On his Substack site “After Babel,” social psychologist Jon Haidt, most of you know of, explains the rapid rise of antisemitism on American campuses. The piece is long and a bit repetitious, but well worth reading of a Christmas Eve.
Click to read:
I’ll just summarize his thesis and give some quotes. First, the problem:
Why is the culture of elite higher education so fertile for antisemitism, and why are our defenses against it so weak? Don’t we have the world’s most advanced academic concepts and bureaucratic innovations for identifying hatred of all kinds, even expressions of hatred so small, veiled, and unconscious that we call them “micro-aggressions” and “implicit biases”?
Yes, we do, but it turns out that they don’t apply when Jews are the targets,1 and this was the shocking hypocrisy on display in that Congressional hearing room on December 5. Congresswoman Elise Stefanik asked the President of the University of Pennsylvania “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn’s rules or code of conduct, yes or no?” President Magill was unable to say yes. When the question was asked in various ways to all three presidents, none could say yes. All said variations of “it depends on the context.”
The question, then, is this: given that persecuted minorities are at the top of progressive’s “admiration pile”, why are the Jews, perhaps the most persecuted group in history, at the bottom? Part of the answer lies in one of the three “great untruths” presented in Lukianoff and Haid’s book The Coddling of the American Mind:
“life is a battle between good people and evil people”
And this came from the increase among the young in “safetyism”, described by Wikipedia this way: “a culture or belief system in which safety (which includes ’emotional safety’) has become a sacred value, which means that people become unwilling to make trade-offs demanded by other practical and moral concerns.”
And so this form of Manichaeism developed:
The new morality driving these reforms was antithetical to the traditional virtues of academic life: truthfulness, free inquiry, persuasion via reasoned argument, equal opportunity, judgment by merit, and the pursuit of excellence. A subset of students had learned this new morality in some of their courses, which trained them to view everyone as either an oppressor or a victim. Students were taught to use identity as the primary lens through which everything is to be understood, not just in their coursework but in their personal and political lives. When students are taught to use a single lens for everything, we noted, their education is harming them, rather than improving their ability to think critically.
This leads to what Haidt calls “common enemy identity politics” (opposed to its virtuous twin, “common humanity identity politics):
[Common enemy identity politics] teaches students to develop the oppressor/victim mindset and then change their societies by uniting disparate constituencies against a specific group of oppressors. This mindset spreads easily and rapidly because human minds evolved for tribalism. The mindset is hyper-activated on social media platforms that reward simple, moralistic, and sensational content with rapid sharing and high visibility. This mindset has long been evident in antisemitism emanating from the far right. In recent years it is increasingly driving antisemitism on the left, too.
And the oppressor/victim mentality, says Haidt, comes from evolution: it’s a way of thinking that was presumably adaptive competition between the small groups of our ancestors. In those groups, “us-versus-them” thinking presumably led to greater reproduction of those who were wary of “the other.” (This hypothesis makes sense to me, though it’s very hard to test. But the universality of tribalism demands some kind of explanation. Fortunately, one of the increases in morality emphasized by Pinker involves the disappearance of this tribalism, which is maladaptive in a modern world of widespread interaction.)
Still, why the Jews? Because they fit neatly into the slot of “oppressor.” (I’d add that Jews, as well as Asians, have done quite well compared to other minorities, which makes them less likely to be seen as oppressed. Jews, like Asians, are considered “white adjacent”!)
So, how well does our analysis from 2018 hold up in 2023? Does chapter 3 help us to understand the recent explosion of antisemitism on campus?
Unfortunately, the analysis works perfectly. Many students today talk about Israel as a “settler-colonialist” nation That is straight oppressor/victim terminology, from post-colonialist thinker Frantz Fanon. It treats Israel as if diaspora Jews were 19th century England or France sending colonists to take over an existing society, motivated by monetary greed. Once that frame is applied, students’ minds are closed to any other understanding of a complicated situation, such as the view that Jews are the original (or indigenous) inhabitants of the land, who had a continual presence there for 3,000 years, and whose exiled populations (many in Arab lands) had nowhere else to go after being decimated by Hitler’s version of common enemy identity politics.7 The French in Algeria could return to France, but if these students get their wish and Hamas gains control of all the territory “from the river to the sea,” it’s not clear where seven million Jews would go, other than into the sea.
Haidt then gives some polling data showing that members of generation Z (those born roughly between 1997 and 2012, making them 11 to 26 years old) are far more antisemitic than older folks. This is presumably because Gen Z has been subject more often to safetyism and the oppressor-victim narrative. Here are some data from Haidt’s paper:
As you can see below, all older generations favor disciplinary action as the proper response to students who publicly call for the mass killing of Jews. Only Gen Z does not.
The big difference between generations is that only Gen Z endorses this kind of identity politics. One survey item asks: “There is an ideology that white people are oppressors and nonwhite people and people of certain groups have been oppressed and as a result should be favored today at universities and for employment. Do you support or oppose this ideology?” [p. 56]
Gen Z, and only Gen Z, agrees with the “ideology that white people are oppressors.” The direct line linking this explicit form of common enemy identity politics to antisemitism is found in the responses to the next item: “Do you think that Jews as a class are oppressors and should be treated as oppressors or is that a false ideology?”
The summary (Haidt’s bolding):
In other words: While all generations agree that race-based identity politics now dominates on campus, only Gen Z leans toward (rather than away from ) endorsing such politics, applying it to Jews, and agreeing that we should treat Jews as oppressors—that is, treat them badly and not protect them from hate and harassment because they deserve what’s coming to them.
One of the noxious results of this trend, which of course is jumped on by the Right-wing media—Left-wing media barely touches the issue because they perpetuate the victim-oppressor narrative—is that it makes Americans lose trust in higher education; and the more Right-wing you are, the faster you lose trust. But even the Left is losing confidence in higher education, as seen in the graph below (caption from Haidt):
It is in fact appropriate to lose faith in higher education given what is happening here. It’s not just antisemitism, but the rise of “studies” departments that are based on identity politics, the proliferation of DEI bureaucracy, increasing self-segregation in universities, the tendency of universities to make ideological statements that chill the speech of many (especially conservatives), and the infection of academic discourse with ideology. The consequence is that both Left and Right, who see Biden as the embodiment of “progressive” and elitist politics, are going to turn more towards Republicans, with the ultimate disastrous possibility that Trump will be re-elected. Universities are hoist with their own petard.
Haidt’s argument for the rise of antisemitism makes sense, and I do recommend you read The Coddling of the American Mind. But of course people like me who live on campus are more concerned with quelling this kind of hatred than understanding its philosophical roots. How can you preserve free speech and the First Amendment on campus while at the same time preventing speech (especially now) from creating at atmosphere of fear, mistrust, and self-censorship? That is a huge problem, and one that brought woe to those three university presidents who testified before a House committee, eroding their and their schools’ reputations through an inability to discuss this issue coherently.
Haidt gives some references to organizations “that can help universities” (i.e., FIRE, Heterodox Academy, and so on), and adds a list of books and essays that suggest reforms for colleges. Have a look at that list. As for me, I’m a hard-core free speecher, but I deplore the atmosphere of intimidation that’s arisen at the University of Chicago, particularly with the Jewish students strongly intimidated by aggressive and loud pro-Palestinian groups. I’m doing what I can to keep my principles but to try to dispel that atmosphere. But that’s something I’ll discuss another day.
The rise of antisemitism in younger generations is most disturbing. A repeat of the 1930s?
Antisemitism as a reaction to the existence of a Jewish state just validates the entire reason for the existence of a Jewish state. You can’t hate Jews for having Israel, if Israel is exactly the refuge Jews need to survive your hate. Antisemites just prove the Zionist point. If you are an antisemite, you defacto have to be a Zionist because where else they going to go if you can’t stand living with them?
the existence of a vatican state ruled by the pope as head of the church is not an esencial article of the catholic faith..if the vatican ceased to exist the life of faithful catholics would not be compromised..in the modern World jews can live freely and unmolested in all western countries….a respected community admired by all..the infatuation with having a territory exclusively their own where their ancestors lived 2000 years ago is rather odd..and maybe not worth the trouble that the western World has to undergo to help sustain the obsesión..
Yes, I see that you don’t think that Israel should exist any longer. Would you like the Jews moved somewhere else or would you prefer that they just be killed?
You don’t seem to realize that Israel was created as the one place in the world where Jews could live without fearing that they’d be killed or kicked out. “Infatuation” is hardly the word for that. And, of course, you seem not to know that 20% of the inhabitants of Israel are Arabs (Muslims). “Exclusively their own”? Do some reading.
My emphasis: …in the modern World jews can live freely and unmolested in all western countries….a respected community admired by all…
Really?
Here’s some recent US history:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Heights_riot
So, to you, one or two small genocides (10 million people plus-minus) are not worth the trouble the Western world has with its (far from whole-hearted) efforts to prevent these genocides.
I wonder if you belong to the Western world to care about it so much. Westerners, even when in a deep conflict, traditionally hold Christmas ceasefires and wouldn’t write such things on Dec. 24.
Please explain “the trouble that the western world has to undergo to sustain the obsession”
Are you talking about the obsession to sustain antisemitism? If so that seems to work without too much trouble, as indicated by your comment.
Jews and Asians are outperforming the White/European majority as well.
“Still, why the Jews? Because they fit neatly into the slot of “oppressor.” (I’d add that Jews, as well as Asians, have done quite well compared to other minorities, which makes them less likely to be seen as oppressed. Jews, like Asians, are considered “white adjacent”!)”
There is an old joke about the ease of blaming the Jews. It comes from maybe 1930. There is a man in the park muttering away: “It is all the fault of the bicycle riders and the Jews”, to which someone responds, “Why the bicycle riders?”
—-In response to which one needs to say, “Why the Jews?”
Could someone kindly figure out how to get me off the email notifications list? WP insists I’m unsubscribed. However, I’m still getting notifications that are no longer wanted.
The central dogma of wokeness/DEI is that group differences in outcomes are purely a function of privilege and oppression.
If taken seriously, this, combined with the fact that Jews are the most successful ethnic group in the US and greatly overrepresented in positions of power, leads by simple syllogism to the conclusion that Jews are a privileged oppressor group.
The issue isn’t a matter of simple neglect—that DEI just needs to focus more on fighting antisemitism—but rather that the ideology actively pushes its adherents towards antisemitism.
I’ve been saying for years that the tenets of wokeness logically lead to antisemitism, but to be honest, even I’m surprised at how many of the woke actually followed through on this. I figured Americans were mostly inoculated against antisemitism via the strong emphasis in our culture on how bad the Holocaust was. Given that the woke generally have poor reasoning skills, I didn’t think they’d actually follow their nonsense to its logical conclusion.
On the pernicious (and nearly ubiquitous) “disparity fallacy”, Thomas Sowell’s latest book (Social Justice Fallacies) is very useful indeed.
“They” (the woke you’re talking about) don’t know how they got there. Stupid is as stupid does. Forget about “reasoning”.
It is frightening that the young generation displays intellectual and moral decline of this depth.
When I went to university, it seemed like there were lots of opinions on many subjects. Being exposed to all of that was interesting to me.
My kids had and are having a very different experience. For one thing, they have to be pretty quiet about the fact that they oppose communism. I always think of them being inoculated against it by hearing stories from their grandpa about exactly what it was like going through the revolution in China and living in the camps afterwards. And they have read the source material, usually in the original language.
But it really is about enforced uniformity of opinion, which precludes much internal dissent when it is decided that “now, we support Hamas”. Students are a great group to agitate into a mob, because they are young enough to be easily manipulated, but old enough to be a real destructive force.
Earnest young people filled with idealistic zeal may be the most destructive force known to man.
The average age of the Khmer Rouge was 17.
Gen Z seem like a bunch of “rebels without a sane cause” and uncritically except handouts cut and dried.
It can’t be easy for them to hear Israel’s side of the issue. Google is overrun with pro-Palestinian narratives. The university Middle East sections are exactly the same way. No doubt many would simply boycott lectures by pro-Israel speakers, and as far as I can tell there are not many of them even given a platform.
And Israel doesn’t spend enough to promote its own narrative, nor does it often openly acknowledge its own position – that its 1948 borders are still valid and sacrosanct.
Wow, that was a long reading assignment, particularly so as Haidt’s piece included his own assignment in the middle. So, I’m now done reading, and I must say that I completely agree that “it is in fact appropriate to lose faith in higher education given what is happening here.” Many of our institutions are now infested by a pestilence that will take generations to fix. Even if they stop funding the grievance studies departments tomorrow, it will take 40 years for all of the professors to age out.
But the disease has spread, ironically, to many Jewish groups themselves. I have noticed that Jewish congregations in my area give prominence on their web sites to their programs in “social justice.” Perhaps they have merely adopted the phrase since it sounds like something that everyone can get behind, but I fear that the “social justice” of our synagogues has been infested but the same rot that is destroying our universities. If so—and please tell me I’m wrong—the great irony is that our synagogues have adopted some of the oppressor/oppressed ideology that is used to justify antisemitism itself. Jews and Jewish institutions need to rethink the company they keep.
On the bright side, I have read that some of our large U.S. companies have been cutting their DEI commitments. Just do a search on “DEI cutbacks” or similar. A sliver of hope, I hope.
Optimistically, one of the primary characteristics of these folks is that they never know when to stop.
They will go way too far, they cannot help doing so.
Also, most people are within a reasonable proximity to normal. Eventually, all the normal folks will be alienated.
Scary thought.
I’m confused by one of the data graphs, which compares the % of age 18-24s to age 65+, with the former reported as 53% more likely to have been “told they are free to call for genocide” while the figure for this by age 65+ individuals is reported at only 8%. If calling for genocide is free speech (and I don’t dispute that it is), then why isn’t this huge increase in telling people that they can call for genocide some evidence of an increase in free speech? What am I missing here?
The introductory text to this same data graph says that it shows that “all older generations favor disciplinary action as the proper response to students who publicly call for the mass killing of Jews. Only Gen Z does not.” But the data themselves, as reported, are only that younger people are (apparently) less likely to think that violations of rules should result in disciplinary action. It’s not obvious to me why the data support the conclusion. I thought that calling for the mass killing of Jews — or any other group — was not normally a violation of university rules at all, and in that event why is what this cohort thinks would be a proper response to rules violations relevant at all in evaluating their views on the proper response to behavior that’s not a rules violation? (And in any event, does “not thinking that rules violations should have disciplinary consequences” in general translate into “there should not be disciplinary consequences for violating this particular rule?”) What am I missing here, as well?
You should read the piece by Jonathan Haidt. The survey is not just about free speech. The caption to the chart you cite reads, “Figure 2. “If a student calls for the genocide of Jews should that student be told that they are free to call for genocide or should such students face actions for violating university rules?” Harvard-Harris Poll, December 2023, screenshot from p. 51, with additional annotations by Haidt.” The first sentence below the chart states, “Why is Gen Z so tolerant of hate speech and verbal harassment of Jews, when it shows the lowest tolerance for such speech against other groups?” The survey is not about free speech, it is about rising antisemitism. Gen Z does not seem to be concerned about free speech but simply to be prejudiced against a specific group of people.
‘Jews, like Asians, are considered “white adjacent”!’
Asians have been called “bananas.”
Here in New Zealand, the Auckland Chinese society organised national conferences from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s, which were called the ‘Bananas conferences’; for that very reason. One or two meetings used a cartoon logo that featured a couple of Chinese riding not a flying magic carpet, but a flying magic banana ! [ I’m half Chinese, and found the meetings worthwhile.]
Related to the issues in this post is some of the treatment of Stephen Fry for using his Christmas broadcast to draw attention to the surge in antisemitism in the UK. He has been attacked by some on the left in the UK, as if his attacking antisemitism in the UK involved a defence of the way Israel is conducting the war in Gaza. Underlying this is the idea that Haidt discusses, that Jews count as oppressors regardless of context.