Antisemitism and the Victimary Era

Abstract

This chapter presents an account of contemporary anti-Semitism in terms of Eric Gans's originary hypothesis regarding the origin of language and culture. Antisemitism, for Gans, is ultimately predicated upon the paradox of the Jewish discovery of monotheism. The term has a direct competitor on today's ideological and political market for designating hate, one which, if it was not, could very easily have been designed to undermine attempts to identify antisemitism. The chapter also adds a brief critique of the concept of Islamophobia to the author's paper because that concept has become an essential part of contemporary antisemitism. There is, ultimately, within the victimary framework that sees the West/White/Capitalist as intrinsically oppressive, a perfect identity between accusations of antisemitism and Islamophobia (even if people are accusing Western leftists, they are only doing so because they defend the Islamists, making even that critique indirectly Islamophobic). Keywords: anti-Semitism; Eric Gans; Islamophobia; Jewish people; narrative monotheism; origin of culture; origin of language; victimary era