Divergent opinion does exist on this campus – but apparently, much of it is racist. That’s the term one graduate student used in a recent letter to the editor, in reference to Tim Jordan’s comments. She did not elaborate on what exactly she found racist; Jordan had criticized what he believed was Student Life’s biased war coverage, and it was hard to spot anything racial in his letter (but he did suggest we editors “get real someday, or move to France”).
One flier, with the Southpaw logo, was even livelier: “If you support the war,” it said, “or think it beyond you to care, you are an imperialist, racist, war-mongering pig.” Before that, a senior has called this columnist racist for questioning the effect of race-based scholarships (I’m “bigoted,” to boot). And last year, another letter drew the obvious conclusion that “to condemn Jewish self-determination as racism is…racist itself.” Q.E.D.
And if you believe some letters, the campus is also crawling with anti-Semites (not to mention self-hating Jews). Last year, three students wrote that Jonathan Sternberg’s arguments about Jewish ancestry made him an anti-Semite; in conclusion, they asked him to “shut up.” A sophomore contributor has called critics of Israel anti-Semitic; WUSM Professor Stephen Lefrak, who should know better, has called one of them “anti-Jewish.” More ominously, one junior, in his response to my brief discussion of Judaism, warned me to “learn from Sternberg’s example, and read the facts before you write” (Sternberg claims he received harassment, some of it illegal, after writing his op-ed).
What gives?
The writers mentioned above have got to know that name-calling won’t win over the other side. Why, then, the shrill denunciations? An uncharitable explanation would point out that epithets serve to marginalize the opponent. Being branded a racist is the modern-day Scarlet Letter; even a suspicion of anti-Semitism, however unfounded, could damage someone’s credibility and threaten all sorts of prospects. The people who use those labels presumably know this, and may be aiming to scare the other side from challenging the established views.
It’s been done on a grander scale. Josef Stalin adroitly sidelined his various opponents by calling some “left deviationists,” everyone else – “right deviationists” (deviating, it turned out, from Stalin’s own views). Meanwhile, in his Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler wrote: “… the most brilliant propagandist technique … must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.” Many zealots at WU have taken this phrase to heart. The simple phrase “anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism” has been repeated endlessly on this campus.
In truth, it’s unlikely that most name-callers are this Machiavellian. Their style of discourse may just be the more noticeable extension of the general tendency to line up viewpoints in a neat, linear, all-encompassing spectrum, with deviations feared as confusing and deceptive. Psychology professor Rebecca Treiman speaks of “categorization,” a psychological tool where “a person might be placed into a specific category based on just one aspect of their views.” This makes it easier to grapple with his opinion, especially if the opinion is new or unusual. It also makes it easier to “decide” whether to support the idea or oppose it.
Many politically-minded people subscribe to one ideology or another, because it provides a useful toolkit for examining any issue. The problem is that the kit is not innovative – indeed, it makes it impossible for fresh ideas to spring up, or for complex ones to emerge. It must also be bought in full. You’re either on the left or on the right; you’re either for black advancement, whatever means used, or against.
Individuals who see themselves as members of a besieged minority might be especially prone to contrasting thinking. They expect it from others, too. “This is suicide,” declared Gary Younge in the beginning of a feature piece in The Guardian, a British liberal newspaper, in which he “spoke up” for Uncle Tom. “For a politically engaged black writer I might as well pen my own obituary. …the words will almost certainly be taken down in evidence and used against me at a later date.” In his political circles, deviation is not allowed.
Let’s blame Freud
Patrick Eisenlohr, a linguistic anthropologist at WU, says all this is nothing new – whether the intention is to marginalize the other side or to simplify its stance. “Trying to reduce the complexity of persons’ positions into simple labels” has been done since time immemorial, he notes.
But there is one aspect of our age that perhaps makes labels stickier than before. That is the effect the “Freudian revolution” has had on the modern mind. Freud believed that associations – such as analogies or puns – conceal a hidden logic. This idea has entered the mainstream imagination and branched out. Language is seen as a veil hiding true motives; public pronouncements are euphemisms for something darker.
It is this reasoning, if indirectly, that could have made Jewish students suspect anti-Semitism hiding in criticism of Israel, or that leads some to deduce that racism is driving war supporters. It may be that name-callers are neither scheming nor simplistic; they are just more suspicious.
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Student Life will come out three times a week next year, and three new editors will replace Yoni and me starting next week. Roman Goldstein and Mia Eisner-Grynberg have written for this page before. Erin Harkless comes from the news section, having covered Student Union. I would tell them to grab a pen – but I’d get letters….