guy who behaved in a reflexively bigoted way, then just say, "My god, you're right, that was terrible, and yes, it came from me, and I'm trying to do something about it, but it will likely be slow and in some way always part of me; someone who's less reflexively bigoted, maybe, should be doing this thing I'm in charge of, how nice that these things have finally become important, well done you."
I've done it myself. I was born a long time ago, and the past can still come out of my mouth. The children do not owe me prizes for nice things I've done, the young everywhere and always are busy living and not doing service to the egos of the old. They were right and I was wrong, and I guarantee that when I took my lumps I was more vulnerable than you are. Do I love how they did it, no. I'm not sorry they did it. Long overdue societally.
In the meantime, your friend Bret was so thoroughly odious in the Times in the last day or so that he reminded me of a promise I made myself long ago. I'd been living in Providence, which is a pretty poor and shabby place, and I lived and worked near Brown, where the campus police did go after Black students at night, and I saw it with my own eyes. Brown also had a habit of taking over public parks for their events and kicking residents out, but the thing that made me angriest was how they hoarded their libraries. Providence had a terrible public library -- grimy, loud, well overcrowded, bare -- and I didn't know where a poor kid was supposed to go to get some quiet and hear themselves think. But they weren't allowed into Brown's majestic velvet-silence libraries. Guards and all in front of the libraries. You could buy an annual pass to their libraries, but the price was well out of reach of a poor kid. I didn't have any money either, at the time, but I promised myself that when I did I would buy any kid in Providence who wanted one an annual pass to the Rock, and Brown would just have to suck it. All these poor kids trying to get somewhere, the whole multiracial lot of them, showing up with their bookbags, taking up table space and librarian time, doing homework, reading, writing, researching in the beautiful expensive quiet.
So I went to see if the PPL was still the wreck it was, and it seems they've just finished a renovation. Which is great. Looks much, much better. But it also...it also looks very modern-library, which is to say a community space, not a shushing space. The problem is that the young serious readers and thinkers and writers will still need a quiet space, so -- now that I have more money, and can buy at least a few passes, -- I will make good on that promise. And Brown can suck it.
IHRA: always define acronyms in their first use.