They think ethnic cleansing = genocide = ex-post-facto realization that the bad guys just killed a bunch of people oh my goodness this is so sad it’s just so unfortunate we didn’t know and didn’t do anything alas we must move on
Well ok in this case perhaps not. There is another possibility, the
Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. 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 anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. 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.
They think ethnic cleansing = genocide = ex-post-facto realization that the bad guys just killed a bunch of people oh my goodness this is so sad it’s just so unfortunate we didn’t know and didn’t do anything alas we must move on
Well ok in this case perhaps not. There is another possibility, the
Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. 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 anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. 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.