I’ve been thinking about the Bret Stephens column for a few days and here’s the reason it bothers me most. In my experience, being part of a community targeted by bigots of any kind usually leads to two kinds of views on the world:
One in which you want to banish all kinds of bigotry in the world, even the kind that doesn’t affect your community directly; or one in which you want to use the rhetoric and methodology of the bigots to show that actually you not them are at the top of the hierarchy.
Having seen grown up with people like my parents, who experienced more hardship and anti-Semitism than Bret Stephens could ever dream of, I know the power of chosing the first path.
People who choose the second are small of heart and narrow of mind; they are the people on whom the lessons of history are wasted. /end
