Hating Jews is not a bizarre psychiatric disorder that afflicts crazy people. It's a survival strategy drawn from Charles Darwin's evolutionary playbook.
All theories of antisemitism still face the hurdle of explaining why some people swallow the lies and some people do not. That answer surely lies in an individual's psychological make up, up to and including a disorder. And having a psychiatric disorder does not make one crazy.
They swallow the lies because they confront a difficult choice: Believe the lies OR admit that the assumptions and Story that serves as the foundation of their existence (and their ancestors' existence) is wrong. Either the Jews are bloodthirsty Satanists OR I need to overhaul everything I've ever believed about myself and the world around me. For lots of people, that's an easy call.
Also: The gap between the Jews and the world has narrowed over the centuries. The Romans' pagan hatred of the Jews is qualitatively different than the hatred of the Islamists. With Caesar, there's no way to begin the conversation because we begin with radically different First Principles. With Muslims, though, we have a vocabulary and a partially shared narrative. Less a clash of competing worldviews and more of a family dispute.
All theories of antisemitism still face the hurdle of explaining why some people swallow the lies and some people do not. That answer surely lies in an individual's psychological make up, up to and including a disorder. And having a psychiatric disorder does not make one crazy.
They swallow the lies because they confront a difficult choice: Believe the lies OR admit that the assumptions and Story that serves as the foundation of their existence (and their ancestors' existence) is wrong. Either the Jews are bloodthirsty Satanists OR I need to overhaul everything I've ever believed about myself and the world around me. For lots of people, that's an easy call.
Also: The gap between the Jews and the world has narrowed over the centuries. The Romans' pagan hatred of the Jews is qualitatively different than the hatred of the Islamists. With Caesar, there's no way to begin the conversation because we begin with radically different First Principles. With Muslims, though, we have a vocabulary and a partially shared narrative. Less a clash of competing worldviews and more of a family dispute.