Another Round of the "Lord of the World" War.


Owen Hatteras says:

"The Satanizing of the Jews" is the phrase used by historian Joel Carmichael to describe what he calls "mystical anti-Semitism"; i.e., traditional Christian anti-Judaism that viewed Jews as the murderers of Christ, acting in league with the Devil. Descriptions of Jews as being coarse-looking, or money grubbing typically belonged to later nationalist or racialist varieties of anti-Semitism.

I made it quite plain that these are not all the same thing, although the first quite naturally feeds into the second.

During the Second World War, those (few) Polish Gentiles who offered refuge and hiding to Jews not only had to keep this a secret from the German authorities; they had to keep it a secret from their Christian neighbors as well. I doubt that Polish peasants acquired their hatred of Jews from a reading of "Mein Kampf". It more likely came from the 'teaching of contempt' absorbed at their mother's knees and from their priests.

I have repeatedly made it plain that the anti-Semitism of Msgr. Benson's time and place was not that of Houston Stewart Chamberlain or Hitler--i.e., based on race-hatred--but originated in age-old religious hostility.

Msgr. Benson's book partakes fully of the attitudes of its time; the trouble is that such attitudes helped set the stage for horrors wholly unimagined by the book's author. Those who later devised and implemented such horrors found plenty of ready helpers from the ranks of ordinary Christians--including Roman Catholics--not only in Germany itself, but far beyond. This was due to many factors, traditional anti-Jewish teachings by the Catholic Church being only one of these; but the age-old animus was definitely part of the mix. The intellectual honesty and presumed good faith of those who ignore, deny, or minimize such plangent facts is plainly in doubt.

The overwhelming bulk of American Catholics reject anti-Semitism of any sort. Some conservative Catholics however seem to want to conserve only the worst legacies of the past. They may find--as did their predecessors--that they get a good deal more than what they bargained for.

In Hungary, the ruling conservative coalition's leading party, 'Fidesz', has now rammed through changes in the country's constitution that have ended free elections and stripped the nation's judiciary and media of their independence. The ruling coalition's 'Jobbik' party conducts close-order drills of uniformed paramilitary on town squares. And once again, time-honored rhetoric is aired in Parliament and the media blaming the country's economic problems on Jews and Roma.

Did I note that all of this is being done in the name of restoring the country's 'Christian values'? But this is "a small, faraway country, of which we know nothing".

There is little further that can be said in the face of ongoing and deliberate obtuseness--except again to note that theoconservatives' wistful longings for Franco-style authoritarianism, and indulgence in racial or religious paranoia, may bring in a good deal more besides.

Peter S. Bradley says:

To the reader,

It should be painfully clear by now that Owen Hatteras can offer not a scintilla of evidence from the actual book he purportedly read and reviewed, to support his claim that "[Lord of the World] traffics in some of the hoariest anti-Semitic stereotypes imaginable."

Thus, I pointed out that Jews are mentioned only three times in contexts that are not anti-semitic. I actually quoted the excerpts for the reader to judge for himself.

Mr. Hatteras implicitly conceded the point, but decided that the problem was that Benson dared - dared! - to give his anti-Christ figure a non-Jewish name! The dastardly Benson was therefore responsible for something he had not written and for readers who may not associate either "burgh" or "berg" as being Jewish.

In response to that non-argument, I again quoted from the book to show the absence of anti-semitic tropes.

Now, Mr. Hatteras decides to drop any attempt to associate his claim that "[Lord of the World] traffics in some of the hoariest anti-Semitic stereotypes imaginable" by not even attempting to loosely attach his claim to anything even nebulously and imaginatively found in the text. No, now Mr. Hatteras points to things that happened thirty years after Benson died far outside of the England where Benson wrote and to "theocons" and American "conservative Catholics" living in 21st Century America as evidence in support of his thesis.

The only possible response is -

*Snort*

Seriously?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Mr. Hatteras obviously has "issues" - to put it gently - with American Conservative Catholics that for all we know he believes are tunnelling under his house, but what does Mr. Hatteras' idee fixe have to do with Benson's book?

Clearly, not a thing.

Mr. Hatteras is simply using his review of Benson's book to savage a group he obviously doesn't like through the deployment of rhetorical fallacies which could receive an honorable mention in "The Big Guide to Making Ridiculously Bad Arguments."

But this has nothing to do with Benson, who, whatever his faults - such as using "Edwardian-era references" (something which is clearly unexpected of, and inexcusable for, someone who was writing during the Edwardian era) - Mr. Hatteras has offered no justification of his base slander of, and false witness against, Benson based on what Benson actually wrote in this book.

At this point, an attentive reader begins to suspect that Mr. Hatteras is actually reviewing a book he never read.