I think people are just not very good at pattern recognition. The world has seen parallel aspects of the forces that resulted in the holocaust many times in the last 70+ years. The Chinese Cultural Revolution. The genocides in Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Sudan... "But we aren't anything like those places." might well be a reasonable defense in terms of superficial details, except it really "isn't" the details that are important: it's the patterns. The movement of the societal energy if you will. It also seems to me that this really isn't even a Left/Right movement anymore; it's just that the Left is more articulate about the "program." Both ends of the spectrum have devolved into conspiracy theories, and non-scientific magical thinking. Neither seems to want to read much real history either....
As usual, I am deeply jealous of your ability to assemble a broad range of facts and present them elegantly. And of course, any article that quotes Chesterton automatically goes to the head of the class. Well done. But will those marching in the streets and chanting “from the river to the sea” ever read Chesterton, or this wonderful explication of equitism?
The concept of virtues unmoored from each other is brilliant and so true today. No one thinks of themselves as evil but many are. Truth without pity, charity without discretion or faith without reason are, with the other virtues, so capable of vast damage without guilt to leaven them and that unmooring is our great burden and has resulted in the horrors we see in our age. Truly the killing of faith and it's attendant virutes has been no favor.
Physicians were indeed at the forefront of the Holocaust and I have the sinking feeling that medicine is again starting down a very dark path. The degree to which "equitism" (love the word, btw) has already infiltrated medicine is terrifying--and it's starting to have real world effects, such as prioritizing certain racial groups for scarce resources and procedures in the name of "health equity." I wrote a full Substack about this issue here: https://pairodocs.substack.com/p/save-the-planet-kill-your-patient
"In our time, the equivalent academic tendency is one that travels under many names—diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI); critical race theory (CRT); antiracism; white fragility; intersectionality; social justice; anticolonialism; social and emotional learning; progressivism; safetyism; critical social justice; identity Marxism; and (primarily to its denigrators) “wokeness.”"
The fact that so much has been written on the topic of “what to call this thing” is, in itself, really interesting. Not sure I quite understand it, or what it means.
Words, words and more words. On October 7, the Hamas terrorists were armed, the Israelis massacred were defenseless. The unanswered question is why did Israel disarm its citizens most of whom are IDF veterans and leave them vulnerable to mass rape and murder by Hamas? An incredibly stupid decision and the Israeli government is clearly culpable. Every Jewish family in Israel (and the US) should have a 9 mm handgun, an AR15 rifle and plenty of ammunition for both. Every adult and teenage member of the family should be proficient in their use. Have anti-gun Jewish politicians in both countries learned nothing from the Holocaust and the latest slaughter? Isn't it time for the Jewish people to tell them to go fuck themselves?
Political bias blinds many to the current danger. Three years ago, the alumnae/i association of my alma mater Hunter College High School organized a Holocaust Remembrance Day event on Zoom, in which several of my former classmates gave moving accounts of their experiences in escaping the horrors of fascist totalitarianism and anti-Semitism. But I was deeply dismayed by the minimal response to the queries I posted to the chat asking about any parallels today and, in particular, about threats coming from the left. To the latter point, the only response I received was from a non-panelist who suggested that my concern was probably due to “watching too much Fox or Newsmax.”
In a follow-up message to the event organizers at hunter, I argued that “the impulse for totalitarian control now evidenced by the Left (from censorship and cancel culture to the lopsidedly ‘progressive’ rewriting of American history and the systemic embrace of critical race theory) probably pose a far graver danger to us all than any fascist-inspired incidents of late.” My subsequent suggestion for an event dealing with those urgent concerns fell on deaf ears.
This is a fantastic article, truly on the mark. In most universities that I have experienced, Holocaust studies amounts to kind of leftist legitimized death pornography. Oh how sad! Oh how bad! Oh how exciting! But the unique focus on Jewish people, the politics and history of actual anti-Semitism throughout history gets short shrift. It is so easily reduced to an analog of how horrible people can be. Unless it focuses on the unique hatred and murder of Jewish people, explicitly for their Judaism, it is cynical rubbish.
Thank you Professor Graboyes for sharing your gifts in this piece of journalism. This is the most concise and sharable essay written on this topic that I have found. Thank you so much for summarizing and defining "Equitism". Equitism has taken over so many institutions, including many mainline protestant religions. Hoping to evangelize the term among my small sphere of influence.
Sorry, but there is nothing even remotely reliable about Human Rights Watch. It is a propaganda outlet with a long history of contempt for Israel and apologist for antisemitism elsewhere in the world. The surprisingly lengthy Wikipedia article, "Criticism of Human Rights Watch" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Human_Rights_Watch), currently offers 91 footnotes whose links are loaded with documentation on the organization's dishonesty, corruption, and bigotry. Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) offers a treasure trove of information on HRW (https://www.jns.org/?s=human+rights+watch). The "murderers and animals" quote referred to Hamas, not to Palestinians in general.
This article is typical of the cowardly, shameless lies and propaganda being spewed out by the Israeli government and its subservient mouthpieces, like Mr. Graboyes. His first paragraph alone is filled with many lies, like the beheadings, that have been totally refuted. I'm an American combat veteran who spent 3 months in Israel/Palestine and personally witnessed the daily brutality, degradation and atrocities inflicted upon innocent Palestinians by Israeli troops and rabid settlers. This has been ongoing for over 75 years, and no people on earth should ever have to endure what the Palestinians have, and not fight back against their illegal occupiers. The overwhelming majority of people in the world have condemned Israel's genocide against the Palestinians, and this will never be forgiven, or forgotten.
I f every single resident of Gaza harbored genocidal thoughts in their head, including every man, woman, and child, that would not excuse the genocide which the Israeli Defense Force is at present conducting on that unhappy territory.
It is not anti-Semitic to protest this ongoing genocide: even the International Court of Justice has done so. Yes, Holocaust Memorial is hollow, but not for the reason you advance; it is hollow because it helps to foster the excuse the Israeli government propounds as it kills indiscriminately and maliciously, violating the Genocide Convention which it was the first to sign.
Who, exactly, are these "intellectuals in America, Europe...waxed lyrical over the rape, torture, mutilation, murder, beheading, and kidnapping of innocent Jews?" I haven't seen any intellectuals in America or Europe who have done this. Names, please, and "lyrical" quotes.
I think people are just not very good at pattern recognition. The world has seen parallel aspects of the forces that resulted in the holocaust many times in the last 70+ years. The Chinese Cultural Revolution. The genocides in Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Sudan... "But we aren't anything like those places." might well be a reasonable defense in terms of superficial details, except it really "isn't" the details that are important: it's the patterns. The movement of the societal energy if you will. It also seems to me that this really isn't even a Left/Right movement anymore; it's just that the Left is more articulate about the "program." Both ends of the spectrum have devolved into conspiracy theories, and non-scientific magical thinking. Neither seems to want to read much real history either....
As usual, I am deeply jealous of your ability to assemble a broad range of facts and present them elegantly. And of course, any article that quotes Chesterton automatically goes to the head of the class. Well done. But will those marching in the streets and chanting “from the river to the sea” ever read Chesterton, or this wonderful explication of equitism?
The concept of virtues unmoored from each other is brilliant and so true today. No one thinks of themselves as evil but many are. Truth without pity, charity without discretion or faith without reason are, with the other virtues, so capable of vast damage without guilt to leaven them and that unmooring is our great burden and has resulted in the horrors we see in our age. Truly the killing of faith and it's attendant virutes has been no favor.
Wow. What a great article. Five stars. Thank you so much. I hope it is widely read.
Physicians were indeed at the forefront of the Holocaust and I have the sinking feeling that medicine is again starting down a very dark path. The degree to which "equitism" (love the word, btw) has already infiltrated medicine is terrifying--and it's starting to have real world effects, such as prioritizing certain racial groups for scarce resources and procedures in the name of "health equity." I wrote a full Substack about this issue here: https://pairodocs.substack.com/p/save-the-planet-kill-your-patient
"In our time, the equivalent academic tendency is one that travels under many names—diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI); critical race theory (CRT); antiracism; white fragility; intersectionality; social justice; anticolonialism; social and emotional learning; progressivism; safetyism; critical social justice; identity Marxism; and (primarily to its denigrators) “wokeness.”"
The fact that so much has been written on the topic of “what to call this thing” is, in itself, really interesting. Not sure I quite understand it, or what it means.
Words, words and more words. On October 7, the Hamas terrorists were armed, the Israelis massacred were defenseless. The unanswered question is why did Israel disarm its citizens most of whom are IDF veterans and leave them vulnerable to mass rape and murder by Hamas? An incredibly stupid decision and the Israeli government is clearly culpable. Every Jewish family in Israel (and the US) should have a 9 mm handgun, an AR15 rifle and plenty of ammunition for both. Every adult and teenage member of the family should be proficient in their use. Have anti-gun Jewish politicians in both countries learned nothing from the Holocaust and the latest slaughter? Isn't it time for the Jewish people to tell them to go fuck themselves?
Political bias blinds many to the current danger. Three years ago, the alumnae/i association of my alma mater Hunter College High School organized a Holocaust Remembrance Day event on Zoom, in which several of my former classmates gave moving accounts of their experiences in escaping the horrors of fascist totalitarianism and anti-Semitism. But I was deeply dismayed by the minimal response to the queries I posted to the chat asking about any parallels today and, in particular, about threats coming from the left. To the latter point, the only response I received was from a non-panelist who suggested that my concern was probably due to “watching too much Fox or Newsmax.”
In a follow-up message to the event organizers at hunter, I argued that “the impulse for totalitarian control now evidenced by the Left (from censorship and cancel culture to the lopsidedly ‘progressive’ rewriting of American history and the systemic embrace of critical race theory) probably pose a far graver danger to us all than any fascist-inspired incidents of late.” My subsequent suggestion for an event dealing with those urgent concerns fell on deaf ears.
Excellent! A true anti-racist organization calling out the racism of the so-called “anti-racism” of White Fragility.
Now to get the NYT and the Atlantic and their ilk to acknowledge the cancer of DEI race essentialism.
This is a fantastic article, truly on the mark. In most universities that I have experienced, Holocaust studies amounts to kind of leftist legitimized death pornography. Oh how sad! Oh how bad! Oh how exciting! But the unique focus on Jewish people, the politics and history of actual anti-Semitism throughout history gets short shrift. It is so easily reduced to an analog of how horrible people can be. Unless it focuses on the unique hatred and murder of Jewish people, explicitly for their Judaism, it is cynical rubbish.
Thank you Professor Graboyes for sharing your gifts in this piece of journalism. This is the most concise and sharable essay written on this topic that I have found. Thank you so much for summarizing and defining "Equitism". Equitism has taken over so many institutions, including many mainline protestant religions. Hoping to evangelize the term among my small sphere of influence.
Thank you for this.
Sorry, but there is nothing even remotely reliable about Human Rights Watch. It is a propaganda outlet with a long history of contempt for Israel and apologist for antisemitism elsewhere in the world. The surprisingly lengthy Wikipedia article, "Criticism of Human Rights Watch" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Human_Rights_Watch), currently offers 91 footnotes whose links are loaded with documentation on the organization's dishonesty, corruption, and bigotry. Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) offers a treasure trove of information on HRW (https://www.jns.org/?s=human+rights+watch). The "murderers and animals" quote referred to Hamas, not to Palestinians in general.
This article is typical of the cowardly, shameless lies and propaganda being spewed out by the Israeli government and its subservient mouthpieces, like Mr. Graboyes. His first paragraph alone is filled with many lies, like the beheadings, that have been totally refuted. I'm an American combat veteran who spent 3 months in Israel/Palestine and personally witnessed the daily brutality, degradation and atrocities inflicted upon innocent Palestinians by Israeli troops and rabid settlers. This has been ongoing for over 75 years, and no people on earth should ever have to endure what the Palestinians have, and not fight back against their illegal occupiers. The overwhelming majority of people in the world have condemned Israel's genocide against the Palestinians, and this will never be forgiven, or forgotten.
I f every single resident of Gaza harbored genocidal thoughts in their head, including every man, woman, and child, that would not excuse the genocide which the Israeli Defense Force is at present conducting on that unhappy territory.
It is not anti-Semitic to protest this ongoing genocide: even the International Court of Justice has done so. Yes, Holocaust Memorial is hollow, but not for the reason you advance; it is hollow because it helps to foster the excuse the Israeli government propounds as it kills indiscriminately and maliciously, violating the Genocide Convention which it was the first to sign.
Who, exactly, are these "intellectuals in America, Europe...waxed lyrical over the rape, torture, mutilation, murder, beheading, and kidnapping of innocent Jews?" I haven't seen any intellectuals in America or Europe who have done this. Names, please, and "lyrical" quotes.