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The Fight Against Antisemitism and the Iranian Regime: Challenges and Contradictions in the Light of Adorno’S Categorical Imperative

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The Fight Against Antisemitism and the Iranian Regime: Challenges and Contradictions in the Light of Adorno’S Categorical Imperative Stephan Grigat The Fight against Antisemitism and the Iranian Regime: Challenges and Contradictions in the Light of Adorno’s Categorical Imperative ICategorical Imperatives The purpose of acritique of antisemitismistodisable it and to decipher it through acritique of ideology. Anyreconstruction of the mentality of the anti- semite, however trenchant,and anyaccount of the history of antisemitism, how- ever comprehensive,ends up in stunned amazement at the projective madness of the Jew-hatred that one is committed to countering at the practical level. As Max- imilian Gottschlich put it: “when all is said and done, thereisonlyone serious motive for concerning oneself with antisemitism: to resist it.”¹ However,ifwe wish to resist it without illusions,acritical reconstruction of the antisemitic mentality is essential. In some established academic schools of thought,the impression is given that antisemitism is aresultofalack of knowledge about Jews, Judaism, or the Jewish state. Ithink that this idea is not onlywrongbut alsounderestimates the problem. Were it correct,the situation would not be nearlysobad and could be easilyaddressed, for example, through meetings between Jewish and non- Jewishyoung people, synagogue open days,and studytrips to Israel. Of course, all these thingsshould be done;however,they will not banish antisemitism, be- cause it is acomprehensive worldview of adelusional-projective kind. Instead of downplaying antisemitism as mere prejudice, we have to decipher it through a critique of the “antisemitic society,” as Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer put it in their Dialectic of Enlightenment.² Anti-Jewish hatred must be viewed in the light of the basic constitution of this society.Antisemitism is not an anthropological constant but an ever-chang- ing,delusional reaction to the historicallyexisting society.Adeveloped critique of antisemitismmust,unlike atraditionaltheoretical approach, feel itself ob- M. Gottschlich, Die große Abneigung. Wieantisemitisch ist Österreich?Kritische Befunde zu einer sozialen Krankheit (Wien: Czernin, 2012), 9. T. W. Adorno and M. Horkheimer, Dialektik der Aufklärung:Philosophische Fragmente (Frank- furt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997), 209. OpenAccess. ©2019 StephanGrigat, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the CreativeCommons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110618594-034 442 Stephan Grigat ligedtooffer “asingle existential judgement.”³ From this point of view,the anti- semitismofthe twentieth and twenty-first century is simplythe epitome of anti- emancipatory ideology, in which hatred of enlightenment,self-awarenessand freedom are combined. Modern antisemitism is essentiallyareaction to an uncomprehended, fetish- istic, and self-mystifyingcapitalist society.The urge for adelusional concretiza- tion of abstraction—which seems to me to be one of the decisive elements of an- tisemitism—is inherent to modern capitalist society.⁴ The task of anymaterialist critique of antisemitism is to make visible the connection between the antisem- ites and the society that produces them. At the sametime, however,wemust make it clear thatthis connection exculpates neither the antisemite nor the so- ciety.⁵ Even in such an unfree society,individuals who decide to engageinhatred and violence against Jews are responsible for their decisions and must be held accountable for them. Antisemitism is aregressive revolt against the global principle of subject-less rule and an abstractness of the economyand politics that is perceivedasabur- den and athreat.Understood in this way, antisemitism is abasic ideologyofa capitalist society thatproducesits own negation, both positively and negatively. The critique of the fetishism and mystification of capitalist society developedin Karl Marx’scritique of political economyisofdecisive importance for the cri- tique of this ideological worldview.The conceptual sharpness of the developed critique of political economyisnecessary in order to prevent or at least decisively impedethe mutation of economic criticism into persecutory resentment.⁶ Acritique of antisemitism must show that it is not simplyaform of racism directed against Jews. This does not mean that it must be foughtmore than rac- ism. But it does mean keepinginmind the different modes of operation of racism and antisemitism in order to be able to combat them more effectively.Racism ex- presses ademarcationfrom “those of lesser worth.” The victims of racism are re- proached not for their superiority but for their inferiority.Racism biologizes his- toricallyand currentlyexisting differencesofproductivity;itisdirected at the powerlessness of the raciallyclassified.⁷ M. Horkheimer, Traditionelle und kritische Theorie: Fünf Aufsätze (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1995), 244. Cf. M. Postone, Anti-Semitism and National Socialism (London: Chronos, 2000). Cf. G. Scheit, Suicide Attack: Zur Kritik der politischen Gewalt (Freiburg: Ça Ira, 2004), 14. Cf. S. Grigat, Fetisch und Freiheit: Über die Rezeption der Marxschen Fetischkritik, die Emanzi- pation von Staat und Kapital und die Kritik des Antisemitismus (Freiburg: Ça Ira, 2007), 273–81. Cf. J. Bruhn, Wasdeutsch ist: Zur kritischen Theorie der Nation (Freiburg: Ça Ira, 1994), 77–110. The Fight against Antisemitism and the Iranian Regime 443 Antisemites are secretlyaware of the vulnerability of the Jews, which enables aone-sided onslaught on them—at least prior to the establishment of Israel. However,they imagine their prospective victims, in sharp contrast to the victims of racism,not as powerless,but as all‐powerful. As the embodiment of abstrac- tion, in the eyes of antisemites, Jews rule the whole world, something which, in the minds of racists, would be beyond the capacities of the victims of racism. To put it another way: nobodyfantasizes about an “African world conspiracy.” Anti- semites fantasize about theirdestruction by asuperior intellect,the “mastersof money” or aJewish statehood that is deemed illegitimate. They see themselves as forestallingthis imagined threat through the destruction of this abstraction in the form of the Jews, whether individuallyorasasovereign political entity. It is of the essence of antisemitism that Jews are placed in ano-win situa- tion. Rich Jews are faulted for theirsuccess and the poor derided as scroungers. The assimilatedJew is deemed atreacherous subverter of the people, the tradi- tionalist an incorrigible misfit.The sexuallyactive Jewisconsidered acorrupter of youth, the abstinent an impotent weakling. Anything Jews do will be used by antisemites as new material for their delusions. Should abehaviour not fit into the projective imagery of an antisemite, the unexpectedactionwill be construed as aparticularlydevious means of hiding the Jew’strue intentions. Forcritical theory,therefore, acritique of antisemitism is concernednot with the objects, but the subjects of antisemitism: so, not with the Jews, Judaism, or the Jewishstate,but with the psychic needs and the sometimes conscious and sometimesunconscious motivesofthe Jew‐hater.Inadelusional projection onto the “Jewish principle” and its supposed physical embodiments, antisemites are fighting against social and individual ambivalences,and against individual and social contradictions and crises. Thisseems to me to be the constant factor in the different manifestations of antisemitism. One means for combatingthe abovementioned antisemitic reactions would be the mass education of thinking individuals so that they learn to deal with these individual and social ambivalences, contradictions,and crises in amature and responsible way.⁸ However,inthe critique of antisemitism, one must con- stantlykeep in mind the “limits of enlightenment,” aphrase that not by chance was used by Adorno and Horkheimer as asubtitle for theirfamous essay “Ele- ments of antisemitism.”⁹ So, wherever feasible, social relations should be estab- lished that promoteanessential minimum of individual and social reflection and the formationofaneffective maturity.The problem however is this: modern Cf. T. W. Adorno, Erziehung zur Mündigkeit (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1971). Adorno and Horkheimer, Dialektik der Aufklärung,177. 444 Stephan Grigat forms of socialization both create and sabotage the possibilities for the forma- tion of such areflective mature individuality. The aim here must be to at least preservethe possibility of counteracting the antisemitic delusions that antisem- ites allow themselvestobeterrified by,promotingself-understanding and en- couragingself-criticism. Nevertheless,tokeep in mind the “limits of enlighten- ment” means wherethe aboveisimpossible, preventing the antisemites from pursuing theirgoals, whose culmination is mass murder,byall available means. Indeed, Adorno himself statedthat,inthe face of blatant antisemitism, the “available means of coercion” should be used “without sentimentality.”¹⁰ This sentimentistrue both within the framework of the nation-state and in the confrontation with antisemitic actors on the international stage. In the face of antisemitic agitation required to produce or sustain the perse- cutory mentality,weare not powerless.Antisemitism can, in the last analysis, onlybemade to disappear through the abolition of its social foundations. “An end to antisemitism” would thereforeultimatelymean the establishment of aso- ciety free from domination and exploitation in which everyone could be different without fear or pressure.¹¹ However,eveninthis society,the “arm of criticism and the criticism
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