Into the Wardrobe

Stating facts is not, unfortunately, a particularly good defense - anybody can cherry-pick the facts they like and ignore the ones they don't.

I think it necessary to say something about 'isms'. A lot of 'isms' today are rhetorical in nature - they are used to assume one attitude and at the same time, prevent further thought on what exactly is meant by the term, whether it be "racism", "sexism", or in this case "anti-semitism".

As soon as the word is invoked, we are supposed to (have been trained to) stop thinking, respond like Pavlov's dogs, and just respond "discrimination - bad!" "tolerance - good!" much in the manner of Orwell's sheep (Animal Farm). The rhetorical term works to bend one to a particular ideological position while circumventing thought. These widely-used rhetorical terms very often perform a 'bait and switch', whereby, upon hearing the term, we have been trained that whatever is being talked about is an unqualified good or evil, without any thinking actually occurring as to whether it is or not. The 'thinking' has already been done for us and the ideological position assumed - and we, growing up in an environment that we did not create, are molded to that environment and accept that thought and position without being aware that we have been indoctrinated. See my post here for more detailed treatment: viewtopic.php?p=197593#p197593

(to believers:) There is a spiritual war going on, and we are all under the influence of the Enemy, whether we realize it or not.
(to unbelievers:) It is possible to have had your thinking formed for you, and your assumptions drilled into you so that they are unquestioned. They are your dogmas, whether you realize it or not. It's done to children all the time. Why should any of us think that we are an exception to that?

Kudos John.

- Dan -

I completely disagree - at the very least I get a strong sense that no one got what I said at all.
If you use the word "racism", while completely failing to define what that is, you are simply stopping thought and assuming that you know what the thought you are shutting down is and stands for - when that is quite often not the case. The same goes for all other "isms" and buzzwords.
It's one thing to correctly identify hate and unreason and condemn it (something I support). It is altogether another thing to incorrectly identify reason as hate and unreason - which is itself unreason. But that's how the buzzwords are so often used, usually unwittingly.

Perhaps (like obsenity), racism is difficult to define since it is a matter of degrees as well as varying cultural acceptance. However (also like obsenity) it's one of those cases where "I know it when I see it " (Justice Potter Stewart).

- Dan -

I think even Lewis would have realized that words change meanings with cultures and times. What was considered racist was different in the 1850s than it was in the 1920s and than it is in 2009. What's considered racist in a culture of predominantly one race is different that what's considered racist in a multi-ethnic culture.

Perhaps the definition remains the same but the application changes.

- Dan -