Antisemitism is on the upswing in the United States and around the world. Although antisemitism has a long tradition on the European right, the communists under Stalin were also very antisemitic. That’s why so many Russian Jews immigrated to Israel.
What is surprising is the recent increase in antisemitism on the progressive left – particularly on college campuses. The explanation, I believe, lies in “woke” ideology.
American Exceptionalism
By one widely respected measure, America is the most individualistic country in the world.
Geert Hofstede, who pioneered the study of the subject, defines individualism as “a cultural orientation in which people see themselves primarily as independent individuals rather than as members of tight, cohesive groups.” They also see others that way.
That undoubtedly explains why America is the most successful melting pot in the world. Our country has absorbed more immigrants, from more places, over a longer period, than any other country. We have roughly 45–50 million foreign-born residents today, plus hundreds of millions of descendants. No other country has integrated immigration at this scale without repeated regime change or ethnic partition.
Immigrant groups that arrived poor (Irish, Italians, Jews, Latinos and Asians) experienced large gains in income, education, and homeownership within 1–3 generations. By the third generation, most groups converge toward or exceed national averages.
The path from here to there was not a smooth one. Legend has it that when early Irish immigrants sought employment or a place to live, they saw signs that said “No Irish Need Apply.” One message from the “Godfather” movies was that Italian immigrants could expect very little protection from the public police. That’s why they created the mafia.
Every wave of immigrants faced discrimination – Italians, Jews, Chinese, etc. During World War II, German and Japanese immigrants faced harassment from our own government. Many Japanese were forced to live in detention camps. Sociologists often treat emancipated black slaves as another immigrant group that also faced discrimination.
Yet in the 21st century a majority of Americans voted for a Black man to be president and then a Black woman to be vice president. And our country has thousands of restaurants that are vying to attract customers in search of ethnic cuisine.
Clearly America’s strong cultural adherence to individualism has triumphed over the (perhaps genetically ingrained) tendency to reject people who come from backgrounds different from their own.
The fact that America can be seen as the citadel of capitalism is surely part of the story.
Historically, the marketplace has been the most integrated institution in our society. More integrated for example, than our churches, our civic clubs and our social life in general.
Wokeness
One way to think about wokeness is to see it as a rejection of all of the above.
Woke thinkers see people not as individuals, but as members of groups characterized by race, religion, ethnic background, sexual preference, etc. The most important characteristic of the individual is his membership in a group.
It is not surprising, therefore, that where you find the most woke thinking in America you also find the most vocal and visible display of antisemitism – especially on college campuses.
Identity
Individuals are a bundle of characteristics. Some are short; others are tall. Some are thin; others are obese. Some are geniuses; others have only an average IQ. What makes woke woke is the tendency to pick out a single characteristic (such as skin color) and make that the defining characteristic of everyone’s identity. Implicitly, the defining characteristic is more important to determining identity than all other characteristics combined.
A Black man, for example, may be a concert pianist, a nuclear physicist, or a whiz at trading stocks and bonds. But in the woke view of the world, the most important thing to know about him is that he is black.
If you polled the Harvard faculty, you would probably find support for affirmative action for Black students based on the belief that today’s Black families are still suffering from the latent effects of American slavery.
Yet, a study by Harvard professors Lani Guinier and Henry Louis Gates Jr., found that as many as two-thirds were West Indian and African immigrants or their children, or children of biracial couples.
The only thing that seems to matter at Harvard is skin color.
Duties and Claims
In woke ideology, groups as groups (as opposed to individuals qual individuals) have obligations and duties to each other as well as claims against each other.
For example, an individual in a group can be held morally responsible for actions blamed on the group as a whole – even if the individual did not personally participate in those actions and even if the actions took place decades or even centuries ago.
One interpretation of the Christian idea of original sin is that Adam and Eve’s guilt passes on to all their descendants. Woke thinking takes this idea and expands it to the actions of almost every racial, ethnic and religious group. Whereas in Christianity, original sin is usually interpreted as metaphorical, in woke ideology blame for past sins becomes literal.
Put differently, in Christianity, original sin is theological. In woke thinking it is biological.
Collective Guilt
Groupthink can be incredibly sweeping. It regards all whites as enjoying “privilege,” just because they are white. It regards people of color as being disadvantaged because they are not white. The former are “oppressors.” The latter are the “oppressed.”
These claims are asserted regardless of factual circumstance. For example, even though there are more whites (35 percent) than Blacks (26 percent) receiving Food Stamps; those whites are said to be privileged. Even though Asian Indian Americans enjoy an average household income that is about twice the income of white households, they are still included in the people of color who are oppressed.
Collective Claims
It has been almost 80 years since the first Israeli war with its neighbors – leading to the mass displacement of Palestinian Arabs.
Yet on college campuses, Jewish students today are confronted with the chant, “From the river to the sea,” which is often paired with “you are settlers” or “you stole our land.”
This is the exact opposite of the independent thinking that most parents hope will develop when they send their children off to college.
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