I really appreciate your encouraging words so much. I was afraid that nobody was really going to get this one so it's wonderful and affirming to see someone with expertise affirming that this could be significant.
Have any thoughts on where I should go next in my research? I'm planning a follow-up piece or two to present what I'm able to find in peer-reviewed papers on this.
I really appreciate your encouraging words so much. I was afraid that nobody was really going to get this one so it's wonderful and affirming to see someone with expertise affirming that this could be significant.
Have any thoughts on where I should go next in my research? I'm planning a follow-up piece or two to present what I'm able to find in peer-reviewed papers on this.
I’m new here (been lurking for a couple of months), and I really like your writing. I hope to start writing here as well. My expertise on this only goes so deep. Years ago I was able to find a chart on where and when leaded gasoline was banned, and checked it against crime stats. It seemed like everywhere that did saw crime start dropping around 4 years thereafter. Obviously that doesn’t prove causality, but it was pretty stark.
Not sure what to recommend, but as a Jew who sees our mythology, important as it is, as just that, and seeing too the dangers inherent when people who subscribe to literalist beliefs rise to power, i’ve been thinking a lot about whether secular Jews ought to be standing up to call that out. Our mythology has created us as much as we created it, and we ought to honor it and the traditions that have allowed us to remain an identifiable and largely communal tribe for thousands of years, committed to literacy, education, and healing the world. But so much of the trouble the world faces is grounded in people living in unreality, and trying to bring their version of unreality into time. And since so much of western religion is grounded in Jewish mythology as a basis, do we have a special responsibility to call it what it is, and stop countenancing literal belief in our own community?
Wow. Thank you so much. I’m going to buy and read this book. There’s so much power and wisdom and resilience in our tribe, and yet fundamentalism, whatever its stripe, is always a danger when it is empowered. And that empowerment, it seems to be, is grounded first in an unwillingness of more rational minds to outwardly address the question or imagine the dangers posed by a portion of their tribe that accepts mythology as reality. But that’s a difficult and likely a very unpopular thing to do.
For the record (not that you asked), I don’t believe that this requires the rejection of the existence of a higher power, only the acceptance that the stories told by ancients to describe or make sense of that concept are just that. And again, it feels like our place, and our mythology’s place in both history and in the mythology of the other major (western) religions (whose various fundamentalisms are perhaps even more dangerous than our own) gives us a unique perspective and responsibility to address this within our community.
I'm curious, when you're talking about literalism and fundamentalism among Jews, who specifically are you concerned about? And what is the impact of their beliefs that you're seeing?
The most obvious and immediate to me is the question of who controls and decides Israel’s path. I think that an Israel in thrall to messianic belief is a danger to both its own existence and to Jews worldwide. But having recently been back to NYC (my own homeland), and wandering through a Hasidic neighborhood, it really began to hit me how separate the world they (and their children, so many children) inhabit is from reality. And as someone who has spent my career in public policy, not religion (I used to quip that the next time I walked into a synagogue, the arc would burst into flames), what it means and can mean when people (any people) who are trying to bring their mythology into time get to dictate their false reality to others. And how history is littered with the tragedies that can bring.
Not in Brooklyn (though they actually have more political power in the city than you’d think). And that lack of influence, over centuries, of small and relatively insular enclaves of Jews is lulling. Who cares what they want to believe? What difference does it make? But currently, it seems that messianics do have considerable sway over the Netanyahu government, and suddenly their visions and priorities are impacting a whole lot of people’s lives.
I hear where you're coming from. I suppose as a non-Jew working in the Zionist activist space my inclination is to generally let Jews debate where along the secular to fundamentalist scale is best to fall, whether Reform is better than Orthodox, which forms of Hasidism may be benign while others that could be harmful, which Jews are so secular that they shouldn't even count as Jews, etc.
My main concern right now is the rising antisemitism which targets all Jews. And it seems like to counter that, Jews and non-Jews from secular to fundamentalist should try to come together and bring their unique perspectives to figuring out how we can defeat the antisemites and authoritarians.
I really appreciate your encouraging words so much. I was afraid that nobody was really going to get this one so it's wonderful and affirming to see someone with expertise affirming that this could be significant.
Have any thoughts on where I should go next in my research? I'm planning a follow-up piece or two to present what I'm able to find in peer-reviewed papers on this.
I’m new here (been lurking for a couple of months), and I really like your writing. I hope to start writing here as well. My expertise on this only goes so deep. Years ago I was able to find a chart on where and when leaded gasoline was banned, and checked it against crime stats. It seemed like everywhere that did saw crime start dropping around 4 years thereafter. Obviously that doesn’t prove causality, but it was pretty stark.
That's so kind of you to say. Are there any subjects you'd like me to write about more?
You should start writing here. It's wonderful. What are you thinking about writing on?
Not sure what to recommend, but as a Jew who sees our mythology, important as it is, as just that, and seeing too the dangers inherent when people who subscribe to literalist beliefs rise to power, i’ve been thinking a lot about whether secular Jews ought to be standing up to call that out. Our mythology has created us as much as we created it, and we ought to honor it and the traditions that have allowed us to remain an identifiable and largely communal tribe for thousands of years, committed to literacy, education, and healing the world. But so much of the trouble the world faces is grounded in people living in unreality, and trying to bring their version of unreality into time. And since so much of western religion is grounded in Jewish mythology as a basis, do we have a special responsibility to call it what it is, and stop countenancing literal belief in our own community?
I also understand why this may piss a lot of people off.
I have the perfect book for you that will answer your question... https://rushkoff.com/books/nothing-sacred/
Wow. Thank you so much. I’m going to buy and read this book. There’s so much power and wisdom and resilience in our tribe, and yet fundamentalism, whatever its stripe, is always a danger when it is empowered. And that empowerment, it seems to be, is grounded first in an unwillingness of more rational minds to outwardly address the question or imagine the dangers posed by a portion of their tribe that accepts mythology as reality. But that’s a difficult and likely a very unpopular thing to do.
For the record (not that you asked), I don’t believe that this requires the rejection of the existence of a higher power, only the acceptance that the stories told by ancients to describe or make sense of that concept are just that. And again, it feels like our place, and our mythology’s place in both history and in the mythology of the other major (western) religions (whose various fundamentalisms are perhaps even more dangerous than our own) gives us a unique perspective and responsibility to address this within our community.
Thanks again for the book recommendation.
You're welcome. If you're a comic book guy then you'll love his graphic novel series on these themes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J8UDAAK?ref_=cmx_l_ur_u_u_bs
I'm curious, when you're talking about literalism and fundamentalism among Jews, who specifically are you concerned about? And what is the impact of their beliefs that you're seeing?
The most obvious and immediate to me is the question of who controls and decides Israel’s path. I think that an Israel in thrall to messianic belief is a danger to both its own existence and to Jews worldwide. But having recently been back to NYC (my own homeland), and wandering through a Hasidic neighborhood, it really began to hit me how separate the world they (and their children, so many children) inhabit is from reality. And as someone who has spent my career in public policy, not religion (I used to quip that the next time I walked into a synagogue, the arc would burst into flames), what it means and can mean when people (any people) who are trying to bring their mythology into time get to dictate their false reality to others. And how history is littered with the tragedies that can bring.
Do Jews with those sorts of views really have much influence, though? Seems to me like they’re a pretty small minority of the total Jewish population.
Not in Brooklyn (though they actually have more political power in the city than you’d think). And that lack of influence, over centuries, of small and relatively insular enclaves of Jews is lulling. Who cares what they want to believe? What difference does it make? But currently, it seems that messianics do have considerable sway over the Netanyahu government, and suddenly their visions and priorities are impacting a whole lot of people’s lives.
I hear where you're coming from. I suppose as a non-Jew working in the Zionist activist space my inclination is to generally let Jews debate where along the secular to fundamentalist scale is best to fall, whether Reform is better than Orthodox, which forms of Hasidism may be benign while others that could be harmful, which Jews are so secular that they shouldn't even count as Jews, etc.
My main concern right now is the rising antisemitism which targets all Jews. And it seems like to counter that, Jews and non-Jews from secular to fundamentalist should try to come together and bring their unique perspectives to figuring out how we can defeat the antisemites and authoritarians.