Imagine you have a friend. Letās call him Rick Reasonable.
Now imagine you have an enemy. Letās call your enemy Bart B. Oilingwater.
Bart is a real piece of crap. Here's what he does: Whenever he sees you, he throws boiling water at you. Usually you dodge it, but every once in a while, he catches you with a bit. You have to constantly be on the lookout for Bart, because if you let your guard down, itās scalding water time!
Rick is a good friend. He thinks it is really bad that Bart throws boiling water on you. Heās got a popular TV show, and heās gone on the record a few times that Bart is in the wrong for always trying to hit you in the face with boiling water.
Then one day you turn on the TV, and you see Rick has Bart on as a guest. Rick is arguing with Bart about whether or not it is good to douse you with boiling water at every available opportunity.
Rick is ā¦ parsing things a little more than youād like.
Rick wants to know if the water has to be *boiling*ācanāt it just be very hot? Bart says, no, no, it really does have to be boiling.
But does it have to be water, Rick asks. Could it be something a bit easier to dodge, like molasses or tar? Bart thinks about this, and decides he isnāt sure. Heāll have to get back to Rick on that oneābut really, he prefers water.
Rick would like to know why it needs to be *you* every time.
Bart is angrily shocked that Rick would suggest such a thing. He doesnāt have a throwing-boiling-water-on-you-specifically bone in his body. He just believes as a matter of deep religious principle in throwing boiling water, you happen to be the one thatās there.
Heād like to know why, if you apparently hate being struck with boiling water so much, you insist on being in public spaces where you *know* he might be throwing it.
Rick wants to know if there canāt be days Bart could promise to not throw boiling water. So you could, you know, plan around it and adjust your schedule accordingly.
Bart suggests that Rick is really the one singling him, Bart, out, by being so intolerant of his rich cultural heritage of throwing boiling water on people.
He hints that Rickās constant scolding makes Bart want to seek you out specifically now, to throw boiling water on you, for daring to accuse him of doing such a thing.
Rick concedes that Bart absolutely does have a right to walk the streets carrying as much boiling water as he wants, in the long-standing tradition of our country. Bart appreciates Rickās stance on the matter, and compliments him on his willingness to find common ground.
At the end of the segment, he and Bart agree to disagree on whether or not it is good to attempt to douse you with boiling water every day.
Bart still thinks it is very goodāthough he insists it is not directed at you, but only at spaces that you happen to inhabit. He wonders, again, why you choose to inhabit those spaces.
Rick continues to insist that throwing at the space that you inhabit is tantamount to throwing it at you, and that it is quite rude indeed. They shake hands.
There is a commercial for Pepsi.
How are we feeling about Rick?
It is going to become necessary, if we are serious about justice, to use discernment about a personās clear intentions before determining whether it is appropriate to engage with them in this marketplace of ideasāeven before determining if the marketplace itself is appropriate.
Some peopleās ideas are genocide and slavery. They donāt want to win a debate, they just want to be listed on the exchange.
They donāt have ideas, as such. They have intentions.
The idea is a seat at the table. They have an instrumental view of debate, not a philosophical one. You can tell this, because they will effortlessly change from one statement to a contradictory one, if it is useful in the moment to take a contradictory position.
Well, great. So if theyāre all liars, we should be able to beat them easily, right? Why are we afraid to engage their ideas, if our ideas are better?
Right?
That seems like a perfectly reasonable question. The problem is, itās entirely the wrong question. Itās a category error, because while you are debating, your opponent is merely *using* debate. The fact that you are engaging means they have already succeeded.
Once you're willing to debate whether one group of people or another should be abused, then abusing and expelling people from society is something that is up for debate. It's on the table. It's listed on the exchange.
Which was the point.
Debate them? OK, why not? Theyāre lying. They're wrong. Youāll win. Easy.
Now debate again.
Again. Again.
Again.
Again.
Each time the people you're debating *about* have to listen as they become more abstract.
Again. The idea of the lie is entering the public consciousness.
Again. The idea of *lying* is entering the public consciousness. The idea is taking hold, that debate is a thing where people argue by lying. Theyāre lying, youāre lying, but itās all lies anyway, right? Both sides.
Again. The lies are getting thicker, but more hidden by their ubiquity. Again. The lies are getting better, more convincing. Again. Theyāre being focus-tested in the marketplace of ideas. Again. There are bumper stickers and signs.
Again. There are protests in favor of direct and shocking action, premised upon the lie. Again. There are hats, red hats, a sea of them. Again. Again. Here are refugees stranded. Again. Their children ripped from their arms.
Again. Here are raids tearing families apart. Again. Here is a mosque defaced. Again. A man in a turban attacked. Again. An elderly woman run down by storm troopers in the streets. Again. Replacement theory moves from fringe Nazi riots to Tucker Carlson to elected Republican officials. Again. An insurrection. Again. Terrorists with guns threaten queer people here, murder them there.
Again. The leader of the Republican Party meets with Nazis and demands the overthrow of the Constitution.
Unthinkable. Except it isnāt. Weāve been thinking about the unthinkable, like very open-minded and reasonable people, for years.
Remember this, whenever anyone stands in front of a crowd and mourns the disagreement, rather than the cause, our divide, rather than the reason, and fails even to consider the targets and the victims, choosing instead to scold them from a comfortable place while playing a reasonable game with their aggressors.
There are valid arguments to not debate in certain areas.
Because of the nature of truth vs lies, an honest scientist debating a creationists, for example, is a person bringing a pen to a knife fight.
The antiāSemite has chosen hate because hate is a faith; at the outset he has chosen to devaluate words and reasons. How entirely at ease he feels as a result. How futile and frivolous discussions about the rights of the Jew appear to him. He has placed himself on other ground from the beginning. If out of courtesy he consents for a moment to defend his point of view, he lends himself but does not give himself.
1/n
He tries simply to project his intuitive certainty onto the plane of discourse. I mentioned awhile back some
remarks by antiāSemites, all of them absurd: "I hate Jews
because they make servants insubordinate, because a
Jewish furrier robbed me, etc." Never believe that antiā
Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies.
2/n
They know that their remarks are frivolous, open
to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The antiāSemites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving
ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors.
3/4
They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.
4/4
Above is a transcription of Sartre's paragraph about antisemitism, which is good but content warnings apply.
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