What is antisemitism?

All members of the Jewish people believe, that there ought to be a Jewish people. Antisemitism, at its core, is the rejection of this proposition.

Members of the Jewish people share other beliefs and attitudes, which derive from their core preference for the existence of the Jewish people. We can label these structural beliefs and attitudes as ‘semitism’. Similarly, broader antisemitism is often derived from, or logically related to, the core rejection of the existence preference. Semitism and antisemitism are structurally mirrored.

Just as the Jewish people engenders mirrored semitism and anti-semitism, so every ethnic group engenders its own equivalent mirrored pair of beliefs and attitudes. For every people X, there is an X-ism, and an anti-X-ism. Certainly when the ethnic group is a nation, the anti-X-ism is a form of racism.

So for instance, there is a Hungarianism associated with the Hungarian nation, structurally  mirrored by anti-Hungarianism. And just as with antisemitism, this anti-Hungarianism (anti-Magyarism) is racist. See the Wikipedia category Anti-national Sentiment for more examples. There is no corresponding list for pro-national sentiment, which is often simply reduced to ‘patriotism’.

In all these cases, the existence preference for the people or nation X, is the core proposition of X-ism. Other propositions of X-ism are derived from this preference, or logically follow from it. As it develops, anti-X-ism rejects, in turn, the derived propositions.

Among the main derived elements are the claim to intrinsic value, and the moral judgement that the specific nation or people is good.

It is a reasonable assumption that all members of the Jewish people believe, that the Jewish people has intrinsic value. It is antisemitic to reject this belief. Similarly, all members of the Hungarian people believe, that the Hungarian people has intrinsic value. It is anti-Hungarian to reject this belief.

It is also a reasonable assumption, that many members of the Jewish people believe that the Jewish people is good in itself. Some may believe that a moral judgement on a people is meaningless. It is however certain, that all members of the Jewish people will reject a negative moral judgement on the Jewish people –  any claim that it is morally wrong in any sense. Similarly, members of any other people or nation, will oppose any negative moral judgment on that people or nation. In practice, this results in the sacralisation of the nations and peoples – it is considered taboo to judge them, or to criticise them, or both.

So over time, each nation and people will generate a list of propositions, which are derived from, or reinforce, the original proposition that the nation or people should exist. See the table of semitic and antisemitic positions for more detail. Perhaps these propositions are not always in neat chronological order, but they are logically related to each other. It is legitimate to consider their validity.