Antisemitism: A Psychological Disorder
Reader comment on item: Anti-Semitism Evolves

Submitted by J. Peden (United States), Feb 20, 2005 at 10:35

I very fimly believe it most enlightening to see antisemitism as a "psychological disorder", a phenomenon of a thought process itself. Those with the disorder do not see it themselves. The problem is that it is them.

The disorder is also manifested roundly elsewhere by the failure of certain individuals to see the nature of thought itself, to even be able to examine their own thoughts. It is a lack of an ability which I call "free-thought", which itself is able to see, by means of such thought or thought capacity, that thought itself is an activity or ability of indigenous creativity very similar to the life force itself. And that the point is to do it and use its power of sight to see our situation as created and existent in relationship to our Creator or Maker, which I contend is no more than the Universe, of which we are a part of and is actually within us as much as it is "outside" of us.

[Our situation is basically mysterious, yet this is not a "fact" but rather an invitation. It is quite significant that we have been created with the desire to know our Maker! Though the Maker is not capturable by a concept, such as being humanoid, for example, or as a Superhuman. Why anyone would want to capture the Mystery by certain thoughts or thought model is a problem. Thoughts are not things. Heaven as the achievement of final Truths or a rest from thought creativity does not exist, except as thought death.]

Such a capacity - free-thought - obviates or makes totally irrelevant all bigotries. Yet it is not an etherial or mystical activity divorced in any way from reality, for this is impossible and not even desireable. Nor does the capacity exclude or disparage "practical" thought or action along the lines of solving problems or thinking in any other rational way about what goes on and how things operate.

Thus, in terms of what is going on amongst humans today, I see the conflict as being one pitting free-thought entities against those who don't really have it. The latter hate free-thought and its existence in an exactly racist way and want to destroy it as "the other". Why this has occurred is irrelevant once the dichotomy is manifested in individuals. It is then virtually permanent. A tiger is a tiger.

The precise difference between those with the capacity for free-thought and those without it is that the former will tolerate the latter but not the converse. It is easy to see this reflected by the Arab-Israeli conflict where the former will not tolerate the existence of Israel, but the latter will tolerate the existence of the former. Naturally, the practicalities are such that a war to the death is necessitated by the inequalities of being and nature of the two thought types. The Arab Terrorists demand it explicitly.

Others are caught in the middle. I can't characterize their thought processes, except to know that many of them do not want to fight and have much better things to do, whatever they might be, which are usually very creative and competent.

But propagandists continually try to convince those in the middle that they are instead victims, that they have insoluble problems that are attributable to others who the propagandists will just conveniently save them from if they will only allow the propagandists to have control - of their very personhood and freedom to act for themselves, of their very power to do so.

Thus, the problem is exactly the Terrorists. It is also what we now call Leftists who are basically thought controllists, hating free-thought and being of the nature of control itself as the content and purpose of their thought and "self", in contrast to the nature of free-thought entities as not caring about control of others and their thoughts. All Leftists, as I define them, are bigots. If Leftists don't want to be Leftists they are free to not be Leftists. Let's see it.

Likewise, you either see this or you don't. The fight is on, as it probably always has been, and it pits one hominid or humanoid against another. It is necessary, which the allegedly ignorant George Bush has seen.

Even seeing Bush as ignorant, deserving hate, and so on is bigoted. Again it manifests a "psychological disorder" similar or exactly the same as that producing antisemitism - the lack of having a free-thought capacity. I say, Bring It On.

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened for relevance, substance, and tone, and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome, but comments are rejected if scurrilous, off-topic, vulgar, ad hominem, or otherwise viewed as inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the Guidelines for Comments. For informational purposes, we identify countries from which comments are sent.