…To sum up the process of making a word a cheer or boo word, it is essentially a matter of creating a conditioned reflex. By multiplying the word’s conceptual meanings to the point of disappearance and making its affective meaning massively predominant, the meaning maker causes us to associate its mere sound with the idea of goodness or badness, and so we feel joyful anticipation or disapproval and revulsion as the case may be. In doing these things the meaning maker follows Ivan Pavlov, who conditioned his dogs to associate the sound of a bell with the idea of being fed, which made them salivate. We end up reacting to the stimulus automatically, our thinking minds playing no part.
The case of an expression like “anti-Semitism” is slightly different in that this has a determinate conceptual meaning, which it wears on its face. As long as we ignore the fact that Arabs are Semites too, we can see that it means being against or disliking Jews. To make “anti-Semitism” a boo word it was therefore necessary to concentrate mainly on maximising its affective meaning, which is to say conditioning us to see disliking Jews as bad, in contrast to disliking the French or Germans, say, which we could continue to do with impunity. This again was accomplished by modelling, not by reason, as can be confirmed by reflecting that we have never heard an argument to say why disliking Jews is bad: that is, unless you call it an argument to suggest should this sentiment arise in us it would mean that we wanted to exterminate the race, for having misgivings about the behaviour of Jews, we have been encouraged to believe, would be equivalent to commissioning the construction of gas chambers.
Thus the media place Jews in a special class simply by acting as though they were in one, and we pick the idea up. It is the same back-to-front process as with “racism”, whereby we accept that something is bad because we see it disapproved of rather than disapproving of it because we think it is bad: a process that can occur because we accept the authority of the media or other meaning maker. Once “anti-Semitism” is established as a boo word, it is too late to enquire what Jews have done to deserve their special status. How dare one ask the question when Jews are such special people?
According to a count of all the words used in books published between 1960 and 2019, “anti-Semitism” is top dog among racial boo words, coming far ahead even of “racism”, let alone such comparatively paltry failings as xenophobia and White supremacy.[7]https://www.bitchute.com/embed/jCgn8FVzkN29/ So while racism in general is bad, this particular variety of it is gigantically bad, which might have something to do with the fact that the mass media and publishing industry are largely owned by Jews.
As the gold standard of racial badness, and indeed of all possible badness, anti-Semitism acts as the measure of other offences, so that it is asked, for example, whether anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. People have gone on demonstrations holding placards saying that it is not. If they are mistaken, then anti-Zionism is a no-no, whereas if they are correct it is OK. What can never be doubted is that anti-Semitism is as bad as bad can be.
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If only more of us understood how badly language normally operates. In this, Buddhists can see the utility of sunyata, emptiness. Affect with no meaning. Empty words both run and ruin our lives. ABN
American Buddhist Net 