Every closely identifying in-group tends to have some hostility towards outsiders. Jews aren’t unique. The more a guy gets into his Jewish, black, gay, Japanese, or Muslim identity, the more distant he’ll feel from outsiders.
Jewish composers of Christmas songs remove the Christ/God/religion from the occasion, but turnaround is fair play. Jews are fine with Christians writing songs about Yom Kippur that rob the day of its solemnity and religiosity and instead focus on the business deals and slutty fashion show.
Paul Gottfried says: “Most Jews I have known detest Christians and Christianity, with the notable exceptions of Sephardic Jews, who lived under the Muslims, and the younger generation of Israelis, who identify Christians with Dispensationalist allies. What drives Jewish liberalism more than anything else is the overriding passion to neutralize Christian influence as quickly as possible.”
LA (Lawrence Auster) replies:
Then what approach do you propose for Western Christian society to save itself without becoming anti-Semitic?
PG (Paul Gottfried) replies:
Simply ignore Jewish malice. The problem is the WASP majority take the antiquated hostilities of aggrieved minorities too seriously. They either beat their breasts contritely or in a few cases become neo-Nazis. I can’t imagine that a WASP patrician in 1900 would have given a damn what some Jewish leftist maniac thought about him.
LA (Lawrence Auster) replies:
But we’re not speaking here of Jewish leftist maniacs. We’re speaking of Jewish mainstream liberals and conservatives whose ambivalence about Europe and Christianity and the majority gentile culture is such that when push comes to shove between the West and Islam, many of them will not positively take the side of the West, as seemed to be indicated by Daniel Pipes’s detached, neutral prediction of a battle for the possession of Europe between Muslims and Europeans. Given the great influence of Jewish writers and opinion makers, this remains a serious problem. The reason for the problem, says Ezra F. is that Jews fear that any renewed Western patriotism against Muslms will exclude the Jews from membership in the West. So Ezra proposes that if the majority declares that it protects and loves the Jews as Jews, that will overcome the Jews’ rational fears and win their intense loyalty to the West. But you say this will not work, because the Jewish animus against Christianity is too great.
If you’re right, where does that leave us? You say ignore them and just do what has to be done. The bad news I see in what you’re saying is this: an attempt by the majority Christian culture to elicit explicit Jewish loyalty by means of a quid pro quo will only weaken the majority culture. But the good news that I see is this: if the majority culture just goes ahead and begins to defend itself, many members of minorities such as the Jews will go along. In other words, the majority culture will get minorities’ cooperation and even their loyalty, not by seeking it, but by leading. Which relates to my long-time view that minorities’ disenchantment with the majority has not been due to the majority’s being oppressive, but to its giving up its belief in itself and its authority.
