I wish I had that information! I think the way the political system is currently set up, at least in the US, has it so politicians are disconnected and unresponsive to their own constituencies. Being so cut-off from real voters, they are trapped in these ideological bubbles / siloes, so they are not exposed to the full breadth of public opinion. Add to that the fact that governmental entities are so thoroughly influential on how the media reports on certain topics, particularly the Palestine-Israel issue. They know how crucially the media can shape, even dictate, public opinion, so the media gets conscripted.
I don’t know how accurate this is but, if true, I’m not sure how we break out of that cycle.
I will say that it appears that The Powers That Be care little if at all about tanking public opinion so long as they are able to enact social control. I think there’s a tipping point that exists on that front, but as long as people don’t buck and bristle (see the clampdown vis-a-vis the student protests) TPTB can continue condescending to public opinion.
You're welcome. I found it and the video about morbid narcissism really interesting, and it made me wonder about those other folks who are supporting the IDF.
I think the EU countries support Israel for three reasons. One, they are vassals of the US and do what they’re told. Whatever notions of independence France and Germany may have had regarding their shared opposition Iraq War are gone. The people in charge of many post-Soviet states, particularly Poland and the Baltic states, are rabidly pro-US in their foreign policy. The UK government has a “special relationship” to the US, by which I mean they rubber stamp whatever dumb thing their metaphorical idiot children across the pond want at any given time.
Second, I think a lot of EU countries like the idea of their own Jewish populations self-deporting, but their support of Israel makes this desire seem “progressive.” While Europe lacks the noisy piety of Americans, to really be accepted you have to be white and Christian in the proper way relative to the country in question. Whether you believe in God or go to church is irrelevant, because what matters is your connection to the country in a blood and soul kind of way (I can’t think of a nicer way to phrase it).
Third, Palestine is a laboratory for new forms of surveillance, weaponry, torture, and incarceration, the findings of which can be used by other Western countries, whether against their own Black and brown population or those in other countries who might be getting too “uppity.” This is why it’s foolish for Democrats to think that what’s happening in Palestine has no relevance to our domestic politics. The IDF already trains American police officers, whom are already regarded as an occupying force in many of the communities they “serve.” Many police departments already have tanks and military grade equipment. It’s only a matter of time before drones are deployed against us as well. Another example of this phenomenon is how the US government gave amnesty for the Japanese doctors and scientists in charge of the notorious human experimentation lab Unit 731 in exchange for giving their research to them:
Vote third party! Move the Overton Window and DO BDS.
The Overton Window is how the State (no matter the country) keeps track of their success of their Narrative and thought control and the effect the Internet is having on public thought and discourse. If we take control of the Window for our purposes, it will tell them we are aware and refuse to abide. This will scare them and beware this will cause them to step up their crackdown on Freedom of Speech and Association.
They are already locking up and silencing Truth tellers and taking control of X, TikTok, Facebook and all the other platforms one can find the truth. In the UK and Germany it's really bad, they have no hurdles to overcome, but the US has been going to Brazil and other Western controlled governments and instructing them on how to silence the Truth.
VOTE third party! It makes a difference and unfortunately it will provoke the State, but it's gotten to guillotine time.
This is fantastic. I’ve been working on a piece about Israeli narcissism but yours is so much better. Malignant narcissism is the piece I was missing. Thank you.
I'll add that, if you're interested, I really recommend Fromm's The Heart of Man. Fromm was the one who coined the term, and he does so for the first time in that book.
I'll be interested to read your piece when you finish it, if you plan to share it on Substack.
Hi Val! I came across your post from September about collective narcissism, and I thought you might appreciate one author in particular who has enlarged my understanding of the concept.
Vamik Volkan is a psychoanalyst who has been writing about collective narcissism for some time. He brings up the idea of a maypole and a tent to describe the broader large group centered around a pinnacle leader. It’s a metaphor he uses in several different articles. He’s really accessible and I think you’d get a lot out of his work. He writes about trauma as well.
Thank you so much! How thoughtful of you. I really appreciate that. Still planning to write along those lines, but my heart/mind/life have been consumed this week with Jabalia and final harvest/markets for our farm. Hopefully soon. Thank you again!
I think the root of Israeli narcissism can be boiled down to several factors. One, they know they aren’t going to face any consequences for their actions because the US and its vassals in the EU will always make excuses for them. I’m sure we’ve all seen the social media posts where IDF soldiers are openly showing the viewer their war crimes. It’s sociopathic on many levels, but why not post such things if you know you won’t get punished? The mainstream Western media won’t report on it, even though such images are easy to find online. Being able to commit as many atrocities as possible with no negative repercussions will go to a society’s head.
Second, there is a lot of messianism going on in Israeli society, both of the religious and secular sort. Theodor Herzl may have thought that having a nation state would make Jews like any other group of white Westerners, but modern Israelis clearly think they’re above that. The religious part is obvious, but the ways in which it bleeds into the secular messianism of “Greater Israel” thinking is somewhat new, at least in the sense that there is a real chance for it to occur. The settler movement is a concrete example of these two visions merging. The most notorious settlers, like Daniela Weiss are of the religious Zionist maximalist school, but there are many secular Israelis who move to settlements because they get various tax breaks and perks for doing so. The entire idea of the settler movement was to create a frontline of armed communities supported by the IDF that would eat away at Palestinian territory. They have the same function that homesteads did during the Old West, but are much more densely populated.
From the Israeli perspective, the complete annihilation of the Palestinians as a people and a movement is almost near, so why would they want to stop the conflict? The UN is proving to be as toothless as the League of Nations was a hundred years ago years ago, and the US isn’t going to do anything about its favorite vassal state, except maybe to say, “You’re doing amazing, sweetie!” Of course, there is evidence to suggest that the war isn’t going as well for Israel as they’d like, particularly on the Lebanon front. But if Israel can finish the genocide of the Palestinians, I guess they figure that they can finish Lebanon off at a later date.
Leah, we once again largely agree. In fact, almost entirely, I would say.
Part of what I am curious about and want to explore, insofar as that's possible, is how much of this is 'chicken' and how much of it is 'egg'. Because the ability to inflict cruel treatment without punishment is not enticing to most people, not normally. So it's more than just the opportunity, I would say. I would venture that Israel has created a pressurized environment that cultivates such behavior, along with attendant social pressures to bond and to conform. But much of that on my part is speculation (though I'd say informed speculation); I need to look more deeply into the literature in genocide studies to get a better grasp of the relationships.
The messianism that is particular to Jewish worldviews or concepts is something of which I'm still just starting to get a sense. I've gotten a small fraction of information but not enough. I've read cursorily about Gush Emunim but I still need to trace how thoroughly it affected right-wing Israeli politics in the '70s and '80s. Certainly, messianism permeates the settler movement and animates highly visible figures like Itamar Ben-Gvir (previously convicted for terrorism, now Minister of National Security). By the by, a little-publicized fact was that a messianic flag was prominent in the pro-Zionist assault on UCLA students, a golden field with a crown centered in the middle. Flags are meant to rally.
The UN would have plenty of muscle had the US simply followed the rules and enforced the mechanisms. Instead, it's deliberately undermined the authority of the UN, which has dire consequences for everyone's safety in the future. It's incredibly short-sighted. But, in terms of how the northern front is going for Israel, I have little sympathy because the hostilities are at this point by choice. As I understand it, Hezbollah sent rockets into northern Israel after Gaza came under assault, with the clear stipulation that it would stop once a ceasefire was completed. Not only did Israel ignore that, they went ahead and created a new front, attacking Lebanon head-on; and now that Hezbollah itself is asking for a ceasefire, Israel says no. So whatever difficulties Israel is experiencing, they're directly due to Israel's refusal to meet peace where peace is trying to meet it. Israeli leaders have an agenda and they're pushing forward.
Despite this controversial theology, Chabad is one of the most influential Jewish groups in the country (maybe the world) and the only Hasidic group as far as I know who have no problem with working with the Christian right. Chabad is very involved in the settler movement: https://newvoices.org/2008/09/23/0001-4/. While this particular flavor of messianism is unique to Chabad, other segments of Israeli society have their own spin on why it is an imperative to settle and ethnically cleanse as much Arab territory as possible.
Religious Zionism is actually relatively late to the scene. The first Zionists were resolutely secular, and in many cases, antitheist, which naturally horrified Orthodox rabbis. The first Zionists weren’t going to wait around for the messiah to come and lead them to Zion, they were going to create it themselves, no matter what it took. Abraham Isaac Kook, the father of religious Zionism, was initially considered a heretic by other Orthodox rabbis for trying to justify the Zionist project: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Isaac_Kook.
There are Israeli writers on Substack who have written about the toxic messages they received while growing up/living in Israel. Alon Mizrahi is one, but I can’t seem to recall the names of the others I’ve seen.
I appreciate your depth of knowledge and for leaving these pointers. I’ve been learning bit by bit about Chabad, though I’m still a novice; and I have yet to read anything in the original by Kook, only second- or third-hand descriptions. I still have a mountain of reading to do to get a better understanding.
NovaPsyche, I want to say hi, having been a little acquainted with your former work on another site (where I had a different handle). Just learned last week that you're now here! Over there I often felt frustrated that you were, in effect, trying to offer a series of graduate seminar talks to a very mixed audience, some of whom were unable and some aggressively unwilling to meet you on that level. Very happy to find you are still writing. This is a deep and heartbreaking essay. (Btw, I also remember your Poetry Month series with much gratitude.) Subscribed.
Hi! I'm very curious as to which handle you have or had over at the other site... your use of mid-name capitalization is a hint, I think, but the recognition is just escaping me. But thank you for coming by and reading! That's kind.
Your comment causes me to smile. It reminds me of something someone Over There said, that I was invested in long-form writing -- especially in the comments! -- when that platform doesn't really support long-form. As for the level of what I was offering, all I can say is that I often entertain quirky thoughts, and sometimes my mind synthesizes disparate ideas and the result seems kind of interesting, so I write it out ... and sometimes it's even fit to share. :) So, it's just a process of sharing.
This essay is part of an examination of a cultural critic peering into another culture, so I know I'm at a distance; indeed, I feel like someone standing at a picture window that's been soaped opaque, where I've managed to rub a small peephole with the heel of my palm. But it's important that we try to understand exactly where we are in this moment, historically. We've never before seen a genocide at this scale of detail while it was ongoing, and I hope this will be the last; therefore, we must pay close attention, sociologically speaking, so we can glean all we can.
I appreciate you stopping by, and I look forward to chatting more. :)
Thanks for the response. You are modest! Oh, and the internal cap meant nothing, except I guess misremembering your former handle. As for me, do you remember the name of the Greek muse of history by any chance? ;-)
I'm still there and writing occasionally, but just started exploring Substack due to feeling pestered by various ideas that just don't seem particularly suitable for that site, for one reason or another. Literary, philosophical, historico-cultural, feminist/LGBTQ topics and what not. Substack seems to have a lot of useful amenities too, though no private messaging apparently?
I don't expect to find many readers, but at least it could be somewhere to put things and maybe produce the odd dopamine hit. :-) Great to connect!
Ah yes! It’s so good to see you! I visit the other site about every other day, just to see the general flow there and what people are discussing, and I see posts by you here and there. Not too long ago, I think you made the list of top rated posts…? I may be misremembering.
Either way, I’m glad to reconnect with you and to hear that you may be taking up some form of residence here at Substack. There’s a plethora of interesting sections from which to find and contribute reading material. I hope you find a good niche!
(As for PMs, here it’s called the chat function. If you click on the little message bubble icon on the left-hand sidebar, you’ll see a few options at the top of the screen, one of which is ‘direct’. That allows a message to be sent. It’s instant but not “live,” so it’ll stay there until the person logs on and/or checks the message.)
Please take care, and I look forward to chatting more now that we share a platform again. :)
I’ve had trouble with the ‘like’ button since the summer. I’m surprised the admins haven’t fixed it yet, because I know it’s affected other users, too. If you go to the Activity page, you can read all of replies ‘directed’ at you; the like option still works from that page.
What is the probability that the brutal response, the genocidal response to Oct 7, plus the well established apartheid system, is tied to “terror management theory”? The Jews who survived the Holocaust, AFTER enduring centuries of pogroms and horrible treatment, set up a society that became more and more blinded by fear and more and more inhumane in their treatment of people they perceive as threats. Hyper paranoia on a societal level. And it kind of builds or at a minimum, carries through with each generation. I don’t know what it is about the Palestinians that triggered them so. They have treated the Palestinians horribly well before Hamas. I’m thinking these outfits like Hamas and Hezbollah are in response to the land grabs and inhumane treatment from Israelis.
I have not heard of Nurit Elhanan-Peled. I will check out the presentation in the coming days. I did finish The Message. It made me very sad. His writing is so moving. The stories he tells about the way the Palestinians have lived and the connections to the Jim Crow South and empire building everywhere… the through lines. I will definitely watch her presentation so thanks for suggesting it.
I'm glad you came back to tell us about your experience reading The Message. I haven't examined a lot of reaction videos about the book itself, because I want to encounter the page as cleanly as possible without preconceptions, but the passing remarks that I've seen and heard have all spoken about how moving or how gorgeous his writing is. That actually draws me to the book, that promise of alluring and evocative work. I look forward to reading it if and when I get the chance.
That’s a good insight, linking the severe reaction to terror management theory (TMT). TMT raises what’s known as mortality salience, that is, making the concept of one’s own mortality forefront in mind. Now, to be sure, the attack itself was so deadly that it was bound to create mortality salience in the broader Israeli culture. However, the response of government officials certainly had a hand in shaping the national response. There was no official length of time given for grief — instead, Netanyahu et al. pivoted directly toward revenge. A mourning period would have discharged a lot of the initial response and transmuted some of that anger.
Have you heard of Nurit Elhanan-Peled? She’s the daughter of a prominent general of Israel’s past who lost her daughter in a bombing attack, but she is an advocate for Palestinian liberation. She’s a scholar who’s examined Israeli schoolbooks for their depictions of Palestinians over the decades. She notes that the state, through their pedagogic materials, has transferred the historical anger that otherwise would have been directed at Nazi Germany to the Palestinians and “the Arabs” (one blobby monolith) at large. If you have an hour, you might find this presentation of hers interesting. I found it quite revealing:
“Meet the Author - Holocaust Education and the Semiotics of Othering in Israeli Schoolbooks” — Common Ground Research Network (YouTube, July 17, 2023)
This article left me curious about all the western leaders who support Israel. Do they also fit into this category?
Their support -- military, financial and diplomatic -- are alienating a huge portion of the citizens of their countries.
I wonder what the most effective way of dealing with our leaders in politics, media and entertainment is.
Thanks for this very interesting post.
I wish I had that information! I think the way the political system is currently set up, at least in the US, has it so politicians are disconnected and unresponsive to their own constituencies. Being so cut-off from real voters, they are trapped in these ideological bubbles / siloes, so they are not exposed to the full breadth of public opinion. Add to that the fact that governmental entities are so thoroughly influential on how the media reports on certain topics, particularly the Palestine-Israel issue. They know how crucially the media can shape, even dictate, public opinion, so the media gets conscripted.
I don’t know how accurate this is but, if true, I’m not sure how we break out of that cycle.
I will say that it appears that The Powers That Be care little if at all about tanking public opinion so long as they are able to enact social control. I think there’s a tipping point that exists on that front, but as long as people don’t buck and bristle (see the clampdown vis-a-vis the student protests) TPTB can continue condescending to public opinion.
Thanks for reading, Diana.
You're welcome. I found it and the video about morbid narcissism really interesting, and it made me wonder about those other folks who are supporting the IDF.
I think the EU countries support Israel for three reasons. One, they are vassals of the US and do what they’re told. Whatever notions of independence France and Germany may have had regarding their shared opposition Iraq War are gone. The people in charge of many post-Soviet states, particularly Poland and the Baltic states, are rabidly pro-US in their foreign policy. The UK government has a “special relationship” to the US, by which I mean they rubber stamp whatever dumb thing their metaphorical idiot children across the pond want at any given time.
Second, I think a lot of EU countries like the idea of their own Jewish populations self-deporting, but their support of Israel makes this desire seem “progressive.” While Europe lacks the noisy piety of Americans, to really be accepted you have to be white and Christian in the proper way relative to the country in question. Whether you believe in God or go to church is irrelevant, because what matters is your connection to the country in a blood and soul kind of way (I can’t think of a nicer way to phrase it).
Third, Palestine is a laboratory for new forms of surveillance, weaponry, torture, and incarceration, the findings of which can be used by other Western countries, whether against their own Black and brown population or those in other countries who might be getting too “uppity.” This is why it’s foolish for Democrats to think that what’s happening in Palestine has no relevance to our domestic politics. The IDF already trains American police officers, whom are already regarded as an occupying force in many of the communities they “serve.” Many police departments already have tanks and military grade equipment. It’s only a matter of time before drones are deployed against us as well. Another example of this phenomenon is how the US government gave amnesty for the Japanese doctors and scientists in charge of the notorious human experimentation lab Unit 731 in exchange for giving their research to them:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731
Vote third party! Move the Overton Window and DO BDS.
The Overton Window is how the State (no matter the country) keeps track of their success of their Narrative and thought control and the effect the Internet is having on public thought and discourse. If we take control of the Window for our purposes, it will tell them we are aware and refuse to abide. This will scare them and beware this will cause them to step up their crackdown on Freedom of Speech and Association.
They are already locking up and silencing Truth tellers and taking control of X, TikTok, Facebook and all the other platforms one can find the truth. In the UK and Germany it's really bad, they have no hurdles to overcome, but the US has been going to Brazil and other Western controlled governments and instructing them on how to silence the Truth.
VOTE third party! It makes a difference and unfortunately it will provoke the State, but it's gotten to guillotine time.
This is fantastic. I’ve been working on a piece about Israeli narcissism but yours is so much better. Malignant narcissism is the piece I was missing. Thank you.
Thank you so much for reading, Val.
I'll add that, if you're interested, I really recommend Fromm's The Heart of Man. Fromm was the one who coined the term, and he does so for the first time in that book.
I'll be interested to read your piece when you finish it, if you plan to share it on Substack.
Hi Val! I came across your post from September about collective narcissism, and I thought you might appreciate one author in particular who has enlarged my understanding of the concept.
Vamik Volkan is a psychoanalyst who has been writing about collective narcissism for some time. He brings up the idea of a maypole and a tent to describe the broader large group centered around a pinnacle leader. It’s a metaphor he uses in several different articles. He’s really accessible and I think you’d get a lot out of his work. He writes about trauma as well.
“Large-group psychodynamics and massive violence” (Volkan, 2006) https://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=63011209
“Trauma, prejudice, Large-Group Identity and Psychoanalysis” (Volkan, 2021) https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s11231-021-09285-z
“Large-group Narcissism and Political Leaders with Narcissistic Personality Organization” (Volkan and Fowler, 2009) https://journals.healio.com/doi/abs/10.3928/00485713-20090401-09
As I said, I look forward to reading whatever you generate on the topic! I’m terribly interested myself.
Thank you so much! How thoughtful of you. I really appreciate that. Still planning to write along those lines, but my heart/mind/life have been consumed this week with Jabalia and final harvest/markets for our farm. Hopefully soon. Thank you again!
I think the root of Israeli narcissism can be boiled down to several factors. One, they know they aren’t going to face any consequences for their actions because the US and its vassals in the EU will always make excuses for them. I’m sure we’ve all seen the social media posts where IDF soldiers are openly showing the viewer their war crimes. It’s sociopathic on many levels, but why not post such things if you know you won’t get punished? The mainstream Western media won’t report on it, even though such images are easy to find online. Being able to commit as many atrocities as possible with no negative repercussions will go to a society’s head.
Second, there is a lot of messianism going on in Israeli society, both of the religious and secular sort. Theodor Herzl may have thought that having a nation state would make Jews like any other group of white Westerners, but modern Israelis clearly think they’re above that. The religious part is obvious, but the ways in which it bleeds into the secular messianism of “Greater Israel” thinking is somewhat new, at least in the sense that there is a real chance for it to occur. The settler movement is a concrete example of these two visions merging. The most notorious settlers, like Daniela Weiss are of the religious Zionist maximalist school, but there are many secular Israelis who move to settlements because they get various tax breaks and perks for doing so. The entire idea of the settler movement was to create a frontline of armed communities supported by the IDF that would eat away at Palestinian territory. They have the same function that homesteads did during the Old West, but are much more densely populated.
From the Israeli perspective, the complete annihilation of the Palestinians as a people and a movement is almost near, so why would they want to stop the conflict? The UN is proving to be as toothless as the League of Nations was a hundred years ago years ago, and the US isn’t going to do anything about its favorite vassal state, except maybe to say, “You’re doing amazing, sweetie!” Of course, there is evidence to suggest that the war isn’t going as well for Israel as they’d like, particularly on the Lebanon front. But if Israel can finish the genocide of the Palestinians, I guess they figure that they can finish Lebanon off at a later date.
Leah, we once again largely agree. In fact, almost entirely, I would say.
Part of what I am curious about and want to explore, insofar as that's possible, is how much of this is 'chicken' and how much of it is 'egg'. Because the ability to inflict cruel treatment without punishment is not enticing to most people, not normally. So it's more than just the opportunity, I would say. I would venture that Israel has created a pressurized environment that cultivates such behavior, along with attendant social pressures to bond and to conform. But much of that on my part is speculation (though I'd say informed speculation); I need to look more deeply into the literature in genocide studies to get a better grasp of the relationships.
The messianism that is particular to Jewish worldviews or concepts is something of which I'm still just starting to get a sense. I've gotten a small fraction of information but not enough. I've read cursorily about Gush Emunim but I still need to trace how thoroughly it affected right-wing Israeli politics in the '70s and '80s. Certainly, messianism permeates the settler movement and animates highly visible figures like Itamar Ben-Gvir (previously convicted for terrorism, now Minister of National Security). By the by, a little-publicized fact was that a messianic flag was prominent in the pro-Zionist assault on UCLA students, a golden field with a crown centered in the middle. Flags are meant to rally.
The UN would have plenty of muscle had the US simply followed the rules and enforced the mechanisms. Instead, it's deliberately undermined the authority of the UN, which has dire consequences for everyone's safety in the future. It's incredibly short-sighted. But, in terms of how the northern front is going for Israel, I have little sympathy because the hostilities are at this point by choice. As I understand it, Hezbollah sent rockets into northern Israel after Gaza came under assault, with the clear stipulation that it would stop once a ceasefire was completed. Not only did Israel ignore that, they went ahead and created a new front, attacking Lebanon head-on; and now that Hezbollah itself is asking for a ceasefire, Israel says no. So whatever difficulties Israel is experiencing, they're directly due to Israel's refusal to meet peace where peace is trying to meet it. Israeli leaders have an agenda and they're pushing forward.
Thank you for your reply. The white and gold flag you referred to is the Moshiach flag that is associated with Chabad messianism: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/chabad-messianism/.
Despite this controversial theology, Chabad is one of the most influential Jewish groups in the country (maybe the world) and the only Hasidic group as far as I know who have no problem with working with the Christian right. Chabad is very involved in the settler movement: https://newvoices.org/2008/09/23/0001-4/. While this particular flavor of messianism is unique to Chabad, other segments of Israeli society have their own spin on why it is an imperative to settle and ethnically cleanse as much Arab territory as possible.
Religious Zionism is actually relatively late to the scene. The first Zionists were resolutely secular, and in many cases, antitheist, which naturally horrified Orthodox rabbis. The first Zionists weren’t going to wait around for the messiah to come and lead them to Zion, they were going to create it themselves, no matter what it took. Abraham Isaac Kook, the father of religious Zionism, was initially considered a heretic by other Orthodox rabbis for trying to justify the Zionist project: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Isaac_Kook.
There are Israeli writers on Substack who have written about the toxic messages they received while growing up/living in Israel. Alon Mizrahi is one, but I can’t seem to recall the names of the others I’ve seen.
I appreciate your depth of knowledge and for leaving these pointers. I’ve been learning bit by bit about Chabad, though I’m still a novice; and I have yet to read anything in the original by Kook, only second- or third-hand descriptions. I still have a mountain of reading to do to get a better understanding.
NovaPsyche, I want to say hi, having been a little acquainted with your former work on another site (where I had a different handle). Just learned last week that you're now here! Over there I often felt frustrated that you were, in effect, trying to offer a series of graduate seminar talks to a very mixed audience, some of whom were unable and some aggressively unwilling to meet you on that level. Very happy to find you are still writing. This is a deep and heartbreaking essay. (Btw, I also remember your Poetry Month series with much gratitude.) Subscribed.
Hi! I'm very curious as to which handle you have or had over at the other site... your use of mid-name capitalization is a hint, I think, but the recognition is just escaping me. But thank you for coming by and reading! That's kind.
Your comment causes me to smile. It reminds me of something someone Over There said, that I was invested in long-form writing -- especially in the comments! -- when that platform doesn't really support long-form. As for the level of what I was offering, all I can say is that I often entertain quirky thoughts, and sometimes my mind synthesizes disparate ideas and the result seems kind of interesting, so I write it out ... and sometimes it's even fit to share. :) So, it's just a process of sharing.
This essay is part of an examination of a cultural critic peering into another culture, so I know I'm at a distance; indeed, I feel like someone standing at a picture window that's been soaped opaque, where I've managed to rub a small peephole with the heel of my palm. But it's important that we try to understand exactly where we are in this moment, historically. We've never before seen a genocide at this scale of detail while it was ongoing, and I hope this will be the last; therefore, we must pay close attention, sociologically speaking, so we can glean all we can.
I appreciate you stopping by, and I look forward to chatting more. :)
Thanks for the response. You are modest! Oh, and the internal cap meant nothing, except I guess misremembering your former handle. As for me, do you remember the name of the Greek muse of history by any chance? ;-)
I'm still there and writing occasionally, but just started exploring Substack due to feeling pestered by various ideas that just don't seem particularly suitable for that site, for one reason or another. Literary, philosophical, historico-cultural, feminist/LGBTQ topics and what not. Substack seems to have a lot of useful amenities too, though no private messaging apparently?
I don't expect to find many readers, but at least it could be somewhere to put things and maybe produce the odd dopamine hit. :-) Great to connect!
Ah yes! It’s so good to see you! I visit the other site about every other day, just to see the general flow there and what people are discussing, and I see posts by you here and there. Not too long ago, I think you made the list of top rated posts…? I may be misremembering.
Either way, I’m glad to reconnect with you and to hear that you may be taking up some form of residence here at Substack. There’s a plethora of interesting sections from which to find and contribute reading material. I hope you find a good niche!
(As for PMs, here it’s called the chat function. If you click on the little message bubble icon on the left-hand sidebar, you’ll see a few options at the top of the screen, one of which is ‘direct’. That allows a message to be sent. It’s instant but not “live,” so it’ll stay there until the person logs on and/or checks the message.)
Please take care, and I look forward to chatting more now that we share a platform again. :)
And for some reason I can't "LIKE" your response above. Will take a while to learn the ropes here.
I’ve had trouble with the ‘like’ button since the summer. I’m surprised the admins haven’t fixed it yet, because I know it’s affected other users, too. If you go to the Activity page, you can read all of replies ‘directed’ at you; the like option still works from that page.
What is the probability that the brutal response, the genocidal response to Oct 7, plus the well established apartheid system, is tied to “terror management theory”? The Jews who survived the Holocaust, AFTER enduring centuries of pogroms and horrible treatment, set up a society that became more and more blinded by fear and more and more inhumane in their treatment of people they perceive as threats. Hyper paranoia on a societal level. And it kind of builds or at a minimum, carries through with each generation. I don’t know what it is about the Palestinians that triggered them so. They have treated the Palestinians horribly well before Hamas. I’m thinking these outfits like Hamas and Hezbollah are in response to the land grabs and inhumane treatment from Israelis.
I have not heard of Nurit Elhanan-Peled. I will check out the presentation in the coming days. I did finish The Message. It made me very sad. His writing is so moving. The stories he tells about the way the Palestinians have lived and the connections to the Jim Crow South and empire building everywhere… the through lines. I will definitely watch her presentation so thanks for suggesting it.
I'm glad you came back to tell us about your experience reading The Message. I haven't examined a lot of reaction videos about the book itself, because I want to encounter the page as cleanly as possible without preconceptions, but the passing remarks that I've seen and heard have all spoken about how moving or how gorgeous his writing is. That actually draws me to the book, that promise of alluring and evocative work. I look forward to reading it if and when I get the chance.
That’s a good insight, linking the severe reaction to terror management theory (TMT). TMT raises what’s known as mortality salience, that is, making the concept of one’s own mortality forefront in mind. Now, to be sure, the attack itself was so deadly that it was bound to create mortality salience in the broader Israeli culture. However, the response of government officials certainly had a hand in shaping the national response. There was no official length of time given for grief — instead, Netanyahu et al. pivoted directly toward revenge. A mourning period would have discharged a lot of the initial response and transmuted some of that anger.
Have you heard of Nurit Elhanan-Peled? She’s the daughter of a prominent general of Israel’s past who lost her daughter in a bombing attack, but she is an advocate for Palestinian liberation. She’s a scholar who’s examined Israeli schoolbooks for their depictions of Palestinians over the decades. She notes that the state, through their pedagogic materials, has transferred the historical anger that otherwise would have been directed at Nazi Germany to the Palestinians and “the Arabs” (one blobby monolith) at large. If you have an hour, you might find this presentation of hers interesting. I found it quite revealing:
“Meet the Author - Holocaust Education and the Semiotics of Othering in Israeli Schoolbooks” — Common Ground Research Network (YouTube, July 17, 2023)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u3FEl4m9Tc