On the Fake Courage of Pronouncing the Allowed Truths.
Mandelstam -- at the time when Stalinism was getting more and more confident -- observed that published texts should be divided into allowed and not allowed. And what interested him was obviously the stuff that was "not allowed."
That's an important criteria, which clearly has little to do with objective truth and more with power-relationships. Let’s say that during the period of tsarism -- Marxism and atheism were not allowed. Then these theories had value. But pronouncing Marxist or atheistic cliches during Stalinism was meaningless and highly irrelevant, except for those who were climbing the career ladder and felt the need to pronounce a certain number of cliches to achieve their goals.
We tend to forget the importance of context for any utterance, and think that Greta-talk, or Gaza-talk, or woke-talk, constitute the important truth that had to be articulated again and again. But is this truth allowed or forbidden?
When perestroika started, all the former Soviet part-apparatchiks and Komsomol leaders turned into anti-Stalinists and anti-communists. Were they speaking truth or participating in "allowed" power relationships? Somehow, when I began to see the smug faces of the former ministers and their children talking about Hayek, von Mises, or Milton Friedman rather than Marx, I had an instant urge to re-read Marx, brain-crunching as such reading can be.
And now look at these statistics from a recent poll:
"Among Democratic voters, Israel’s reputation is in shambles. Just 12% of them sympathize more with Israelis. 60% sympathize with the Palestinians and 29% did not offer an opinion. These statistics are staggering, but they’re not altogether surprising. Israel’s brand has shown consistent decline among Democrats over the past decade."
So my question is this: When the young Komsomol leaders, sorry Jewish activists, of the Democratic party, all of the sudden speak of their changing sympathies and changing support, do they aspire to truth or to power? Do they say what is allowed or what is not allowed?
The hysterical anti-Israel, anti-genocide crowd always pretend to be in minority. They always claim that some mysterious forces silence them and that theirs is the voice of the lonely prophet in the desert. Really? Who is in the minority here, 12% or 60%?
If someone decides to challenge and criticize the Israeli policies, that's perfectly fine. But don’t pretending that you are a marginalized minority. You belong to the majority of Democratic Party. You belong to the majority of liberal parties in the West, the parties that run the NATO countries, you belong to the majority of the world opinion, the opinion which persists in seeing evil Joos everywhere.
Airing and promoting the allowed views might be a good strategy for social climbing -- and for access to power. But I am not sure it is something that visionaries like Mandelstam would find that convincing.
