23rd September

I finally get an answer to my question present almost from the onset of my journey, but especially since reading the Protocols.

What about the poor Jews?

Reading the Protocols afforded me no answer. Only from reading someone convinced can we learn the real reasoning. The Dearborn Independent is one such case.

As soon as I started to unravel that bit, I quickly realised the entire fabric of history made sense.

The Dearborn Independent authors quoted a passage from a German sociologist of some notoriety, Werner Sombart. His book, The Jews and Modern Capitalism formalises the way Jews were discussed. Once rubber-stamped by sociology itself, the perception that Jews were somehow fundamentally different due to a cultural difference became the enlightened norm (at least in these circles). I read a few passages in the book, and it may be misunderstood by these people.

The persecution of Jews in the medieval time might have been of a different nature. And yet it strikes me as an odd lack of self-criticism that people can observe how a group is treated differently over the ages, conclude that the reasons may be obscure, and then go on to view them as fundamentally different from themselves, except they apply modern reasons not ancient ones.

Then again, am I different? If I say “all humans are alike, only their cultural circumstances differ”, and add that for some group, the circumstances are different, then I implicitly acknowledge to treat that group in a different way.

24th September

I like to juxtapose texts to see clearly how something that sounds innocuously like solid reasoning manages to miss even the core characteristics of reality.

The International Jew also has a quote from Theodor Herzl’s A Jewish State. So I picked that text. Furnished with The International Jew, I expect everything in Theodor’s text to make sense equipped with Ford’s descriptions of the Jewish character and soul.

Of course it will not make sense. All the talk in the world about the Jew as the primogenitor of capitalism will not shred one inch of light on the real problems internal to Jewish life in 1920.

We can demean and deride antisemitic thinking all we want, but we miss the fine print. To them, the arguments made sense. How are we to protect ourselves from arguments today that make sense?

Something went wrong of a higher nature that got lost in the fervour after the war.

It would seem like the very act of identifying a social problem is at stake here.

25th September

Nazi means National Socialism, a self-proclaimed socialism.

One has to remember the popularity of socialism as a way of thinking. The world of empires had changed dramatically, and the reason was to be found in the power struggle between the old ruling elite (aristocracy), the new ruling elite (industrial bourgeoisie) and the liberalised people.

Maurice Joly lets Montesquieu bring the topic up when he asks how a people once accustomed to political rights, can sink back into a state of slavery. Well, historically there always were a good reason for many a king to lose sleep overnight in fear of a peasant revolt, but let’s go with Joly’s suggestion here that liberal rights grow on you.

The people were rising in self-awareness, through communism, anarchism, liberalism, idealism, protestantism and every other conceivable -ism.

Sociology as a scientific discipline grew in Germany and America, but foremost in Germany. As the process of scientification went on, it lent credibility to interpretations.

And interpretations are the real stuff of myths.

26th September

The problem is apparent. A myth — the very word says it all — is a fabrication for personal reasons, a Freudian need expressed in outward forms.

An interpretation of noisy data is science. It takes the form of “the best interpretation we have”, and then silently intermingles with other concepts we interact with on a daily basis.

The problem? Well, we interact. “Even if the interpretation was documented as weak?”, “Yes, because it was the best one we had”.

Should we not have abstained from using a bad approximation to a heterogeneous dataset?

Have we ever?

26th September

To me, Henry Ford is a super-capitalist if there ever was one.

Hence my bafflement when The International Jew started out characterising how the Jewish personality trait was synonymous with speculative capitalism, which to me is the very essence of capitalism.

This takes unravelling. Another book by Henry Ford, “Today and Tomorrow”, will probably let me see the sunnier side of Ford.

His world view is simple, for all intents and purposes. If he speaks of power, he means “horsepower”, not “political power”. In fact, it doesn’t even strike him that he should disambiguate for the reader. What other kinds of power is there?

27th September

Theodor Herzl – A Jewish State

Theodor Herzl originally wrote “A Jewish State” in 1896 and published it in Vienna. That means it could easily have been a part of the material consumed by the authors of both The International Jew and the Protocols.

Theodor Herzl was in a different world. He was unconcerned with looking like a caricatured fusion of a rat and a human, unconcerned with speculative capital and every other prejudice he knew very well.

His concern was the fate of the Jewish proletariat.

Early in A Jewish State, he discerns between integrated middle class Jews, whom he really wants to leave out of the discussion and the “wandering Jews” who, when circumstances become intolerable in one country, try another.

The implicit invitation has the ring of “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.”, only the invitation is not to America but to the Jewish State.

Herzl has little faith in the sanity of hoping for improvements another few centuries. In a time of political upheaval and national identify, he judged the time ripe for change.

He sets forth a plan for how to accomplish this. As all people knew around the turn of the century, individualism was past its useful era.

THEODOR HERZL - A JEWISH STATE, p.4 - INTRODUCTION

However much I may worship individuality — powerful personal individuality in statesmen, inventors, artists, philosophers, or commanders, as well as conjoint individuality in a historic group of human beings, which we call a nation — however much I may worship individuality, I do not regret its disappearance.

The message is straightforward, and given the epoch he lived in, quite in line with how social movements worked. People looked at society and saw the human insect. Incapable of lifting anything alone, powerful together. Marxism, Leninism, every other revolutionary movement drew the same conclusions.

Herzl’s idea had the nature of a project, not a violent revolution. He wants to set up a company.

The Protocols could certainly have drawn much inspiration from Herzl’s project booklet.

THEODOR HERZL - A JEWISH STATE, p.11 - THE PLAN

The plan, simple in design, but complicated in execution, will be carried out by two mediums: the Society of Jews and the Jewish Company.✻

The Society of Jews will do the preparatory work in the domains of science and politics, which the Jewish Company will afterwards practically apply.

The Jewish Company will see to the realization of the business interests of departing Jews, and will organize commerce and trade in the new country.

✻ These became subsequently the Zionist movement and the Jewish Colonial Trust, Ltd., respectively.

Herzl’s idea was a practical one. He didn’t have a secret world council in place. But if your wires are strung tightly enough, the above is an admission to plans of infiltrating world politics to establish a whole country. That sounds like power on the scale of the Death Star.

To an old military aristocrat, the plan sounds like cowardice. “If they want a country, why not gain one through bloodshed?”

28th September

This week I sample only a few chapters of each book. I need to figure out how to go about the task.

These are the abbreviations I will use:

• TIJ = The International Jew published by the Dearborn Independent.

• AJS = A Jewish State written by Theodor Herzl

• J&MC = The Jews and Modern Capitalism by Werner Sombart

• T&T = Today and Tomorrow by Henry Ford

It always saddens me when I sit down with a contentious matter and start to unravel it all. Invariably it is proven that nobody really reads what anybody writes. Not properly.

Attempt at analysis: Rich vs poor Jews in TIJ vs AJS

Starting off with a question that begs attention: If speculative capital became synonymous with rich Jews, why were the poor Jews, most numerous and unable to attain any influence of note, a problem in the same way? This aspect of nazi propaganda eluded me until I read TIJ.

THE INTERNATIONAL JEW p. 28 - CH2. GERMANY’S REACTION AGAINST THE JEW

The rich German Jew could buy the recognition he desired by acquiring financial power over those interests which most directly affected the ruling class of Germany, but how was the poor Jew to gain the recognition he desired? — for all Jews are actuated by the same desire; it is in them; they feel the spur to mastery.

Quite a theory. He is just warming up.

THE INTERNATIONAL JEW p. 28 - CH2. GERMANY’S REACTION AGAINST THE JEW

The Jew is not an anarchist. He is not a destructionist. All this is true, notwithstanding he is the world’s Bolshevist and preeminently Germany’s revolutionist. His anarchy is not ingrain, it is a device which he uses for a purpose. The rich Jew is not an anarchist, because he can achieve what he desires by more subtle methods. The poor Jew has no other recourse. But rich and poor go jointly for a long stretch; the bond of sympathy between them never breaks; for, if the anarchy is successful, then the poor Jew shall take his place with the rich Jew; and if the anarchy is not successful, it has nevertheless served to break up new fields in which the rich Jew may operate.

Still a riddle to me.

What am I doing? I trace their thoughts, hoping to end up with the same belief system. Only a hundred years later, and we seem to already have forgotten what it means to be entrapped in an idea.

Let’s view the issue from the other side. Theodor Herzl has a part devoted to what feeds the antisemitism they face. His viewpoint is that only the creation of a state will diminish the wrath most Jews face in their usual lives.

THEODOR HERZL - A JEWISH STATE, p.10 - CAUSES OF ANTISEMITISM

[…] its [antisemitism’s] immediate cause is our excessive production of mediocre intellects, who cannot find an outlet downwards or upwards—that is to say, no wholesome outlet in either direction. When we sink, we become a revolutionary proletariat, the subordinate officers of the revolutionary party; when we rise, there rises also our terrible power of the purse.

​

What he says makes perfect sense according to his perception of the state of affairs. He often mentions those “mediocre intellects”, showing neither particular overconfidence nor a belief that Jews are less than other nations (although the expression to my ears sounds a little condescending).

Imagine, though, for a moment how striking that sentence may come across if taken out of context. In context, it is just a link in a chain of reasoning going from Jewish circumstances in historical Europe to the development of a Jewish middle class functioning within the isolated clusters across Europe.

To the ears of a Golovinski or even worse, a Henry Ford, this is a direct admission of conspiracy to promulgate revolution, even though the statement is clearly defensive in nature. Possibly Herzl is even projecting his wishful thinking onto the Jewish proletariat.

This revolutionary potential – which is not uncommon among disenfranchised ethnical groups – is something he is quite matter of fact about in his analysis.

THEODOR HERZL - A JEWISH STATE, p.9 - CAUSES OF ANTISEMITISM

For we had, curiously enough, developed while in the Ghetto into a bourgeois people, and we stepped out of it only to enter into fierce competition with the middle classes.

[…]

At the same time, the equal rights of Jews before the law cannot be withdrawn where they have once been conceded. Not only because their withdrawal would be opposed to the spirit of our age, but also because it would immediately drive all Jews, rich and poor alike, into the ranks of the revolutionary army.

In some respects, oddly enough TIJ and AJS seem to hold coincident viewpoints, and yet, at the same time they are wildly disparate. (When it comes to questions such as work ethos, they are polar opposites.)

One striking difference is the descriptions in TIJ when it comes to Jewish character takes on a tone proper for a zoologist describing animal behaviour. Pondering of traits treated as intrinsic to the species.

“All Jews are actuated by the same desire”. The very choice of word “actuated” making it sound like Jews are driven by springs is enough to reduce their human appearance.

Maybe this ought to be my focus? The hidden language, the invocations of engrams originating in biology books and other ways of demeaning them as an entity. The slow, subtle self-transformation of attitude.

TIJ makes a mockery of the Jewish proletariat, comparing poor people in one group with poor people in another:

THE INTERNATIONAL JEW p. 1 - CH1. THE JEW IN CHARACTER AND BUSINESS

All Jews are not rich controllers of wealth. There are poor Jews aplenty, though most of them even in their poverty are their own masters. While it may be true that the chief financial controllers of the country are Jews, it is not true that every Jew is one of the financial controllers of the country.

I can imagine that the Jews would disagree that most poor Jews are their own masters.

THEODOR HERZL - A JEWISH STATE, p.31 - OUR INTRINSIC QUALITIES

In the Eastern countries of Europe there are great numbers of Jews who are not traders, and who are not afraid of hard work either.

If one were to ask a counter question to every statement made by TIJ, it would simply be “are we different?”

The human animal is tribal when not individualistic to the point of betraying its roots. It is unpredictably selfish when not unpredictably self-sacrificing. Put a looking glass to it, and you can conclude anything. Isolate those conclusions, and you can build any theory.

So when Jews care for the Jewish proletariat, it is an instance of a certain collectivist mentality going back to biblical times and the Jubilee. He becomes the “world’s bolshevik”, allowing the American to pin socialism in America on the Jews too.

29th September

Without having for certain decided how I would go about this matter, I have circled around it a handful of days and think I want to give it a try. At least using A Jewish State to uncover the blind spots of The International Jew seems like a modestly good idea.

Personality has a great deal to do with this. Since TIJ quotes AJS, the authors must have read it. Do they really see their theories confirmed in Herzl’s writings? His motives seem very universal.

I could imagine discussions internal to the Jews about religious perspectives moving along another axis altogether, such as the appropriateness of taking matters into one’s own hands as opposed to accepting matters as they were (hypothetically - I know nothing about Judaic theology).

What I do find hard to convince myself about is that most readers would be able to read Herzl’s book and still see it as an abnormal instance of “race behaviour”.

In other words, I am starting to suspect that antisemitism - though it was a core tenet for the nazi party - was not foundational to the population at large.

PARADISE LOST