By John Dunkelgrün
In 1995, Richard Brodie published an interesting book, Virus of the Mind. In it, he argues that thoughts, going from person to person, can spread like a virus and cause pandemics. These thoughts are made up of individual snippets of thought called memes. These memes can be true or not true. Once the virus spreads widely enough, the truth no longer matters to the ‘infected’. These mind viruses can be harmless, beneficial or detrimental, even life-threatening. The common thread of the dangerous ones is that the underlying ‘truthfulness’ cannot be proven or the lack of it denied.
Examples of harmless pandemics of the mind are fashions and the popularity of a particular song or activity (the hula hoop comes to mind). A beneficial pandemic would be the concern for our planet; a slightly detrimental one was the meme during WW1 that Russia had sent shiploads of soldiers to relieve the British on the battlefields of France. (“My uncle saw them with his own eyes; they still had the snow of the steppes on their boots”).
Detrimental ones were the memes in the 14th century that Jews had poisoned wells to cause the plague. This virus was so truth-resistant that even the denial from the pope didn’t stem the murders of whole Jewish communities.
The worst mental pandemic, of course, consisted of the Nazi memes of the Herrenvolk and the dangers of ‘lesser peoples’ like Jews, Roma, Sinti, and Slavs. You could argue that belief in the lies of Trump is a mental epidemic. The ‘Leave-movement’ for Brexit was another one.
Remember, the key ingredient of all dangerous pandemics of the mind is the absence of truth and the denial of proven untruth. As such the current worldwide accusations of Israel, Zionists, and Jews in general clearly fall within the group of dangerous, even life-threatening pandemics.
There are violent and quasi-peaceful demonstrations all over the world attacking Israel for its way of fighting Hamas. They ignore the atrocities of October 7th and often even consider them reasonable in the fight for freedom. They ignore or deny that Gaza has been free since 2005. It was closed off by Israel and Egypt after Hamas took over, vowed to destroy Israel, and started attacking it.
‘Palestine shall be free!’ Free for what? Free to enjoy the tyrannical rule of Hamas, free to be killed if you are LBGTQ+, or if you demand schools and factories instead of tunnels?
In the memes of this pandemic Israel is always on the wrong side. Following its widespread condemnation of an explosion outside a hospital the media worldwide immediately loudly blamed Israel. Still, they published no apology nor placed the blame on Hamas, after it turned out to be a failed Hamas rocket. When Israel liberated four hostages, the media and the UN immediately accepted Hamas’ casualty figures and called the action disproportionate.
Universities are under pressure to cut ties with Israeli counterparts because of their involvement with ‘possible’ war crimes or genocide. No matter that these universities are among the loudest critics of the Israeli government or that their ties with the acknowledged terrorist organization Hamas are maintained.
Jews who identify as Jews, especially students and University staff, are under moral pressure everywhere and frequently under actual physical danger.
Accusations coming out of false memes can lead to pandemics of thought like Kristallnacht of McCarty’s witchhunt of the 1950’s. So far, this current pandemic has caused damage, psychological damage, and physical danger to Jewish students and staff all over the world. It makes teachers afraid of their careers. It has seriously damaged the reputation of major universities. Just last weekend, a 12-year old French Jewish girl was gang raped by boys cursing her for being Jewish. Luckily so far no one has been killed.
This antisemitic pandemic spread so fast because of the internet. It shows the danger of not countering lies quickly and convincingly. That the media and the UN, which have a long history of anti-Israel bias, were all too eager to accept the Hamas casualty figures and point the finger of blame exclusively at Israel, helped stoke the fire.
The Jews, once again, are the canaries in the coal mine. If we don’t confront the lies of dishonest politicians and populist rabble-rousers, we shall see a spate of mind-viral epidemics and pandemics soon.
Think immigrants, anti-abortionists, anti-LBGTQ movements, environment fanatics.
Let us not sleep-walk into a dystopian world that makes 1984 look like paradise.
