Antisemitism as a Specific Phenomenon - Journal for the Study of ...

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2009] ANTISEMITIC BELIEFS: FORMATION AND TRANSMISSION 47 repeated by multiple sources. Repeated often enough, the social belief achieves sedimentation (Aho 1994). Like scientists who confirm experiments by way of reliability (repetition) and validity (variation), people determine social reality by way of multiple sources and repetition. Once acquired, even the most erroneous social beliefs enjoy an undeserved degree of protection from rejection and revision. People merely seek evidence that confirms whichever hypothesis they may be entertaining (Fine 2001). Social truth is invariably subject to distortion. Kimberlee Weaver (2006) and her colleagues at Virginia Polytechnic Institute have observed that hearing something from one source can have the same effect as hearing that thing from many different people; the brain gets tricked into thinking it has heard a piece of information from multiple, independent sources, even when it has not. Age may factor into the distortion equation as well. In another experiment, the scientist presented a flier from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to combat myths about the flu vaccine. It recited various commonly held views and labeled them either “true” or “false.” Among those identified as false were statements such as, “The side effects are worse than the flu” and “Only older people need flu vaccine.” When University of Michigan social psychologist Norbert Schwarz and his colleagues (2005) had volunteers read the CDC flier, they found that within 30 minutes, older people distorted 28% of the false statements and recalled them as true. Three days later, they recalled 40% of the myths as factual. Younger people fared better at first, but after three days made as many errors as older people did. Most troubling was that people of all ages now felt that the source of their false beliefs was the CDC. Once a social belief becomes represented (Moscovici 1987), it can become popular and widespread (Bar-Tal 2000; Sperber 1990, 1996). Social excitement appears to be the lubricant that helps spread such beliefs. Transmission Let me provide an example of how such transmission takes place. Sebastian Haffner (2000) recalled a poignant scene he witnessed while growing up in Nazi Germany. In the middle of five or six passersby, I glimpsed the poor madman who once used to wander with a switch and whistle from one streetcar to the next, giving imaginary signals for it to stop or start. Well, that stuttering half-wit was telling how “a yid woman fired with a revolver last night from the roof of that building over there—and a trooper was hit.” “A yid
48 JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF ANTISEMITISM [ VOL. 1:39 woman you say” asked an elderly gentleman, quite well dressed, quite unruffled. “Yeah, one of them yid bitches!” “And didn’t they do anything to her” “You bet they did. They arrested her, took her away.” He continued: I looked closely at the people listening. No one had the least doubt about the truth of this absurd story. . . Did they not know that the soldier fell in a real street battle in which hundreds of bullets were fired But what was the point of asking Who would have listened Isn’t it easier and quicker to believe what others tell you “A yid woman opened fire.” As Haffner observed, it is easier to believe what others tell you—but why When rumor transmission theories (Bar-Tal 2000; Buckner 1965) are integrated into antisemitism research, a new model of communication emerges (Boyd and Richerson 1985). Rumor has three key components: source, message, and audience. These elements will be elaborated upon below. To promote effective communications, the source should offer authority of some kind. Regarding antisemitic beliefs, the religious authority and the State were used to foment such beliefs, as was popular culture, which offers the authority of “common sense.” Sociologist Tamotsu Shibutani (1966) first observed that the source should act as a messenger creating the rumor and then returning it to the social group in a closed-loop fashion. The message must be simple, sufficiently provocative, and consistent with what is well known (concise and consistent). The message should be sufficiently anxiety-provoking (crazy). Finally, the audience must be receptive to the message. Audiences tending toward conspiracy thinking are more receptive due to heightened states of anxiety. The audience is ready or primed to become threatened by the message regarding “The Jews” and then blame them for their anxietyinducing ways. The Jews Are News Washington Post journalist Charles Krauthammer once quipped that “the Jews are news.” An analysis of rumor transmission may explain why that is so. In general, when a rumor is “hot,” it circulates quickly. Consequently, topics that make us anxious, envious, or threatened range from movie stars to conspiracy. Whole epidemics have been traced to UFOs, penis panics,
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JOURNAL for the STUDY of ANTISEMITI
Page 3 and 4: This first issue is dedicated to Of
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