“Looking backwards as a Jew is to stare into a void of cattle trucks, and exhaust pipes, and piles of stinking flesh, behind which lies only a pointless blur. To put it less portentously, if modern Jewish history ends in such total, numbing failure, it must be, both essentially and in its details too, a story of failure. All its heroes are failures; if they hadn’t failed, then it wouldn’t have ended as it did.”
I really don’t get this. Is Mendelssohn really a failure? Is there not a treasure trove of pre-Holocaust European Jewish art, philosophy, science that is still around? I don’t really understand the bullet train analogy. We can see the Holocaust as something that coherently fits in with the narrative of European Jewish history, but still not view everything that came before as a failure.
Also, why is the Holocaust a good excuse for the US “taking over the world?” Why couldn’t the soviets make the same excuse, given they liberated the camps too? There are other explanations for the chart you showed, such as, off the top of my head, more information being revealed abt holocaust, trauma wearing off enough for survivors to talk about it more, children of survivors being more willing to speak about it than survivors themselves, etc.
I really don’t feel like reading hours of moldbug to understand an article about modern Jewish history. I also don’t trust him on the Holocaust (see his idiotic thread about American “concentration camps” for German POWs); I’d rather just ask claude.
Mendehlsson being a failure is an interesting one. Due to his efforts, the greatest novelist of the 20th century, the architect of the manhattan project, the discoverer of general relativity, the literal savior of mankind (Fritz Haber), and many other great men of history were Jewish. The Holocaust made sense historically (not a bullet train) considering the seeds of hysteria in the German mind, but it doesn’t happen if not for the utter failure of the European ruling class leading to WWI, which Jews realistically couldn’t have prevented. Perhaps as a collective modern Jewish history ended in failure, but I myself as a Jew (cringe, I know) am still proud of the achievements of late 18th-mid 20th century European Jewry.
The moldbug thing is whatever; if you’re right or there’s an alternative explanation it doesn’t really make a difference. I’m more interested in the Mendelssohn discussion. Why do you think he was a failure considering the great achievements of pre-Holocaust European Jewry? Is it that Jewish history properly understood is only a collective history? But, as an analogy, we don’t think Moses was a failure because he didn’t experience the collective apotheosis of conquering Israel. We can still appreciate the greatness of biblical figures and not view their lives as failures just because the Bible in some sense ends in the collective failure of exile. Is Herzl a failure because Israel is kind of batshit? I’d say no; he was still a great man who dreamed big and whose dream was in some sense achieved.
He obviously failed because there is no movement today that even tries to live up to his vision, and his grandchildren became Christians. He is also partly responsible for the equivocation between culture generally and German culture in specifically in neo-orthodoxy which ended up backfiring spectacularly.
I’m using Mendelssohn as the progenitor of the project of assimilation of Jews into European society. I don’t think it’s fair to call the project a complete failure and only view it through the lens of the Holocaust, considering all the great achievements of European Jewry in the 140 years leading up to the Holocaust.
“Looking backwards as a Jew is to stare into a void of cattle trucks, and exhaust pipes, and piles of stinking flesh, behind which lies only a pointless blur. To put it less portentously, if modern Jewish history ends in such total, numbing failure, it must be, both essentially and in its details too, a story of failure. All its heroes are failures; if they hadn’t failed, then it wouldn’t have ended as it did.”
I really don’t get this. Is Mendelssohn really a failure? Is there not a treasure trove of pre-Holocaust European Jewish art, philosophy, science that is still around? I don’t really understand the bullet train analogy. We can see the Holocaust as something that coherently fits in with the narrative of European Jewish history, but still not view everything that came before as a failure.
Also, why is the Holocaust a good excuse for the US “taking over the world?” Why couldn’t the soviets make the same excuse, given they liberated the camps too? There are other explanations for the chart you showed, such as, off the top of my head, more information being revealed abt holocaust, trauma wearing off enough for survivors to talk about it more, children of survivors being more willing to speak about it than survivors themselves, etc.
You need to read Unqualifed Reservations! How can you possibly hope to understand what I'm on about otherwise?
The Soviets had better explanations, namely global liberation of the proletariat.
Obviously, Mendelssohn is a failure. He's even more of a failure than everyone else.
I really don’t feel like reading hours of moldbug to understand an article about modern Jewish history. I also don’t trust him on the Holocaust (see his idiotic thread about American “concentration camps” for German POWs); I’d rather just ask claude.
Mendehlsson being a failure is an interesting one. Due to his efforts, the greatest novelist of the 20th century, the architect of the manhattan project, the discoverer of general relativity, the literal savior of mankind (Fritz Haber), and many other great men of history were Jewish. The Holocaust made sense historically (not a bullet train) considering the seeds of hysteria in the German mind, but it doesn’t happen if not for the utter failure of the European ruling class leading to WWI, which Jews realistically couldn’t have prevented. Perhaps as a collective modern Jewish history ended in failure, but I myself as a Jew (cringe, I know) am still proud of the achievements of late 18th-mid 20th century European Jewry.
You should get into WW2 propaganda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_to_Moscow
The moldbug thing is whatever; if you’re right or there’s an alternative explanation it doesn’t really make a difference. I’m more interested in the Mendelssohn discussion. Why do you think he was a failure considering the great achievements of pre-Holocaust European Jewry? Is it that Jewish history properly understood is only a collective history? But, as an analogy, we don’t think Moses was a failure because he didn’t experience the collective apotheosis of conquering Israel. We can still appreciate the greatness of biblical figures and not view their lives as failures just because the Bible in some sense ends in the collective failure of exile. Is Herzl a failure because Israel is kind of batshit? I’d say no; he was still a great man who dreamed big and whose dream was in some sense achieved.
He obviously failed because there is no movement today that even tries to live up to his vision, and his grandchildren became Christians. He is also partly responsible for the equivocation between culture generally and German culture in specifically in neo-orthodoxy which ended up backfiring spectacularly.
I’m using Mendelssohn as the progenitor of the project of assimilation of Jews into European society. I don’t think it’s fair to call the project a complete failure and only view it through the lens of the Holocaust, considering all the great achievements of European Jewry in the 140 years leading up to the Holocaust.