On Incitement (Column 42)

With God's help

In recent days it was reported that a student at Bezalel created a Photoshop image in which our revered prime minister, Bibi Netanyahu, appears with a noose beside his head. You will no doubt be pleased to hear that although she (apparently) belongs to the left side of the political spectrum, she is accused of incitement to murder. When I read this, I was greatly amused by it (the charge, not the work), and it stirred thoughts that have been nesting in me for some time. So I am pestering you with yet another post, day after day.

People think that the Left's hysteria over incitement (seeing incitement in every word) is part of its propaganda and silencing machinery. It fights mightily for its own freedom of speech and against everyone else's freedom of speech. It is hard to deny that there is something to this. The Left's main instrument of incitement and silencing is the accusation that everything that moves is incitement (together with the gagging of all the "inciters," "extremists," and "agenda-driven people," from Israel Hayom to Channel Seven, Ariel Zilber, Rabbi Karim, and so on and on). But ever since Rabin's assassination, I have had the feeling that the hysteria about incitement that has spread through our midst is not merely a propaganda tool. There is something more essential in it. It is part of the postmodern platform, that cesspool in which the Left (and not only the Left) wallows, dragging us all into it. Despite the concern that when one sinks into a swamp, the harder one kicks the deeper one sinks, I cannot refrain from adding a few kicks. I will take the risk.

A few words about postmodernism

Postmodernists see words as a substitute for substance and positions (see a striking example in Column 40 on feminist theology). Thus, if you speak about a female God, even if your words make no sense whatsoever, you have made a learned and avant-garde theological claim. If you say "the golden age," then you have not offended the elderly. If you say kushi, black, nigger, or Negro, you have murdered Black people, or at least discriminated against them (from now on, say: Afro-American, although actually that too has already been disqualified. Now it is African-American. I hope I have not missed the latest directive from the past few days). For these fools, metaphors and words, with no connection whatsoever to content, replace reality. In this corrupt culture, claims are not examined through their content and meaning, but through their consequences, and no less through the (speculations about the) agenda underlying them. Claims are not judged there in terms of truth or falsehood, but in pragmatic terms of useful or not useful, calming or not calming (see in that column my remarks about the therapeutic value of words).

Implications: On Incitement

It is no wonder, then, that in this delusional world, if you drew someone in an SS uniform, you have in effect murdered him. These inciters (against the incitement of the Right) are not to blame, for that truly is what they think (?!). They have lost the ability to examine the meaning of claims, and now they busy themselves with conspiracies and subterranean tendencies and narratives. And so, if you made a Photoshop image of the prime minister with a noose, then if you did not murder him, at least you incited people to murder him.

And so a young woman who creates a Photoshop image as an art exercise in a group of five students in some little room at Bezalel is immediately accused of incitement and investigated by the police. She is offered up as a sacrifice on the altar of "public discourse" (see the previous column), our ranting and infantile public discourse. If this is not McCarthyism, I do not know what McCarthyism is. The Bezalel student, who did nothing more than produce a Photoshop exercise, was immediately brought in for police questioning on charges of incitement. What will happen to her now? I do not know. Despite the protection she will no doubt receive from those who share her views, my confidence in the intelligence of our police, and of the legal system (and the press), is very limited. The mantras about incitement may be taken seriously by them, and then instead of words killing, we will kill the words.

Postmodernism killed words, indeed content and meaning, and now it is killing our ability to say them. The anti-incitement incitement that washes over us every single day, along with the demands for apologies ("my words were taken out of context"), is the greatest danger to democracy. A person can no longer utter a word before calculating what some unintelligent police officer, prosecutor, or judge will decide about it.

My confidence in the integrity of academics (some of whom may perhaps possess the superior intelligence that allows them to see that all this is nonsense, but whose political agenda does not allow them to admit it) is also quite limited. Not to mention the political system (for which intelligence is certainly not a strong point), which, as expected, as a whole (except for fringe figures who failed to do so only because it suited their political agenda) burst into a well-orchestrated chorus of allegations and lamentations about the terrible incitement, about how words kill (oh Rabin, Rabin…), and the rest of the hollow, pitiable slogans.

How delightful: now the soloists in the choir are the intellectuals and people of conscience from the Right (see Miri Regev). Now the Right, too, can whine and lament about incitement, say that words kill, that the Left incites to violence, etc. etc. We are not alone. The Left, too, incites and murders, and it is mere chance that Bibi is still alive. Many of them are surely thinking to themselves how good it would have been had Bibi joined Rabin. Then we too would have had a martyr of our own (I hope they will not arrest me for incitement, though I am really not at all sure). Well, if meanwhile we have not succeeded in getting the Left to kill Bibi, at least we can accuse it of incitement (after all, words kill, do they not?).

The Next Stage

Already now I can see in my dreams a public appeal to all of us, the members of the youth movements and all the parties (that is, everyone to the left of Hadash and to the right of Lenin), to gather in Rabin Square this coming Saturday night for the next four-hundred-thousand-person (that is, two-hundred-and-thirteen-person) rally, to light candles in memory of the democracy being murdered before our eyes. In fact, we can already restore the square's original name, Kings of Israel Square, after Bibi, of blessed memory (potentially). After that, we will all be asked to join Tzav Piyus (whose logo hovers on a zeppelin above the square) for dialogue circles on beanbags under tents around round tables in the square, with several facilitators together: an Orthodox homosexual, a Black woman (sorry, an African-American) who underwent a Reform conversion and is a Nashot Watch activist, a hilltop youth, a spokeswoman for Breaking the Silence, a Haredi media personality, an Arab feminist (who has not yet been murdered), and a couple consisting of a Palestinian lesbian and her partner, a Haredi gay man, in order to clarify what incitement is, why we must avoid it, and how one does so. Our strength is in our unity (but not, heaven forbid, in uniformity, everyone hastens to add unanimously and in two voices). I can already envision how a mournful yet profound dialogue will unfold there, with readings of poems by Yehuda Amichai and Zelda (for balance), and perhaps a few chapters of Psalms from the 929 project with various diverse teachers. Everyone will offer very personal reflections and discuss, in disarmingly open fashion, what this does to them, and from what place they are coming to the dialogue circle, etc., etc. One thing, however, must be observed scrupulously: not to add a single word about the content of the poems and their meaning. Meaning, of course, must not even be mentioned; only reflections on what these wonderful poems do to me and to you (song and blessing). As we know, words act; God forbid they should convey meaning or content.

I can already envision the closing ceremony, in which in the end, of course, we will not agree, but we will listen closely to one another, nod politely and click our tongues in sympathy, and part with an agreement to disagree. And then I ask myself: disagree about what? After all, no one is claiming anything (because every claim is incitement). Ah yes, I forgot. We will agree that there is a collection of narratives, all of which have an equal place in the circle of diversities (my favorite expression from Rabbi Shagar, of blessed memory, the prophet of the oxymoron known as "religious postmodernism"). That we are all right and wrong simultaneously. This agreement will be reached as a bridge between all those who hold different and polarized positions (you can make out the difference and the polarization, can you not? Remember, there is a Reform Black facilitator).

And the wolf (in sheep's clothing) shall dwell with the sheep (in wolf's clothing), and the leopard (without any skin) shall lie down with a kid roasting on the grill. And a little child (who is a Haredi lesbian) shall lead them. The wind carried them all away, the light swept them all along (Bialik).

And Yet, Two Points of Satisfaction

People on the Left constantly use the weapon of incitement in order to incite (against the Right, which incites against them for inciting against it, and so on ad infinitum). My satisfaction is that at least now they too were forced to swallow the bitter pill they are always feeding the rest of us, and to condemn the student though she did absolutely nothing wrong, despite the fact that she acted from the "right" side. Truly, her "inciting" work is exceedingly dangerous, and it is good that we have all wisely united in the face of this threat to democracy and cut it off with a strong hand and an outstretched arm while it was still in its infancy. What satisfaction it gives me that they are now eating the rotten fruits they have been cooking up for us at our expense for years.

But there is another aspect of satisfaction. Not everyone on the Left joined the choir. At first glance, that should gratify me, since now at least they understand that this is not incitement. But that is a fool's consolation. There is no doubt that the moment there is a similar "work" whose subject is Bougie Herzog or Zehava Galon, the choir of silencing and condemnation will strike up with full force (and Bibi will condemn and apologize). No, remaining outside the choir stems from the fact that consistency, too, is not a mandatory requirement. We have already seen more than once on this site statements to the effect that there are things that are above logic (what are those "things"? Either religious faith or postmodern discourse. And there you have once again the realization of Rabbi Shagar's prophetic vision).

Thus the second point of satisfaction comes precisely from the other subgroup, those who did condemn. To my delight, this shows that even in our foolish world some measure of consistency is still required. Even if you are an idiot talking nonsense, you must go on chattering yourself to death in every direction, consistently. We must remember that consistency is the only requirement left in postmodern discourse, empty of content. You need not claim anything, and there is no reason whatever for your claims to have any content at all (on the contrary, it is preferable that they not). The question is not what meaning or content the things you said had (for you said nothing; you merely mumbled), but only what your mumbling brings about. Since that is so, at the next stage, even if this mumbling brings about nothing, you will be accused for what it may bring about. For the demand for meaning has long since departed from our midst. But here is our point of light: at least consistency itself is still preserved. If that at least has not been harmed, let that be our reward. If we have lost content and meaning, at least we have been left with consistency. Well, at least some small portion of us has…

If they still have not succeeded in silencing Ariel Zilber, you can now hear him sing: "Words, words, and their meaning—a wave will come and wash them away."