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Ben Koan's avatar

Your note about the term "conspiracy theory" being too generous is apt. What is clear with the really hardcore antisemites, as seen in this comments thread, is how any pretensions to intellectual rigor quickly give way to emotional flailing.

Recently I was looking up something to do with Jews and the ancient world, found what seemed like an informative article, then realized the author was consistently lower-casing "jews." The spite and rage that motivates antisemitic reasoning always float to the surface, providing a clear tell that you're dealing with a crank.

Although most antisemites are male, there's something hysterical and womanly about the phenomenon. Hardcore antisemitism combines male autistic tendencies, like the need to systemize, with feminine histrionics (apparent also in the personality of Hitler). As Richard Hanania wrote in his piece on women's tears, "someone without the emotional stability to even participate in the marketplace of ideas isn’t going to have the traits necessary to contribute much to it."

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Arturo D Leal's avatar

Your last few posts have been really good (I mean maybe they all are, I just have only had the chance to read those). Pointing out how toxic and stupid antisemitism is, when one has become a rightoid late in life, is one of those things that one comes to realize is necessary and yet often shirks from so as not to come across like a schoolmarm, drip, eternal flip-flopper... but it's true. And of all the treatments of antisemitism out there, and its relationship to Rightoid behavior, yours is quite closest to the best.

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