Similar to the last post, I recall an article from the 1980s in Tikkun, a socialist Jewish magazine, by a young Jewish man who was questioning where radicalism might be going. He had been at a conference at which a lot of sympathy was being expressed for Palestinians who were openly comparing their own treatment to the Holocaust. The phrase he used has stuck with me "There was a hierarchy of 'More Oppressed Than Thou' which permeated not only that discussion, but every discussion." People clamored for greater victim status for their group compared to all others. He wondered whether the far-left politics he had regarded as a safe haven for Jews for a century might somehow turn on them in the future.
That was prescient. I don't know what became of him, but I have hopes, given that he saw so clearly so early. He was influential in my own eventual rejection of the left, because having once had it pointed out to me, I began to see that principle applied in a dozen other places.
'More Oppressed Than Thou' That was often my thought as the Me Too movement unfolded. It seemed to me that one after the other celebrity was almost trying to top a revelation from a rival celebrity. Like, "I can't be left out of this important movement, there must be some incident in my past that I can come up with to put on Twitter." But maybe I'm just jaded.
ReplyDeleteThe Palis never miss a chance to miss a chance. One could hope that they'd "get their act together, and take it out on the road", but...NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
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