Tim Maroney ([info]tim_maroney) wrote,
@ 2003-05-20 15:20:00
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traditional Thelemic anti-Semitism: a discussion
http://www.livejournal.com/users/stonemirror/267996.html?thread=1106652

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[info]muelos
2003-05-20 07:33 pm UTC (link)
The referenced remarks are anti-semitic. I don't think anyone can deny this with any credibility.

Do you think these remarks justify labeling Crowley as an anti-semite?

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[info]tim_maroney
2003-05-20 08:04 pm UTC (link)
While I did refer to Crowley's commission of blood libel as "anti-Semitism," I did not apply the label "anti-Semite" to Crowley. So I'm not sure of the intent of your question.

Still, not to be coy, dictionary.com gives definitions of "anti-Semite" that would seem to apply to Crowley's blood libel and his advocacy of Pogrom, including:

One who discriminates against or who is hostile toward or prejudiced against Jews.

and

someone who hates and would persecute Jews

The OED2 gives the equally applicable

one who is hostile or opposed to the Jews

So, yes, the label would seem appropriate.

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[info]muelos
2003-05-20 08:46 pm UTC (link)
I didn't mean to accuse you of accusing Crowley of being an anti-semite. Of course, now that you actually have accused him of being an anti-semite, I no longer need to accuse you of that.

Here are a couple of other possibilities:
1. His remarks in this document were ironic, or partly ironic;
2. He was under a temporary cloud of ignorance.

If the latter, I'd have to say that it was a cloud that returned periodically to darken his rhetoric, based on other comments he made elsewhere. However, based on yet other comments further elsewhere, I'd also have to say that his opinions on the Jews seemed to depend somewhat on the time during which he was writing, and on what he had been reading, and on his mood, and on what he had been dosing himself with, and on various other circumstances.

Despite occasional comments that would indicate a certain -- but variable -- degree of personal ethnic prejudice and insensitivity, an overview of the great body of his work does not reveal "Dealing with the Jewish Problem" as a major theme, or even a minor theme.

Yet such a theme is exactly what the term 'anti-semite' conjures.

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[info]tim_maroney
2003-05-20 08:56 pm UTC (link)
It seems the question you are addressing is not whether he was an anti-Semite, but whether he was nothing but an anti-Semite. I'm making no attempt to reduce him to a label, only to note one of the many labels that applies to him.

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[info]muelos
2003-05-21 09:01 am UTC (link)
I hope I'm not that silly. Even true-believing, militant anti-semites have also been other things -- fathers, mothers, politicians, bureaucrats, religious leaders, dictators, journalists, entrepreneurs, paranoids, etc.

I'm just very reticent about applying unqualified labels to human beings, especially when they are potentially pejorative or have negative connotations that may not be entirely applicable to the person in question -- i.e, when application of the term entails a risk of stereotyping. By the evidence of a few selected remarks and the application of a strict definition, Crowley can be semantically equated with such militant anti-semites as Hitler and Henry Ford.

I much prefer "Crowley made a number of anti-semitic remarks" to "Crowley was an anti-semite." It's much easier to prove. I can't prove that Crowley's anti-semitic remarks weren't even partly ironic, or made for shock value; especially since there is no pattern of anti-semitic acts in his life that could be used to support such an assertion.

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[info]tim_maroney
2003-05-21 09:55 am UTC (link)
I also prefer to simply note what he said. I'll remind you it was you who pressed the issue of this label "anti-Semite." When pressed on that specific point, then I have to acknowledge that according to dictionary definitions, it does seem applicable. But I think it smacks of an overall value judgment and thus is overly distracting rhetorically.

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