Saturday, September 9, 2006
Sissy emailed me a link to this blog and wondered about my reaction to the post, specifically, this part:
He was really pleasant, and as is usually the case, the conversation turned to world affairs and politics. Being a Brit, he was seriously concerned about the problem of Muslim immigrants in Britain with their failure to assimilate and their tendency to murderous hatred towards their fellow countrymen. When the conversation turned to negative European attitudes towards the US, I told him I believed those attitudes were mainly informed by a European media that spins the news to manipulate those views, and gave an example of BBC's anti-US bias.
He then said that he was surprised, because "...the BBC, just like Hollywood, is controlled by the Jews". Now, here was an otherwise perfectly reasonable, thoughtful man repeating the "Jews control the media" meme.
In order to keep things civil and not have our conversation descend into a shouting match, I just said "Huh...that's odd. For Jews, they were awfully critical of and biased against Israel during the war against Hizballah". He had no response...
Sissy:
I'll look forward to Sissy's post, but here are my initial reactions to something like this (no sense in wasting perfectly good content on email alone!). They're on three levels (fleshed out a bit from the email):
On one level, I wish I could say I were surprised. My initial reaction is that there are a lot of memes out there fighting for survival in the meme stream. Some have been around for a long time and are very resistant strains that any new meme that comes along will be shaped by in some way or another…
“The perfidious Jews control this or that or everything” was around before the “Jews control the media” because it was around before there was a media -- so it’s a particularly tough, virulent and pervasive strain that one will find trumping any of these newer constructs regardless of counter-proofs. It’s a very useful and all-purpose fall-back. So how do you square "the Jews control the media" with overwhelming media bias against Israel? "The Jews control everything" is a strong, ancient idea. Evidence be damned. Looking for reason in the irrational leads inevitably to frustration. Where you wish to find reasons, instead you find only rationalizations.
On another level, it’s unclear whether the Brit in the story actually accepted that the media was biased against the Great and Little Satans. Maybe he thinks they’re *too nice* to them, but didn’t say so. That means there is no cognitive disonance here. Some facts are not in evidence.
Finally, on yet another level:
For all their crap about calling the US racist and classist, and all their institutional jibber-jabber about multi-culturalism, my own impression is that Europe is far more overtly tribal and class-oriented than we are. In the US, we’ve done a far better job of assimilating and subsuming our tribal identities into the American identity. You can have a sub-cultural identity and still be recognized as fully American far easier than you can anywhere else.
So talking about The Jews this and The Jews that sounds extremely dissonant and offensive to an American ear, which causes a great deal of confusion to a European ear which can’t understand what the offense they’ve given is all about. If one is going to talk about The Jews, or The Catholics, or The Italians, or The Irish, or The Blacks as a separate identity that you are pulling out of their place in the melting-pot, you’ve got to be VERY CAREFUL about how you do it without sounding like a fool or worse here in the US. This is true to a much lesser (or at least different) degree in Europe. So the Europeans desperately want to talk about the perfidious effects of The Jewish Lobby and can’t understand the resistance they get, taking it as proof of concept, when really it’s a natural American reaction to their offensively base and overt tribalism and inability to get multiculturalism right.
Walt and Mearsheimer want to have a European style conversation and keep bumping their heads against -- not the anti-free-speech Israel Lobby -- but American mores themselves. Reminds me of watching Fiddler on the Roof with my wife (who's Japanese). She just couldn't "get" the whole thing...these people aren't Russians, right? They have to move if they're told to, right? Who are they, anyway? How do they fit? Tough stuff to explain when you get down to it. Europe likes to think they're beyond all that. The elites try (too hard) to be. They're not.
I've always been baffled by the paradoxical view that Jews control the media but, at the same time, the media is at best slightly anti-Israel, and in the case of the BBC, rabidly so.
Isrota, the answer I once heard to your point is that, if Jews didn't control the media, the bad reporting about Israel would've been even worse! See, they'll always come up with an excuse.
Regarding Solomon's weird conversation with that Brit: It must've felt like the Twilight Zone. To think that "sensible" people could talk that way. I had a similar experience, with a British man (whom I thought I might date). And this guy had lived in New York for a dozen years. I should've realized something was wrong when he said that the British health service was a fine institution and that the BBC was terrific.
Anyway, he finally got around to the Jews theme. He said that Jews were very influential in Britain because many of them worked in advertising. I think he also mentioned that many of them also worked in The City (i.e., in finance). I asked him how having a such jobs, as high-paying as they might be, would translate into political power. Aside from Saatchi & Saatchi, I don't see how being in advertising means you're a big player in British politics. Jews in Britain might look good on charts showing median and average incomes. But that doesn't translate into power at Whitehall or Westminster.
He didn't have a real answer. He just asserted in somber tones that the Jews in advertising had A LOT of influence in Britain.
Then he went on to say that 5,000 or 10,000 men (or whatever it was) ran the world. And many of them were Jews. Or at least a large number. My jaw was dropping at this point. OK, maybe if you added up all the legislators and presidents, prime ministers and cabinet members, major CEO's in myriad industries and utilities around the world, academics, media people, etc...it might add up to several thousand. And they run the world in the sense that each of these people manages an important part of their economy or government. So what? Does that mean that they all act together? And how many of them are Jewish? And does that add up to a lot? I bet that a lot of them are of Welsh descent, too.
That was the last time we saw each other.
Regarding Solomon's conversation about Fiddler on the Roof: I remember overhearing a conversation in a restaurant years ago among three people in their 20's. Two of them said they were Jewish; the third and loudest of the three was not. In a booming voice that I could hear across the mostly empty restaurant, the non-Jewish guy was asking the other two what their descent was. OK, they were descended from Polish Jews, and maybe Jews from some other East European countries. At least, that's what I remember hearing. Then the non-Jewish guy boomed back, "Well, were they Poles or weren't they? What were they? What nationality were they? The two Jews, a brother and sister, were just kids with no knowledge of history. So they said something to the effect of "well, duh, I don't know. Poles, duh, I guess so."
The booming voice didn't realize that, in eastern Europe, nation-states were not the norm like in France or Britain. Ethnic groups straddled ever-changing borders of empires. And the Jews retained their own language and communities, whichever country they found themselves in. But the booming voice overwhelmed the conversation and set a framework that could allow for no accurate answers. "Duh, I guess my ancestors were Poles...I guess." That's the best the Jewish brother and sister could say. Pathetic.
Ignorance is not only frustrating. It's scary.
Point of clarification: That conversation with the Brit was another bloggers, not mine.
The bottom line, I guess is that those who hate Jews will find "reasons" to do so, no matter how contradictory they may be.
You and your wife must view and comment on this totally awesome Japanese staging of "Fiddler":
Japanese Fiddler on the Roof
('Can't remember where I first heard of it . . . Possibly on your blog?)
OK Solomon. Sorry for the error. :-)
As the guy who had the conversation with the Brit in question, I thought I might point out that this guy didn't seem to feel any ill-will towards Jews. He just apparently accepted as established fact the "Jews control the media" thing.
I think Solomon's right about the notion of European "tribalism". I go to Europe quite a bit, and spend a pretty fair amount of time with my European co-workers. It's not unusual at all to hear one say "Oh, those f*cking Belgians" for instance, or make sweeping generalizations about all Italians or French or Germans or Brits. Or Americans, for that matter.
It does sound odd to an American ear, not so much due to political correctness as to most Americans' tendency to accept others equally.
Thing is, the British guy I spoke to didn't harbor any ill will towards Jews, either. In fact, he said some complimentary things about Israel. In his case, it was also matter-of-fact.
Thanks for your comment, Eric (and all).
Sissy, I showed that clip to my wife and she said that guy's a very famous stage actor in Japan who she's seen in several different productions, though not Fiddler (that's a rehersal, obviously). Fiddler had (is having, has had?) a very long run in Japan!
Solomon:
No offense, these generalizatios are simply undefensible. I've personally never heard anyone speak about the 'perfidious effects of The Jewish Lobby' or that "Jews control the media".
Some Europeans might talk like that, but it sounds very wrong to the European ear indeed. The occasional anecdote notwithstanding.
What I do hear, from time to time are ugly stereotypes about other Europeans, mainly coming from British people.
Inability to get multiculturalism right? I'm as tolerant as anyone you can find, but I'm strongly opposed to multiculturalism. Multiculturalism means, in practice, to look the other way while members of certain immigrant groups kill their daughters for dating, or sometimes just talking to, some guy the parents don't approve of.
Besides, if people want to come and live in Germany they can damn well do the Polka with the rest of us.
An american travelling outside the US? I call bullsh*t on the whole story ;)
hehe (sorry couldn't resist)
I really don't think the US has a very well integrated society. It has a very apparant class division along racial lines from what I've experienced over there.
Is it that *any* group who doesn't integrate into the society and who identifies themselves as something else is the problem.. So immigrants to somewhere who eventually call themselves locals after a few generations as opposed to wherever it is that they come from..
With Jews I guess it gets confusing because it's a religion/race/country/state of mind if you like.. That the religion side of things has traditions and habits that would normally be tempered by living somewhere that because they are part of the religion too are not toned down which make that group stand out perhaps..? E.g. food restrictions, different dress etc.. There does also seem to be a bias towards not marrying outside the jewish community which is another sign of non-integration with the community.
Muslims have the same issues in many countries too: different dress, different customs, limitied marrying outside the muslim community etc.. So I guess the generic solution for being accepted is to blend in as people will continue to tribalise on some level regardless of how tolerant they say they are. That's not to say diversity is bad, it may just appear to be anti-integration into the society a group is supposed to be living in..
In Australia they've been going on about multiculturalism for years, what'd that get us: well when strict cultural identity was maintained (say in the lebanese or Asian communities in Sydney for instance) you get resentment, ghettos and lack of acceptance of "The Australian way". Compare and contrast to say the italian community who has had a 20-30 year head start and you have a fairly good blend into the community. I think it takes time, but holding on dearly to a culture from another part of the world tends to bring with it the problems that that culture had where it came from. Multiracialism is fine, multiculturalism just means same old fights and borders just smaller scale..
A kind of Euro tribalism seems an apt enough label to put on this, but it is difficult to comprehend the unencumbered ease, the facility with which such profoundly prejudicial generalizations are announced. If this is a notably American trait, I wonder if the same difficulty, concerning such comprehension, also arises from, say, a Canadian or Australian vantage point?
No reply, Solomon?
Not much of one. Ralf. I usually say all I have to in a post like this, especially one that admittedly paints in broad-brush terms and is very conducive to "Yes it is!", "No it isn't!" type discussion. While I appreciate your date, I stand by it still.
The "perfidious" part is implied, not stated, I'm sure. I'm glad that your experience is such that you don't accept it, but noteworthy is the fact that the orgininal poster, who apparently travels in Germany and speaks German and looks at the place through American eyes doesn't disagree with my musing in any significant way.
As far as multiculturalism goes, I certainly agree with you that in practice, multiculturalism is a failure, but that's only particularly true in Europe -- hence, the "inability to get multiculturalism right" part -- where the left is stronger. In the US, we've practiced assimilation more effectively, and have staved off the forces that tend to prevent minorities from adapting (in Massachusetts, we recently voted out bilingual education, for instance).
Again, these are broad brush strokes that one can pick at or say they don't apply to your particular experience, but I certainly am not plucking them out of the air. Any discussion about "American" or "European" anything is going to be necessarily broad, but as there are general American or European cultures and practices, one should be able to discuss them at some level (without being accused of practicing some form of "Occidentalism."). They're going to fall apart and rapidly devolve into dueling anecdotes the closer you look.
I have two questions for YOU:
1) Germans polka? I thought that was Poles.
2) Have you read Bruce Bawers' book, "While Europe Slept?"
Well, Eric's mostly happy that you link to him, and being American your claims about Europeans aren't any skin off his nose. :)
The difference is that Americans mostly insist that immigrants should assimilate in the first place, until a short time ago a lot of people here called this kind of thing racist (recent troubles with Muslims have mostly changed their minds).
2) Have you read Bruce Bawers' book, "While Europe Slept?"1) Polka originally was Czech, and spread from there to Austria, Germany and Poland. You'll find brass instruments and 'umptata, umptata' music mostly in the German speaking countries.
2) I haven't read the book, but I did read some of the essays he originally wrote. Scary stuff, but his mostly Scandinavian experiences are not really applicable to Germany though, it makes a difference that our Muslims mostly are Turks rather than Arabs. Even so, the Arabs we do have often are real trouble indeed.