RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/07/any_organization_that_denies_antisemitism_loses_credibility.html

American students, many of whom display a shocking degree of ignorance about the Holocaust, will not find much trustworthy and objective information about anti-Semitism from touted academic databases such as the CQ Researcher.  The alleged “in-depth” report on anti-Semitism dated May 12, 2017 is filled with statements about President Trump, white supremacy, and right-wing hostility.  Thus, the report asserts:

In the run-up to the presidential election and afterward, the United States has experienced disturbing outbreaks of anti-Semitism, including a spate of incidents on more than 100 college campuses, where white supremacists have been distributing anti-Semitic fliers and openly recruiting adherents.  Some human rights and Jewish activists say President Trump has emboldened right-wing hostility toward Jews, but others say such charges are unjustified.  Defining anti-Semitism is controversial.  Members of Congress and state legislators want to codify a definition that would include opposition to Israel’s existence.  But pro-Palestinian and civil liberties groups say that would violate free-speech rights.  A similar debate is playing out in Europe, where some countries have seen a rise in deadly attacks on Jews in recent years, often by radicalized Muslims, such as the 2015 terrorist attack on a kosher grocery in Paris.  Paradoxically, growing anti-Muslim attitudes in countries experiencing an influx of refugees have also spurred more prejudice against Jews — the target of history’s longest hatred.

At no time does the article speak of the ugliness of such campus groups like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) who deliberately incite anti-Semitic acts on universities.  This might assist a student in understanding the nature of anti-Semitism.

https://quillette.com/2019/07/11/neutralizing

In Politics and the English Language, George Orwell observed that “political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible.” He detailed how certain manners of diction are employed to that end—dying metaphors, verbal false limbs, pretentious and otherwise meaningless words all work to constitute a kind of inflated, euphemistic style of expression. This divests language of plain meaning in order to obscure brutal realities and to hide the “gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims.” As these habits are adopted and spread, clear thinking and good communication become more difficult and the process self-perpetuates. Stupid, ugly, and oppressive ideas actively distort language to create a semblance of reason and respectability; in turn, the corruption of language further predisposes people to uncritically accept and conform to the same sorts of orthodoxies.

In a vein similar to Orwell’s lexicology of apologetics, criminological theory may help inform an understanding of how speech is used in defense of the indefensible at another level of analysis—that of rhetorical strategies. Specifically, what follows is a look at the online discourse surrounding the recent assault of a journalist by antifascist demonstrators, as viewed through the lens of Neutralization Theory.

Neutralization

The crux of Neutralization Theory is this: acts that would violate accepted laws or norms, or otherwise contradict one’s beliefs or self-image, carry the threat of guilt and shame. That threat can be neutralized, allowing for such violations to occur, using rationalizations that deny the disparity between one’s values and actions. In a sense, these rationalizations are coping strategies for managing moral dissonance, quieting one’s conscience in the pursuit or defense of expedience.

Neutralization Theory was originally conceived as an explanation of juvenile delinquency by Gresham Sykes and David Matza. It has since been broadly expanded and applied to adult and white-collar crime, and to other acts of deviance and subcultural divergence. It has been used to examine honor crimes as well as the coping strategies of domestic violence victims, the denial of elderly abuse by both victims and abusers, the perpetration of right-wing violence and online ideological extremism, and even genocide and intergenerational war guilt.

Neutralization Theory “transcends the realm of criminology…[with] ‘universal applicability,’ as it can be applied to any situation where there are inconsistencies between one’s actions and beliefs,” whether individually or collectively. And so, while it has not yet been formally applied to the kind of context examined here (i.e., apologetic framings of leftist political street violence), the sheer breadth of the literature seems to suggest a cursory exploration in that direction may be warranted and fruitful.