Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Last Post on Generalizations (Until the Next One)

I seem to be getting a spot of push-back on my previous post about generalization - which is fine; readers responses are the educative part of blogging.

Here's a generalization none of you will object to: What makes the English so spectacularly important and beneficial to the story of man is their invention of modern democracy. It took them the better part of a millennium to do it, the initial idea came from elsewhere, and there were lots of wrong turns along the way. But they did it, and as a result of their doing it, they were prepared as a society to stand alone against the Nazis; they also inculcated the concept and practice in many corners of the world, even if their colonial project was also shot through with cynicism, cruelty, and general bad faith.

Here's a little thought experiment to demonstrate the idea. There's a hung parliament in the UK this week, and another one in Iraq, but there's not much similarity, is there. Now, try to imagine any moment in the past 300 years where the situation could have been reversed, with the Iraqis muddling past a fleeting awkward moment and the Brits hovering above massive catastrophe. Preposterous idea, isn't it: that's the power of generalization.

Were it not for the English, the world would be a vastly bleaker place. None of which contradicts the generalizations about the English and the Jews. The fundamental decency which enabled the development of democracy, nurtured it and drew sustenance from it, caused even the antisemitism of the English to be significantly more benign that that of other societies, at least in the past four centuries. This, even as this antisemitism sat deep in the roots of English culture, and high in the upper reaches of English society. Jew-hatred in England is not peripheral to the story, not an afterthought. Of course it's not the whole story - it never is - but it's an integral part of it. Perhaps a minor integral part, if you insist.

I recognize that talking this way is frowned upon in our Zeitgeist. People are people, they're complicated, and attributing group characteristics to them has the whiff of all sorts of unpleasant connotations. I know. But I insist, and won't back down. Everything I've learned and observed in the past 30 years reinforces my conviction that our society and its past powerfully impact on who we are and where we'll go. This is not meant to be deterministic, but it's not trivial, either.

Finally, to respond to Rob's comments about the person of Anthony Julius: that he has made a fine living in the UK, and in spite of the Jew hatred there, he's not about to leave. It seems to me that strengthens my point, rather than weaken it. Alongside the animosity against Jews, the UK has long offered the Jews the possibility of unlimited growth and success; it also holds out the hope that those Jews will be able to make their society better, to weaken the demons and limit their force. Try saying the same thing about Russia; and once you've done that, say it with a straight face about any Muslim society.

21 comments:

Fabián said...

Excelent post, Yaakov.
Just writing to tell you that I am subscribed to your blog (on Google reader) and read everything you write, even though I may not enter directly to your page.
I am not sure if you can know about people who read your posts using this method, so just in case you don't, I want to tell you, don't stop writing, there are people on the other side.

Anonymous said...

whenever an entity issues a mission statement in whatever way it has become "guilty" of generalization itself and individuals being members can't have it both ways. They may be dissidents in their own group but they still must tolerate that others lump them together with all the others in that group

Everything else is wanting to reap the benefits of being a member without tolerating the pain

I'm not sure whether the above really applies in that strictness to all groups (i.e. up to the state and the religions) and circumstances but as a basic keep in mind I find it quite useful and yes citizens of a country tend to prefer this quirk while citizens from another country sport another one.

Silke

Gavin said...

I'd debate it with you more Yaacov but I'm afraid Rob there has used up any goodwill I had towards him with his snide remarks about jingoism. All I can offer is a bugger-offism to him.

Gavin

Yaacov said...

Thanks for the vote of support, Gavin, but feel free to shoot away. Rob doesn't have to agree with me, or even like me; fortunately, I'm not running for office, and can live with disapproval. I even try to take it seriously - up to a point.

Anonymous said...

Yaakov:

You made this interesting (and correct, I think, comment):
Were it not for the English, the world would be a vastly bleaker place. None of which contradicts the generalizations about the English and the Jews. The fundamental decency which enabled the development of democracy, nurtured it and drew sustenance from it, caused even the antisemitism of the English to be significantly more benign that that of other societies, at least in the past four centuries. This, even as this antisemitism sat deep in the roots of English culture, and high in the upper reaches of English society. Jew-hatred in England is not peripheral to the story, not an afterthought. Of course it's not the whole story - it never is - but it's an integral part of it. Perhaps a minor integral part, if you insist. . . .
Alongside the animosity against Jews, the UK has long offered the Jews the possibility of unlimited growth and success; it also holds out the hope that those Jews will be able to make their society better, to weaken the demons and limit their force. Try saying the same thing about Russia; and once you've done that, say it with a straight face about any Muslim society."

I think you will find this supports both parts of your point. From the Magna Carta:

If one who has borrowed from the Jews any sum, great or small, die before that loan be repaid, the debt shall not bear interest while the heir is under age, of whomsoever he may hold; and if the debt fall into our hands, we will not take anything except the principal sum contained in the bond. And if anyone die indebted to the Jews, his wife shall have her dower and pay nothing of that debt; and if any children of the deceased are left under age, necessaries shall be provided for them in keeping with the holding of the deceased; and out of the residue the debt shall be paid, reserving, however, service due to feudal lords; in like manner let it be done touching debts due to others than Jews

Anonymous said...

"What makes the English so spectacularly important and beneficial to the story of man is their invention of modern democracy."

If I may speak as a chauvinistic American here for a moment: You can say democracy was conceived in England, but the embryo and child was nurtured here in the expansive incubator of America. It was here, that the outcast groups of England came, and with other outcasts of the world, put into practice those principles. This was possible because of the availability of land and economic opportunity, and because of the necessity to set aside bigotries to build the new country. Democracy in England continued to develop in part because they saw the results of the American experiment.

I don't think the story of anti-Semitism in England can be separated from the general class consciousness of English culture in general.

Nycerbarb

Sérgio said...

And, from the nerd-land, don't forget that Newton and Darwin were Englishmen.

But why didn't you include the Balfour Declaration? Even counting all the subsequent drek the English caused, it was a true landmark.

Anonymous said...

Sergio
I think it was in the Atlantic archive that I read a piece that claimed they only did the Balfour declaration because the Americans "forced" them to using, if I remember correctly, the WW1 debt as a lever.
Silke

Rob said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sergio said...

Silke,

I didn't know that, but in any case, I imagine that all kinds of interests were involved in such a decision (including promising incompatible things to arabs).

However, and I'm sorry if I offend you,
can you imagine such a declaration coming from the Germans if they had the mandate? Analogously, can you conceive that non-violent resistance
Ghandi-style would have had any effect on Germans had they ruled India? (As we discussed before, Ghandi himself didn't think so)

Sergio

Laura SF said...

Rob, re:

"Perhaps, as you keep intimating, you should blog less..."

This is Yaacov's blog. We come to read it because we find it interesting or informative. If you don't like his style or "tone," feel free to stop reading his words. But it's awfully presumptuous of you to visit someone's "home" and lecture them on what they have to say and how they say it - and then suggest maybe they should talk less!

Laura SF

Carrie said...

Yaacov,

Please blog MORE and not less. There are very few blogs written by Israelis in English that are pro-Israel but also realistic. In this arena, your blog is simply the best there is.

Carrie

Gavin said...

Well... isn't this getting interesting. We just had Didi the homing pigeon trying to do a hatchet job on Yaacov and now we've got someone calling themself 'Rob' playing the same game. He shows his true colours.

I suspect you'll be seeing more of these characters Yaacov, your blog is obviously achieving some success if they have to bring in the likes of Lord Fauntleroy there. He's made the same mistake as Didi, directed all of his venom at you personally and studiously ignored everyone else. No private individual ever does that, especially someone with an ego the size of his lordship.

It's obviously gotten personal so I'll stay out of it, but I'll add to the other comments and say that I'm not fooled by this jerk either and I very much doubt any of your readers are as dumb as 'Rob' there seems to think we are.

Cheers, Gavin

Anonymous said...

Gavin
I noticed the likeness also
- to my ear Rob resembles Didi like one egg does another
- the same kind of mixture of too much aggressiveness with whinyness posing as superior intellect.

Staying out of it is what they want but I wonder whether it is because Didi has been asked to say something about the financing of the organisations he links to in his resumée at this Benor outfit i.e. is it a coincidence that there is a Didi-clone showing up here or is it something else. One thing to their "credit" is that it is a tone that makes me feel uneasy i.e. the kind of company I usually prefer to stay away from

Sergio
you are not offending me (I don't buy into Germany as the poster-child of successful re-education) but being no fan of what-if-history I think the take that it is in German nature or whatever to be as evil as we were during the Hitler-mania is amongst lots and lots of other things disregarding the loyalty so many Jews felt for this country
- they can't have been all deluded
- there must have been some reason in it
- just as Jews in earlier times probably felt that life in this or that muslim country suited them

Silke

Sergio said...

Silke,

I didn't mean that it is in the German nature to be evil etc. (H. Heine famously wrote something along these lines, though,
about "Thor reawakening and destroying the cathedrals").

My point was the comparison with English tradition regarding its colonies and subjected peoples. Fact is that Germans
had a much harsher view, check their treatment of the Herero
revolt.

Silke

Anonymous said...

Sergio
comparisons like that are fruitless
- we behaved abominably towards the Herero no doubt about it, but there seem to be also parts of Africa where they remember their short German past fondly a
nd most of all I will not come up with anything against the Brits to make a counterpoint (Anglos have, for a start, a lot more wonderful writers;)
- and I wouldn't do it even if I knew for sure that one single campaign would outmatch the Herero atrocity.
Silke

Sergio said...

Silke,

I think such comparisons are meaningful. They highlight how culture and traditions may influence high-level decision making processes. England's parlamentary and democratic traditions did influence its behavior in the international arena; and Germany's lack of such tradition, in fact its authoritarian outlook, its desperate need to prove its national identity and a sense of victimization, goes a veru long way to explain its behavior.

Sergio

Anonymous said...

sorry Sergio I can't follow you into comparison country just as I don't buy into what-if history (though I'd love to know what would have happened if the Suez Canal thing would have been allowed to be pulled off ;)
the reason is that since the age of about 9 I am committed to him
(I think this is kind of the essence of what he was after trying to find out when he wrote books)
Silke
"In broken Images"
http://www.xs4all.nl/~ace/Literaria/Poem-Graves.html

PS: he claimed that during WW1 at the Western front they hated the French a lot more than the Germans who would do their best to kill them again the next day the miracle Christmas football playing notwithstanding - I somehow got the impression they wouldn't have partied with the French like that who were their allies after all (there just wasn't the same kind of personal trust) i.e. to me there is a Germany before 1870, before 1914 and after 1918 (and lots of other Germanies before 1870 of course), also having no background myself that would allow me to compete in the identity competition which the Zeitgeist presently is so enamoured of I find myself and my experiences in some generalisations of Germany and others leave me baffled.

Sergio said...

Silke,

I wonder how it is possible to do history in any way beyond mere description, if you don't make comparisons. In fact, we do it all the time, but of course the historian should be able to back his hypothesis.

Best,
Sergio

Gavin said...

Silke. Don't read too much into it. I'm just playing with a new word I learnt. Nuance, got two syllables & us state-school types don't know many of those.

It's worth grabbing for a moment a comment that Rob there made. the real world. We are in the real world, even on a blog like this. Blogs and internet forums are a form of public speaking and our behaviour reflects that. We're on stage and just like in real life our emotions run the gamut from stage fright to supreme confidence.

The common denominator with all of us is that we don't like making a fool of ourselves in public. We've all got pride. When we're challenged on a forum such as this we all react to it emotionally, it's not something we have control over. How we react says a lot about the person. Doing nothing is still a reaction, a rather telling one actually.

In the early days of the internet forums always had the odd troll waiting for newbies to come along. They were the bullies, newbies have a tentativeness about their posts that reveal a possible fragility of ego and the bully can sense weakness. They'd often trigger big slanging matches, we used to call them flame wars and some were real doozies.

The natural reaction of anyone is to confront a challenge or run away from it. When people appear on a forum and reveal a very strong self-control it's highly unusual because they're suppressing their natural instincts to a degree that most people don't. That raises the question of why they're even there.

Pavlov was born too early, he'd have loved the internet.

Cheers, Gavin.

Anonymous said...

Gavin
thanks for that one
I am quite a newbie i.e. this is the first blog I ever attended for more than 3 or 4 tries (it seems participants must be capable of a minimum of self-deprecating for me to remain interested) and instead of feeling on a stage I have to remind myself regularly how public it always is.

As to "why they're even here" I'd guess they make it pretty clear that they only want to talk to Israelis whom they deem to be worth their ("royal") attention. If somebody does that, let's say at a meeting of the local fire brigade or country women's club it is a signal to all labelled non-belongers by such behaviour to bugger off, we want to be entre-nous, which one must admit is a strategy with quite perfidious possibilities to make the unwanted by them feel unwanted and possibly even put a squeeze on the blog host (or club CEO).
BTW the way Didi and Rob go about also it reminds me of our old table manners rule "children should be seen but not heard"

other than that you gave me personally something to chew on why I am here at all - but the fact alone that I got something new to chew is all the reason needed isn't it?

Cheers, Silke