17th September

What characterises suspicions of conspiracies is of course the negation of the relation between fact and proof. In particular, unlike normal vision which deteriorates with distance, the conspiracy theorist’s perception of social phenomena increases in clarity with distance.

Our eyes cannot penetrate the far reaches of governments on the international stage. Deals and treaties are secretly negotiated, internal dynamics is settled and managed between corporate and government life, and we have no idea of motivation and agenda. And yet, these are the themes we most fervently invest our speculative powers in.

Mother Nature is to blame. (I say this knowing full well that I now raise my attention higher than any conspiracy theorist could ever do). Food and necessities in the vicinity must be unambiguously identified. Dangers on the other hand must reach awareness as early as possible so we can abscond the area as quickly as possible.

Daily necessities are conceived in closeup, understood through facts and science.

Dangers on the other hand are remote alarms. The weaker they sound, the stronger we react.

18th September

A short break from the Protocols

I am not making any real breakthroughs, and I attribute that to the fact that the Protocols are not primarily antisemitic. By now I am (perhaps too) convinced that Matvei Golovinski, the alleged author of the Protocols is in an errand to convince socialists, anarchists and liberalists that their religion is not their own, and that they should abandon it in favour of serfdom and deference to their monarch.

Joking does not, however, instigate a holocaust. I need to look further and deeper into human nature.

19th September

I need to look to America. It is a matter of public record that Henry Ford was fanatic in his ideas on the Jews, and he owned a publishing house useful for the purpose.

What is more interesting is that the resulting “The International Jew” seems to express a lot of the material in the Protocols, but without the air of satire and poignant irony clinging to every word. If the Protocols is hanging the mob’s prejudices out to dry, or even if Golovinski himself is not so ironic after all, it certainly helps to gain a clearer view of the underlying ideas from a cleaner source.

The chronology slightly complicates matters: The International Jew quotes the Protocols which predates it.

Still, when it comes to understanding the thrust of the emotions, The International Jew is a fountainhead of emotions, not a follower.

What is more: If you want to understand a denomination, you need to listen to its disciples.

I must be wary of the cultural differences between America and Russia, though. America in the 1920’s is a very different beast from Russia in 1901.

20th September

The International Jew is the first volume of four, and the only one I will be reading, I think.

Jewish business acumen seems to be the axle that it all revolves around. The matter is quickly elevated to a dizzying altitude where the very essence of the Jewish people is put on trial.

The magazine sounds an outright battlecry:

THE INTERNATIONAL JEW, PREFACE

The International Jew and his satellites, as the conscious enemies of all that Anglo-Saxons mean by civilization, are not spared, nor is that unthinking mass which defends anything that a Jew does, simply because it has been taught to believe that what Jewish leaders do is Jewish.

The paper felt the anger of spited Jews and others whose ethical nerves were trampled.

We give the facts as we find them; that of itself is sufficient protection against prejudice or passion.

Just as Golovinski’s Protocols can climb to be to peculiar levels of irony, so can The International Jew stoop to gobsmacking levels of trivial racism.

Gone is all sophisticated play on words and reversal of ideas. These people really mean what they say.

21st September

The text is incendiary, that much is certain. The authors quickly adapt the style of facts (and fiction) and innuendo mixed like gasoline and air until it combusts at the smallest spark.

Since the innuendo determines the bulk of the realisation affected, it is what interests me anyway.

Investigating who in the city council of Berlin were Jewish in 1920 is beyond my abilities.

I have tried to look up a few names, but their very existence has vanished, let alone their heritage.

Goebbel’s Der Angriff contained the same obsession with naming Jews in elite positions. I failed to establish their truth back then as well. A good historian might be able to.

Playing the “fact or fiction” game is futile anyway. Putting the burden of proof on ourselves, we can even be tricked to forget that a Jew or two in important positions means precious little. Did that particular group of diplomats or that government body or that board rule in a different way because of that?

And what is far more important: Did those hypothetical Jews “influence” in an abstract way or did they win by solid arguments?

Even more to the point, did those people in any way add anything Jewish in particular? Does something like that even exist? If it does, is it in any way different from, say, imbuing some kind of “Oxford” culture into an institution by hiring someone educated at Oxford? Does that mean the institution in question is now “tainted” with “Oxford”-mentality?

The antisemite ended up studying the world with binoculars from their tower in search for trace amounts of “Jewish” influence.

As can readily be seen from both the Protocols and especially in Dearborn Independent’s publications, the upshot is that this group of thinkers avoid understanding liberalism and socialism. Instead they limit their mental activity to the purported pedigree of these ideas.

That is like saying that Heidegger’s writings are irrelevant today because Martin joined the Nazi party.

22nd September

I am ready to start a new chapter now.

PARADISE LOST