Silencing

What I was trying to convey in the post below, but what may have gotten lost in my babbling, is that I don't believe the question of "silencing" is relevant to the conversation about Israel these days, at least among those of my generation. I bring this up now, here, on the blog, not because I have anything new to add about the Middle East, but because it relates to the earlier posts on Your Privilege is Showing, which I do think constitutes silencing.

Why is YPIS "silencing"? Because it stops conversations. Why does it stop conversations? Because the recipients of a YPIS retreat into their little corners, ashamed of having let their privilege show. Then, once huddled in these corners, they start thinking, hey, that accusation was kind of unfair/silly/mean-spirited, at which point they stop even considering reentering the conversation. They're not silenced as in First Amendment violation. But they are banished from discussions. This has the effect of silencing various ideas. To give an admittedly tame example, the food movement conversation has been so shamed into a YPIS corner that health-oriented recipe-writers don't dare include ingredients that can't be purchased for 20 cents at bulk stores nationwide - nothing too gourmet or yuppie or obscure - leading to abominations such as a bean-and-kale casserole. But mostly, people, not ideas, are silenced, and those who remain will be more excited about YPIS than whatever the ostensible cause may have been.

I see how an accusation of anti-Semitism would seem like the kind of thing that would be silencing. In other times, among older individuals, sure, but not so much lately. I should note, as an aside, that when I did think about such matters more, I found that the extent to which the term "anti-Semitism" was used in reference to criticism of Israel was exaggerated by those critics. But it can happen, and the accusation Conor just received is kind of borderline, I suppose, given the post title. Someone who criticizes Israel and does, in fact, get called an anti-Semite - and this isn't necessarily overt, as with 'I see echos of the 1930s' accusations - has the right to be annoyed, upset, to defend himself, and so forth, but to claim he's been silenced?

Here I'm not so sure. It's taboo to express overt anti-Semitism, but it's also taboo to call anyone an anti-Semite, in a way that it's not taboo to call someone a racist, sexist, or homophobe. To utter the term "anti-Semitism" is to seem of another era, paranoid, hyperbolic (because we as a society have no conception of what anti-Semitism might mean if not OMG Nazis), in short, outside the bounds of polite conversation. Someone called an anti-Semite not only has the right to keep writing, but isn't silenced because all sensible people will agree that the accusation is ridiculous. They if anything find that their status has been raised within the conversation, because they appear to be martyrs for the truth about the Middle East. Meanwhile, there hasn't been any particular backlash against YPIS, meaning that someone who receives that accusation has been effectively told to shut up.

As for generational shifts, I tend not to buy such arguments on issues like legalizing pot or SSM, because these are the kinds of issues where youthful live-and-let-live may shift into fuddy-duddiness with age. As a supporter of SSM, I'm not all that reassured by the fact that the fresh-faced offspring of the stuffiest of Republicans are in favor. But thoughts regarding US Israel policy? This to me seems like something without any necessary relationship to youth as youth.