Catholics talking about Jews

[frandroid]

I don't think I can not cringe ever when people, especially Catholics, talk about "the Jews." Even hearing Kate Mulgrew talk about "this extraordinary race" to Gates McFadden while bemoaning antisemitism, I'm like, hmmm...

Comments

[ioplokon]

not great! i do feel like catholics have a particular moral duty to combat antisemitism tho, bc of, you know... doing most of it? but this kind of lazy 'philosemitic' framing is still super othering. it's a change in affect but not a change to the underlying conception of jewishness as Other & is vulnerable to being flipped back. (since well... the antisemite also believes jewish people are extraordinary...)

It's the whole challenge Levinas poses, to embrace the other as Other - w/o conversion/assimilation nor rejection nor fetishization

[frandroid]

> super othering

You put your finger on it.

I have not read Levinas. I like what you describe of his writing here.

I was reading about Martin Luther's anti-Semitism recently. Before going full fire and brimstone on Jews, he had a period of tolerance, except that it was only in the context that they could be potentially converted...

[ioplokon]

re: Levinas, I think he fails a bit in his own mandate when it comes to how he conceptualizes women/sex difference, & elsewhere. But personally have found a lot of worthwhile stuff in his writing on difference/alterity and also time? Probably the first place I encountered non-teleological philosophy ("the future is genuinely new, it does not spring fully formed from the bones of the past" is also something I liked a lot). Also Judith Butler's Precarious Life draws heavily on Levinas & is also quite good, imo.