"Passion and commitment can overwhelm and blind. When that happens, reason ceases to enlighten and keep us well away from madness and obscenity. Reason becomes rationalization. It twists and bends and distorts. It excuses the inexcusable." What I like about this section is that it applies equally to the Israeli government as it does to Hamas. If anyone thinks this is just about Hamas apologists, you are missing the point of the article.
Having absorbed thousands of words from your digital pen over the last couple of years - with great satisfaction - I can say without reservation that this posting is your finest work to date. And your most important.
Thank you.
I am reminded of Michael Ignatieff’s insights about the former Yugoslavia where he pondered how peoples who had lived together in relative harmony for all their lives, often inter-marrying, could be incited to hate and massacre each other. I can’t cite the passage but he made his view plain that all of us contain the potential for good and evil, not just those on today’s firing lines.
During WW2 the Nazis forced the Warsaw Jews into a ghetto. Uncharacteristically, in 1943 the Jews rebelled with guns and Molotov cocktails. The Nazis systematically destroyed the ghetto and killed all its inhabitants. Fast forward to the 21st Century. The Palestinians have been forced off their native land into a ghetto called the Gaza strip. They've been denied seaports and airports. Their water and electricity are controlled by the Jews. They cannot enter or leave without Jewish permission. A few of them rebel, killing innocent civilians. The Gaza ghetto is raised to the ground. Innocents are killed. History has repeated itself. Lessons unlearned.
The Hamas apologists are indeed not fools. They are evil. And their support for those vicious killers is not an accident but a consequence of their own irrational, collectivist, anti-human ideology.
If you wonder how Germany, land of poets and philosophers, could become the murderous regime it turned into in the early 20th century, look no further than the ideas coming out of today's universities in the West. We seem to be living in our own version of the Weimar Republic these days. Whether we will find a better course forward than that regime did is an open question.
I wish we were more critical of Israeli Government apologists to be honest. The Netanyahu crew has demonstrated they're much more capable at terror and brutality. And much more effective at co-opting the western discourse and our politicians. Here's to hoping sane heads prevail and we don't have to pick the side of two evils while millions suffer.
If anyone else reading this felt a pang of guilt because they're feeling strongly for the Palestinian cause, and feel like they're being lumped in with the "Hamas apologists", this essay is worth a read:
(Remarking on those advocating the "stand with Israel" narrative) "They are participating, presumably without intent, in a new Red Scare being prepared not against stray callous advocates of Hamas, but against all who defend the right of Palestinians to live, and to live as equals."
I see nothing in this piece suggesting that "feeling strongly for the Palestinian cause" is tantamount to being a "Hamas apologist." And I certainly didn't intend such a connection. In fact, I personally have enormous sympathy for ordinary Palestinians who aspire only to have an ordinary country in which they can live ordinary lives. To my mind, they are being plunged, yet again, into hell, for no fault of theirs.
Except that their population are the ones who gave birth to, raised, and succored each Hamas guy. It is similar to what happened during the Algerian war for independence against France (say what you will about brutal French tactics): the militants came from the local population and were assisted by it. The extraordinary film "Battle of Algiers" gives one a good sense of the dynamic. Granted, Hamas looks to be more organized and well-funded. But they didn't spring to life out of nowhere. They don't recruit guys from outer space, they are *sur place*.
Thank you Dan. I have a number of left-leaning friends who have been flabbergasted at the reaction of some of the folks they normally admire and agree with. You’ve put into fine words what I have been trying, and failing, to express to them (as you so often do).
Really? It's fun to call people foolish, but I could find no substantial criticism in your article. I guess there is someone who said something about the current war in Gaza, and you consider it to be apologist. Is it? Can't tell because this article is just nicely-couched name-calling.
Yes, obviously you didn't want to "get into it", which is OK. But is there any value, beyond personal catharsis, beyond the performative, the virtue-signalling?
Nah, I have, and there's just not much there there.
Stripped of the performative stuff, Orwell and the like, the article is basically "rationalization is a trap; don't be a fool like them and instead keep sanity-checking (patrol good and evil)." OK, sure, little life-lesson. Is that really all we can learn from Hamas apologists?
Because it's a term of art which many readers -- I suspect most, in fact -- won't understand. (As someone who has spent a career bridging academic/activist circles and the general public, I am very alert to the confusion such terms can cause when the former assumes the latter understand the term as they do, but they don't.)
As thinking, feeling, self-aware, highly evolved & status-obsessed territorial primates, we're all driven by biological needs & imperatives - as much as by high ideals or rational discourse
As the social biologist E O Wilson wrote: "We have C21st technology, mediaeval instituitions, and stone-age brains.." stone-age instincts or drives perhaps
Once invested in a particular idea or belief system, the human tendency is to double triple & quadruple down.
Most of us have a deep deep need to be right all the time, so it's challenging to admit we may, or may have ever been wrong about anything
This is particularily if not more true of highly educated intellectual elites (and of those such as politicians, actors & those with sociopathic tendencies) than of the 'common man'
And the more one is invested in a cause or idea, the harder it is to question or drop it'- the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance, don't let the facts get in the way of a good story or fashionable mot de jour 'narrative'
Wild theories, as impervious to reason as ancient religious beliefs, have been percolating in our seats of higher learning & are now proliferating thruout stratas of Western society
A few concrete examples?
*Barack Obama who has a "white" mother is a "black" man
(what exactly is a "black" or "white" person anyway? Can we stop & think that one thru, along with such unscientific terms as BME or the more recent BAME)
*A person with a penis is a woman
*Slavery, conquest, ethnic cleansing & Genocide are exclusively the crimes of "white" European Empires & nations
*All art literature poetry music philosophy science & human achievment has no more intrinsic truth value or beauty than a popular comic book or ditty
Cultural norms also vary
In some cultures, truth is a more elastic concept, and it's considered permissible, admirable and even imperative to lie
Home Sap has got 'themself' into a stew and it will be hard to get out
I would reference Matt Goening's " Life is He'll series
my feelings are hurt, alarm bells are ringing in my ears, atrocities are piercing my eyes -- > my main concern : ‘can I find the time for reflection’ when my own passion and commitment are threatening to overwhelm me or/and blind me. Will I succeed ? I see that many, regardless of their mental powers, are not succeeding.
"Passion and commitment can overwhelm and blind. When that happens, reason ceases to enlighten and keep us well away from madness and obscenity. Reason becomes rationalization. It twists and bends and distorts. It excuses the inexcusable." What I like about this section is that it applies equally to the Israeli government as it does to Hamas. If anyone thinks this is just about Hamas apologists, you are missing the point of the article.
Having absorbed thousands of words from your digital pen over the last couple of years - with great satisfaction - I can say without reservation that this posting is your finest work to date. And your most important.
Thank you.
I am reminded of Michael Ignatieff’s insights about the former Yugoslavia where he pondered how peoples who had lived together in relative harmony for all their lives, often inter-marrying, could be incited to hate and massacre each other. I can’t cite the passage but he made his view plain that all of us contain the potential for good and evil, not just those on today’s firing lines.
During WW2 the Nazis forced the Warsaw Jews into a ghetto. Uncharacteristically, in 1943 the Jews rebelled with guns and Molotov cocktails. The Nazis systematically destroyed the ghetto and killed all its inhabitants. Fast forward to the 21st Century. The Palestinians have been forced off their native land into a ghetto called the Gaza strip. They've been denied seaports and airports. Their water and electricity are controlled by the Jews. They cannot enter or leave without Jewish permission. A few of them rebel, killing innocent civilians. The Gaza ghetto is raised to the ground. Innocents are killed. History has repeated itself. Lessons unlearned.
Sophistry has been the downfall of many great societies.
Universities are now Sophist.
Zero critical thinking skills, by design
Thanks for this reference to Sophists and appeal to justifying beliefs.
The Hamas apologists are indeed not fools. They are evil. And their support for those vicious killers is not an accident but a consequence of their own irrational, collectivist, anti-human ideology.
If you wonder how Germany, land of poets and philosophers, could become the murderous regime it turned into in the early 20th century, look no further than the ideas coming out of today's universities in the West. We seem to be living in our own version of the Weimar Republic these days. Whether we will find a better course forward than that regime did is an open question.
I wish we were more critical of Israeli Government apologists to be honest. The Netanyahu crew has demonstrated they're much more capable at terror and brutality. And much more effective at co-opting the western discourse and our politicians. Here's to hoping sane heads prevail and we don't have to pick the side of two evils while millions suffer.
If anyone else reading this felt a pang of guilt because they're feeling strongly for the Palestinian cause, and feel like they're being lumped in with the "Hamas apologists", this essay is worth a read:
(Remarking on those advocating the "stand with Israel" narrative) "They are participating, presumably without intent, in a new Red Scare being prepared not against stray callous advocates of Hamas, but against all who defend the right of Palestinians to live, and to live as equals."
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/a-response-to-joshua-leifer
I see nothing in this piece suggesting that "feeling strongly for the Palestinian cause" is tantamount to being a "Hamas apologist." And I certainly didn't intend such a connection. In fact, I personally have enormous sympathy for ordinary Palestinians who aspire only to have an ordinary country in which they can live ordinary lives. To my mind, they are being plunged, yet again, into hell, for no fault of theirs.
Except that their population are the ones who gave birth to, raised, and succored each Hamas guy. It is similar to what happened during the Algerian war for independence against France (say what you will about brutal French tactics): the militants came from the local population and were assisted by it. The extraordinary film "Battle of Algiers" gives one a good sense of the dynamic. Granted, Hamas looks to be more organized and well-funded. But they didn't spring to life out of nowhere. They don't recruit guys from outer space, they are *sur place*.
I like this essay a lot. Thanks for posting.
Thank you Dan. I have a number of left-leaning friends who have been flabbergasted at the reaction of some of the folks they normally admire and agree with. You’ve put into fine words what I have been trying, and failing, to express to them (as you so often do).
Really? It's fun to call people foolish, but I could find no substantial criticism in your article. I guess there is someone who said something about the current war in Gaza, and you consider it to be apologist. Is it? Can't tell because this article is just nicely-couched name-calling.
Yes, obviously you didn't want to "get into it", which is OK. But is there any value, beyond personal catharsis, beyond the performative, the virtue-signalling?
Mark, if I may, you have comprehensively misread it. Maybe try again?
Dan to paraphrase your latest post - when you see a seemingly useless comment ask what the author wants you to do and don’t do it.
Nah, I have, and there's just not much there there.
Stripped of the performative stuff, Orwell and the like, the article is basically "rationalization is a trap; don't be a fool like them and instead keep sanity-checking (patrol good and evil)." OK, sure, little life-lesson. Is that really all we can learn from Hamas apologists?
If I may ask a clarification , why quoting "decolonization"?
Because it's a term of art which many readers -- I suspect most, in fact -- won't understand. (As someone who has spent a career bridging academic/activist circles and the general public, I am very alert to the confusion such terms can cause when the former assumes the latter understand the term as they do, but they don't.)
Great piece sir, brilliant.
As thinking, feeling, self-aware, highly evolved & status-obsessed territorial primates, we're all driven by biological needs & imperatives - as much as by high ideals or rational discourse
As the social biologist E O Wilson wrote: "We have C21st technology, mediaeval instituitions, and stone-age brains.." stone-age instincts or drives perhaps
Once invested in a particular idea or belief system, the human tendency is to double triple & quadruple down.
Most of us have a deep deep need to be right all the time, so it's challenging to admit we may, or may have ever been wrong about anything
This is particularily if not more true of highly educated intellectual elites (and of those such as politicians, actors & those with sociopathic tendencies) than of the 'common man'
And the more one is invested in a cause or idea, the harder it is to question or drop it'- the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance, don't let the facts get in the way of a good story or fashionable mot de jour 'narrative'
Wild theories, as impervious to reason as ancient religious beliefs, have been percolating in our seats of higher learning & are now proliferating thruout stratas of Western society
A few concrete examples?
*Barack Obama who has a "white" mother is a "black" man
(what exactly is a "black" or "white" person anyway? Can we stop & think that one thru, along with such unscientific terms as BME or the more recent BAME)
*A person with a penis is a woman
*Slavery, conquest, ethnic cleansing & Genocide are exclusively the crimes of "white" European Empires & nations
*All art literature poetry music philosophy science & human achievment has no more intrinsic truth value or beauty than a popular comic book or ditty
Cultural norms also vary
In some cultures, truth is a more elastic concept, and it's considered permissible, admirable and even imperative to lie
Home Sap has got 'themself' into a stew and it will be hard to get out
I would reference Matt Goening's " Life is He'll series
my feelings are hurt, alarm bells are ringing in my ears, atrocities are piercing my eyes -- > my main concern : ‘can I find the time for reflection’ when my own passion and commitment are threatening to overwhelm me or/and blind me. Will I succeed ? I see that many, regardless of their mental powers, are not succeeding.
Mysideism. Ick.
Brilliant!
The Albert Pike quote from long ago.
That there has to be a Middle East war…
Hamas was created by our intelligence agencies.
Just like Osama, Oswald, Stalin, Hitler, Mao.
Scapegoats for war / coups.
Kerry was over chattering with Hamas leaders in 2019.
Nothing is as it seems
Bibi knew this was going to pop off.
It’s all orchestrated by the nefarious globalist
Thank you Dan, this is wiser than much out there. Each of us should always examine that rift within our own hearts.