Washington Diarist: Membership

Wow. What a piece of pedantic garbage.

I really liked - and appreciated - this up until the last paragraph. " We are the sons of a people. This should not be so hard to understand." Really? I suppose there's a lot of value in a certain sort of stubborn insistence when it comes to Jewish identity, but this doesn't mean that it is easy to understand. I think that anyone well read in the history of Judaism - and LW obviously is - knows that this is an exceedingly difficult formulation with a lot of different answers.

Yet the kicker is the end, which basically just tells Sullivan and co to buzz off. Buzz off they should, but why? Is there some kind of rationale that could be offered here? One that goes beyond offense?

After the first paragraph of Wieseltier's screed, we have nonsense in the literal sense of the word. Circumcision is a lousy mark for a people, leaving as it does, half the population unmarked, and being inflicted upon, as it is, more non-Jews worldwide, than Jews. To put this another way, collect all circumcised men in list and choose a name at random, and it's more likely you'll select a Christian US citizen, than a Jewish citizen of any nation.

Nor is Weiseltier's son a Jew because he is a Jew. According to historical Jewish law, he is a Jew because his (uncircumcised) mother was Jewish.

And, like it or not, circumcision is mutilation. There is no other undiseased body part to which we sanction routine removal, or routinely visit up on the helpless who cannot choose otherwise. It is also painful and to some degree, dangerous. (The rate of botched circumcisions is not high, but it's definitely non-zero, and post-procedural infection is not unknown).

"And, like it or not, circumcision is mutilation."

I don't know what motivates sdemuth, but this is garbage. If circumcision is mutilation then all Jews including myself are mutilated. For a mutilated people we haven't done so badly. There isn't an area of human endeavor where Jews haven't excelled. This is probably what rankles people like sdemuth. Nietzsche called it ressentiment and it's alive and well in any discussion about circumcision.

Many non-Jews (and some Jews) are made uncomfortable by circumcision precisely because it marks a necessary though not sufficient distinction between Jews and non Jews.

wait, since I am circumcised, does this mean I am Jewish? ok, snark aside. I thought the posting started beautifully, and was very affected by his recounting of his knees going out, but it was precisely this powerful meditation that made the contrast with circumcision so jarring, the gem of the post was at the beginning, or perhaps two posts would have been better.
I have 3 sons, 2 born in China, and there was no way I was going to get them circumcised there, yet believe you me I wish I did, for cleanliness alone. When my son was 5 I had to take him to the Doctors because he scratched himself under the foreskin, it developed into a nasty ulcer which caused him great suffering. The foreskin was necessary when we were running naked through the jungle, but clothing protects us now.
As to circumcision as a rite of Judaism, that is not my concern because I in no way view it as mutilation, but view the benefits to outweigh the risks.

luispc
'I've trying to understand what's the difference between this argument, so bluntly made, and any other Völklisch argument.'

I am surprised you even aksed that question, Luis.

I do know that Europeans (those I met in Europe) and in their writings view cicrumcision as some barbaric act. That's their problem, not ours.

luispc
'I've trying to understand what's the difference between this argument, so bluntly made, and any other Völklisch argument.'

btw: which "volkich" argument do you have in mind?

Membership by Leon Wiesletier

I'm basically a fan of Leon Wiesletier. I trust his judgment on "affairs Judaica," literature and the arts. So what is going on with this unusual article entitled "Membership?"

I am unaware of a trend or desire on the part of the non-Jewish population to limit or advocate the abolition of the 'rite of circumcision.' Obviously, this is not a mass movement and further, the medical establishment has largely embraced the practice of circumcision!

It is possible that uncircumcised men are able to provide greater pleasure to the female of the species. At least this is the common, popular (perhaps mythical) understanding among many females.

I'm not sure Dr. Wieseltier is in a position to judge this difference, based on his own experience. I have no doubt that Jewish couples are able to enjoy the many pleasures of sex. Why does Dr. Wiesletier think he needs to "swear" to this obvious fact of life? There is no wide spread perception that Jewish men make lousy lovers. Where is this rot coming from?

Membership is hardly a problem. In my area of the United States, Brooklyn, New York, membership appears to be growing and growing. In my adult life, I am as likely to be invited to a bris as a baptism.

What do Andrew Sullivan or Christopher Hitchens know? Really now, Leon. It is a shame that the foul winds of the Potomac have disturbed your thinking and peace-of-mind. Get out of the attic and start enjoying yourself. Attend a bris.

luis, yeah, I don't get your allusion either. The maori get tattoos, now obviously my getting a tattoo doesn't make me maori, but maoris getting tattoos it can be said makes them moreso.
embracing ones own rites and traditions doesn't make anyone a supremicist, it is simply a way of being part of a larger community. As I said, my only reservation would come if it were geniune mutilation (as in female circumcision), but in no way does male circumcision arise to that.

This said, I agree with Lawrence above because I am not aware of any huge campaign to abolish circumcision, and certainly not as a religious rite, outside of the usual cranks, as such I am not quite sure why this article was written, unless this is in reaction to something personal and familial, ie. some family member deciding not to get a bris so as not to hurt their poor baby boy because of some blah blah ancient superstition, etc.
If this is the case, every family has the rebel, so what can you do?

fair enough luis, but you also got to recognize that a term like Völklish is pretty loaded. (bearing in mind there is no such word in German that I am aware), although to be perfectly honest, I don't know another word that can be used to indicate such a trait (how you define it) either.

luispc
“I'm not saying that this argument is supremacist. I'm saying that it selects a cultural characteristic of a people and determines its value since it defines "membership".

Only that. Just like that. Simply and bluntly.”

This is simply and bluntly bullshit. Every culture/religion is defined by certain characteristics. In some they are physical in others they are non-physical. Christians baptize their infants long before the age of reason. This too is a cultural characteristic or marker.

Circumcision as I said above is a necessary but not sufficient condition for being Jewish. Moreover, many people born into Jewish families have opted to become members of the Jewish people. Hence circumcision does not prevent people from choosing not to belong.

Luis like many Europeans has a strong distaste for Judaic practices and his use of the German term Volkisch shows it.

“It's like Judaism was defined by such a Völklish trait and not by something that transcends membership in itself or as a value in itself. It upsets me and I think it's quite reductionist.”

Judaism is not defined by circumcision any more than Christians are defined by the act of baptism, Portuguese or Americans by their passports.

There is more to being a member of a community than any single social act no matter how essential that act is. Such thinking is reductionistic.

luispc “Precisely because, as I made plain above and using your words, I believe that "Judaism is not defined by circumcision any more than Christians are defined by the act of baptism"!”

Well, Judaism is not defined by circumcision but it is in part what a person a member of the Jewish people. (Remember I said in part.) Moreover, you are living is some rarefied and abstract world if you think that people baptism isn’t a necessary component of being a member of most Christian communities.

This will shock you but when I was in the service one of my roommates had to undergo circumcision because his girl friend was a “Seven Day Adventist” a Protestant Christian sect that believes in circumcision as a religious duty and she wouldn’t marry him unless he underwent the operation. I remember visiting him in the hospital were he showed some spray can that he was supposed to use on his penis every time it started to get erect. We laughed about. He loved his girl friends and they did get married. Last heard they a passel of kids and seemed quite happy. Anyway, there are religious sects, small in number, of course, who also circumcise their male children.

The idea that people live in the universal is an illusion.

Still, you are right neither circumcision nor baptism in itself is sufficient to make either a Jew or a Christian. I was circumcised on the eights day by secular Jewish parents for cultural reasons and I am glad they did that.

Infants are born into specific cultural groupings and their identity is marked from the beginning by the names they are given, by the language they grow up in and a host of other social practices. There is no such thing as a universal baby.

“As for the term Völklish is the only one I know that translates such an upset!”

Try tribe, clan, ethnic group, religious community, etc.

"I don't know what motivates sdemuth, but this is garbage. If circumcision is mutilation then all Jews including myself are mutilated. For a mutilated people we haven't done so badly. There isn't an area of human endeavor where Jews haven't excelled."

Garbage in what way? At least my logic is sound. Jacksondyer's is a bit wobbly.

First, only about half of the Jews I know are circumcised. Or are women never Jews?

Of course he is right that intellectually and artistically Jews haven't done badly for themselves. I would say, in fact, that compared to any ethnic group you'd care to name, they have excelled. Not a surprise, really, given the foreskin's lack of any obvious contribution to intellectual or artistic endeavor.

But - here's his second bit of wobbly logic - that has nothing to do with whether or not circumcision is mutilation. Words have meaning, and there is nothing in any definition of mutilation that I can find that says it makes people idiots, or in any other way incompetent. Mutilation is about deliberate injury or disfigurement. For example: "Mutilation: to injure, disfigure, or make imperfect by removing or irreparably damaging parts."

No one can argue that circumcision is not an injury (if you're inclined to, talk to someone like my wife who has as part of her job in the OB department to hold newborn male children down while they are given local anesthetic and then cut), or that it does not remove irreparably a body part. Whether it disfigures or makes imperfect may be in the eye of the beholder, I guess, but I'm clearly within the spirit of the word calling it mutilation.

I am so mutilated too, by the way. That fact hasn't caused me a single moment's distress in the part of my life I can remember. Beyond the immediate pain of the events, neither have an of the other bits of my body that have been removed by accident, or by the odd wild animal over the years. Ditto my father, who is missing a substantial portion of his right hand. That doesn't we-re not mutilated - anyone looking at those injuries would likely call them mutilation. It just means we-re not fussed about it.

"Garbage in what way? At least my logic is sound."

When posters don't now what they are talking about, when facts don't add up they begin to harp upon logic.

Here is sdemuth's logic:

"No one can argue that circumcision is not an injury .... or that it does not remove irreparably a body part. Whether it disfigures or makes imperfect may be in the eye of the beholder, I guess, but I'm clearly within the spirit of the word calling it mutilation."

So now mutilation "is in the eye of the beholder."

Some see in Sandy Koufax or Mark Spitz sports winners, other see them as mutilated a couple of nebachs. So much for logic!

Here is more sophistry: "First, only about half of the Jews I know are circumcised. Or are women never Jews?"

Finally this maven adds:

"But - here's his second bit of wobbly logic - that has nothing to do with whether or not circumcision is mutilation. Words have meaning,..."

Given that this poster introduced the word mutilation, his trying to redefine it is kind of strange.

"there is nothing in any definition of mutilation that I can find that says it makes people idiots, or in any other way incompetent. Mutilation is about deliberate injury or disfigurement."

What injury or disfigurement does this poster see in circumcision? My wife doesn't see me as "disfigured" nor do I see myself as such.

I also don't see it as a "deliberate injury."

Rather, I see it as an absent sign; others (people at risk of disease) may see it as a sign of health.

But the sdemuths of this world can only see it as something negative.

No one is forcing them to circumcise their children.

"This is not my customary complaint, but I have had my fill of bracing challenges to the legitimacy of my patrimony, of false thinking masquerading as free thinking, of ignorance and contempt. Go find the holes in your own fabric."

The Washington intellectual elite is so deeply inward looking. Why concentrate on the viewpoints of Sullivan and Hitchens concerning the general practice of circumcision?

There are groups and individuals, movements and organizations that actually wish to murder, dismember and otherwise put an end to all Jews. Some of these people and entities are headquartered in Mr. Wieseltier's front-yard, Washington, D.C.

I'm currently reading Edwin Black's book, "War against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race." The author indicates that between 1904 and 1967, over 60,000 people in the US were involuntarily sterilized. This small, though influential movement did not accommodate the existence of Eastern European Jewish immigrants in America, among others.

Let's get real! After all the self-congratulations about how wonderful the achievements of the American Jewish community and individuals have been, there are and have been long standing elements in our society that wish to send the Jews back to Eastern Europe and worse. It is not about circumcision! It is "One Drop of Blood," not circumcision that made and makes the difference to these racialists.

The practice of circumcision is widespread in the United States and is, therefore, only incidental to religious identity or membership. Get over it. The medical benefits of circumcision have overwhelmed the religious meaning of the practice.

For crying out loud - the foreskin is a body part, just like an ear or finger or eyeball. The removal of an ear or finger or eyeball would be considered mutilation, so why not the foreskin? All these body parts evolved over millions of years for various reasons. They are all natural parts of the human male anatomy, and the removal of one of them is mutilation. Is that so hard to understand? Who cars what an ancient cult has to say about it?

csmiller “For crying out loud - the foreskin is a body part, just like an ear or finger or eyeball. The removal of an ear or finger or eyeball would be considered mutilation, so why not the foreskin?”

Give me a break, Miller. Do you suffer from some sort of castration anxiety?

If you want to talk about mutilation look at people sticking earrings in holed drilled in the ears, nose, tongue, navel, eyebrows and other body parts!

The foreskin is like the appendix and not like an ear, finger, or eyeball. Your analogy is ludicrous. We are not talking about removing the penis. Millions of people have been circumcised and it doesn’t seem to affect their reproductive abilities nor their physical or mental functioning.

When you can pitch as well as Sandy Koufax or swim like Mark Spitz or think like Einstein write like Philip Roth whose specialty seems to be penile activities of all kinds I don’t think that circumcision has had in the main such horrible effects on individuals.

And I agree with Lawrence Gulotta when he says that “The practice of circumcision is widespread in the United States and is, therefore, only incidental to religious identity or membership. Get over it. The medical benefits of circumcision have overwhelmed the religious meaning of the practice.”

To me though it also an identifiable marker that connects me to family members going back many, many generations (even though they were in the main anonymous as the author of “Let us Praise Famous Men” says) and it’s something I cherish.

I am a non believing Jew, an adamant atheist, and quite removed from the usual doings of my city's Jewish community. My eldest daughter is married to a non Jew, blue eyes and blonde hair to boot. They have had two sons. now 4 and 2. I made it plain, as a gemerally not in your face grandfather, that was my putting my usually unobtrusive, patriarchal foot down on one issue: my grandsons were getting circumscised, no question about it. Had my son in law, or his parents raised a fuss about it, there would have been terrible domestic strife. There were, thankfully, no objections. The intensity of my feelings surprised me. They were rooted in membership as manifested in genital demarkation, I'm sure.

p.s.

No pun on membership intended: but the pun's the point.

ppss

What did the first paragraph of the above meditation have to do with what it was essentially about?

"They were rooted in membership as manifested in genital demarkation, I'm sure."

Great phrase, Iztik.

Has anyone noticed that two opponents of circumcision mentioned by Wieseltier Andrew Sullivan and Christopher Hitchens were both British born writers who late in life became Americans?

Much of the “gentlemanly” antisemitism in Europe these days comes from the British Isles (John Le Carré is the pen name of David Cornwell, John Mortimer, and others, especially Roald Dahl who had called Jewish victims of the Holocaust “cowards.” Hitchens too has had his problems with survivors like Elie Wiesel.) Unsuspecting American readers often pass over these views without thinking, certainly without much comment.

luispc “You say that "the idea that people live in the universal is an illusion". Is it? In my case, born in Africa, grown up in Portugal, educated around Europe, non baptized, believer in the Christ (after reading Thomas Aquinas, Spinoza and Hegel) as "principle of perfection in human nature", the universal is the only place I feel confortable.”

Yes, but where is that place? In thoughts in the imagination and ultimately in books.

“Of course, I feel loyalty to my immediate neighbours and to my historical community, but I believe that loyalty as being a kind of first step within a general loyalty to humanity.”

I don’t what loyalty to “humanity means.” People help people all over the world at times, but these are specific people. In any case, the idea of humanity contradicts the principle of individuality.

“I do not understand love of country (a country that today includes people from all over the world, from India to Brazil, from Angola to Moldavia) and love of mankind as anthitetical but as co-extensive, so to speak.”

Well, look in your own heart, Luis. The other day you got angry because a British journalist derided the Portuguese contribution in Iraq. Your reaction is an example of “love of country.” Our country is protects your individuality. (Doesn’t matter whether it Europe or Portugal.) A foreign country will not recognize your individuality in the same way.

“And I don't know if attaching some symbolic exclusive requisite to community membership would have the consequence of damaging that "co-extensivity".”

Coexistence (which is not the same as “living in the universal” is also a fact and it doesn’t contradict one’s membership in community. Many determined Jews for example are heavily involved in humanitarian work outside their own community. The same is true of members of other communities and or nationalities. Hence one can be a proud Corsican and still do benevolent work in say in Gabon.

Moreover, people can and have changed membership in communities, became for example Jews, or Christians or French or Americans. This doesn’t mean that they live in the universal since in doing so they adopt the customs, language and laws of their new community.

“And what do Americans live in? Those that shape their identity after the first words of the Declaration of Independence, in which I believe you yourself (only apparently this is a pleonasm), are included? Don't they live at the most profound level in the universal?”

We live in America and the notion of equality is guaranteed under the law to all Americans and people who reside here, though this latter point is under dispute. We don’t live in the universal. As I said before the Declaration doesn’t shape our laws, the US Constitution does.

Basman: My eldest daughter is married to a non Jew, blue eyes and blonde hair to boot.

um...why the "to boot."? William Shatner is full blooded Jewish (and one of your compatriots), and is blonde hair and blue eyed. And I know your implication is that not only did she marry a non jew, but she married an Aryan, Nordic, Nazi type. Now before you get in a snit, I am just busting your chops.

jackson, Hithchens is truly a miserable turd of a man, I have seen him in interviews and he comes across as a classic misanthrope, I think he hates everyone pretty much the same.
At my University, we have a number of Brits, I simply never discuss politics here, I have long ago tired of the aggravation, not that I am saying I am accusing any of the Brits now here of anti-semitism, I just stay away from the topic.

I should add one possible exception:

Some people mostly artists, thinkers or other professional people may think they are members of their profession rather of a nationality but to my mind they err since they still practice their profession in a specific place and must conform to the “house laws” of that place, and in a specific language.

The of course there are the ideologically motivated people who dream of a world sans frontiers (communists, anarchists, Christians, Muslims, and others) and believe themselves to be subjects of the world and not of a country. These are the most deluded and dangerous of all and have cause a lot of damage over the centuries to specific peoples.

blackton “um...why the "to boot."? William Shatner is full blooded Jewish (and one of your compatriots), and is blonde hair and blue eyed. And I know your implication is that not only did she marry a non jew, but she married an Aryan, Nordic, Nazi type. Now before you get in a snit, I am just busting your chops.”

I read a srtudy once that said that about 20 to 25 percent of European Jews had blond hair, blue eyes, or a combination thereof.

“jackson, Hithchens is truly a miserable turd of a man, I have seen him in interviews and he comes across as a classic misanthrope, I think he hates everyone pretty much the same.”

I have no doubt about that, Blackton.

“At my University, we have a number of Brits, I simply never discuss politics here, I have long ago tired of the aggravation, not that I am saying I am accusing any of the Brits now here of anti-semitism, I just stay away from the topic.”

I know the type, I have met them here too.

I once had a British nurse during a short hospital stay for lower back surgery who when I asked her how being a nurse here compared to Great Britain gave a lecture about the politics of nursing. I kid you not. She said that in the US she wasn’t allowed to even give a patient an aspirin without permission, while in Britain…..

You can guess the rest. I thought to myself, ‘I hope no one allows her to give any patient even a glass of water, on her own.’

These Brits, ever since they dismantled the empire they started preaching to everyone instead. They seem to have an opinion on every topic and it’s usually wrong.

Jacksondyer: "I also don't see it as a "deliberate injury.'"

Well, you obviously understand it to be deliberate, so I can only conclude you don't consider it an injury. I can only disagree. The body of the male child circumcised clearly experiences it as an injury - multiple studies have demonstrated that circumcision both with and without anesthetic elicit the well understand physiological responses of fear, pain and injury. Mere observation of effect of the act on the child by clinical observers verify this.

So far you've given basically a single argument for why I shouldn't call circumcision mutilation: that Jewish men have excelled in all fields of human endeavor even though circumcised. This is a non-sequitor, since nothing in the meaning of the word mutilation requires disablement be the outcome. I don't disagree with you that Jews have excelled at many things - it's just irrelevant to the point I made.

"No one is forcing them to circumcise their children. "

Indeed. We didn't.

luispc “I did not get angry with that Iraq Jackson. Only said that what he said was distasteful. There is a difference between getting angry and saying that something is distasteful.”

You say potato, I say potato,…… Luis.

Distaste is often driven by anger.

“On a identity belonging ultimately to books, well... Judaism, on the one side, and Americanism on the other owe a lot, if not everything, to books...”

Yes, but they don’t eat, sleep, or live in books.

Moreover, all great artists and writers which later on have been seen as offering a universal message identified themselves with their local city or tribe. This was true of Socrates and Athens (the man would rather die than leave his city), the great Greek tragedians saw themselves as purely Greek, the prophets of Israel were local prophet, jumping ahead, Dante was a proud Florentine as was Michelangelo, in the modern period James Joyce a Dubliner through and through though he wrote his books elsewhere and so on.

Only later were the meanings of the above writers seen as transcending their local references.

As Hegel, whom you mentioned above, said: “the universal is in the particular.” You could say that the universal and particular are in a dialectical relation.

“On the Declaration of Independence, it is not to be mistaken with the Constitution, sure. But its basic and ultimate "self-evident truth" is the source of authority of your Constitution and has presided over the development of that Constitution for 200 years now...”

Luis, you should become a constitutional scholar then you would speak with authority on a complex subject.

“On only a country protecting one's phisical individuality, you're right for now. Once it was not the country but the feud or the castle... We have developed a lot since that and it was only 600-700 years ago. We are not condemned to present arrangments of protection. We can develop from here...”

Sure, and the messiah will come any day now.

I tend to agree with Levi Strauss who said that human beings have a need to divide themselves into local communities and groups and distinguish themselves from other communities.

Jd: "there are the ideologically motivated people who dream of a world sans frontiers (communists, anarchists, Christians, Muslims, and others) and believe themselves to be subjects of the world and not of a country. These are the most deluded and dangerous of all"

Luis: “Well, it began with Socrates. Without his quest for the absolute, I doubt Western civilization had existed. Indeed, without Socrates we probably wouldn't have had oppeness to the Jerusalem absolute.”

Here is a very short history of internationalism.

It began with Socrates you say, but what Socrates began ended in Hellenism which saw itself as the only legitimate culture while all others were mere barbarians. Alexander (and his descendents) was (were) driven by many passions but one of them was to spread Hellenism to the barbarians.

Rome too wanted to spread Roman civilization to the world. Then, Christianity (a Christianized Rome) continued the Roman project. In the East Islam too saw itself as the bearers of the message of internationalism. It conquered most of the world at the time and is still in competition with Christianity for “the truth.”

Later on the French revolution saw itself as carrying the ancient Roman and Greek message forward. It was a new improved Hellenism, more justness to its cause since it drew its legitimacy from the enlightenment. Napoleon, like Alexander, became the instrument of that cause.

Socialism and Marxism was a later edition of the same message. (New improved enlightenment which would liberate people’s from within)

Even National Socialism which bastardized all the above messages was transcended nationalism: the race not the State was their area of play. Their movement was transnational.

Capitalism too is an international ideology.

As you can see, in the modern world there is enormous pressure to make us thing that nationalism is an evil and that internationalism is the cure. (This is especially true of the mumbling, chattering intellectual classes in Europe).

I think the opposite is the case.

sdemuth “The body of the male child circumcised clearly experiences it as an injury - multiple studies have demonstrated that circumcision both with and without anesthetic elicit the well understand physiological responses of fear, pain and injury. Mere observation of effect of the act on the child by clinical observers verify this.”

This is bullshit. I didn’t experience it as an “injury” and it doesn’t seem to have injured Blackton and other many people who have been circumcised.

I don’t know who your researchers were but I doubt they were impartial investigators. How were Sandy Koufax, Mark Spitz, Einstein, Brandeis, and others injured by having been circumcised?

You are not making sense.

"So far you've given basically a single argument for why I shouldn't call circumcision mutilation: that Jewish men have excelled in all fields of human endeavor even though circumcised.”

You are wrong, sdemuth. I brought up that fact merely to counter your unproved and biased argument that circumcision is mutilation. It isn’t and you haven’t shown it is.

Anyway, it’s up to you to prove conclusively how people who excel in different areas of human endeavors can be said to have been mutilated by circumcision. You cited “studies” but gave no details.

“This is a non-sequitor, since nothing in the meaning of the word mutilation requires disablement be the outcome.”

This more bullshit, give a definition of human mutilation which doesn’t include a disability of some kind?

“I don't disagree with you that Jews have excelled at many things - it's just irrelevant to the point I made."

It’s relevant to the point about whether circumcision disables people or not. It does not.

Luispc “On my "distaste" about that British journalist, it had to do with the fact of his remark on the Portuguese having a racist conotation which could not be missed.”

Oh, come on Luis. There was nothing racist about the article. Your self justifications here have been inconsistent and hard to take seriously. (First you said you weren’t angry only indignant, now you claim the article was racist. Does this mean that you were indeed angry at the article? People you usually react with more than indignation when they believe that they are being attacked by a racist.)

“- On the Declaration of Independence, I'm sure American political culture was shaped within the values of the Declaration of Independence, in particular, within its first value (men as "created equal"). And I'm sure that without that political culture, American constitutionalism as realized over 200 years (Reconstruction and Civil Rights Movement included) had not been a historical possibility. Well, I'm not going to refer to "constitutional scholars". But perhaps a reading of Tocqueville's Democracy in America, of Hannah Arendt's On Revolution or, more recently, of Hugh Heclo's Christianity and American Democracy could help.”

Sorry, but you would have a hard time proving that the Declaration was more important to the subsequent political developments in American society than say the first ten amendments to the Constitution, specifically the right to freedom of speech, of religion, of assembly, and specifically to carrying arms. You live too much in a few books of your choosing. You need to get out more and talk to Americans.

In any case, the value of “all men are created equal has been questioned” since it originally denoted only males, and only white males, and only white property owners, etc.

The changed interpretations were made possible by the Constitution.

“- On Hegel, he precisely said that the universal was actualized in the particular in the figure of Jesus Christ (that's his argument on the divinity of Jesus or on Jesus as the Christ). And, for Hegel, the absolute meant precisely the overcoming of the dialectic, the actualization of the universal in the particular in a political community. Could one think about America? “

Well, this is another one of your interpretations. The Hegelian meaning is open to other interpretations.

“- On Socrates, well I only referred to him as putting the question of the absolute and inherently of the authentic being of man. I did not say that you should rely on his answers (or on the answers Plato has puten in his mouth). The West as looked to Athens for questions. Not for answers. In what concerns answers, the West has relied on Jerusalem... Fortunately for us all, probably, taking into account the way those answers were philosophically understood in the line that departs from Thomas Aquinas, passes by Spinoza and Locke, and that culminates in the American foundation and in American constitutionalism...”

Again, a highly personal interpretation which sees continuity of meanings which are not necessarily there!

“You have not demonstrated that to cut someone's penis as a mere signal of "membership" (a value in itself and of itself) is not an absurd folkcloric argument (if you don't want to say Völklish).”

It’s not absurd because it’s meaningful. That you see it as absurd doesn’t make it so, Luis.

What I find absurd is the energy some people place on attacking circumcision when no one is forcing them to do undergo that practice.

There is a horror of circumcision among often right wingers which is itself a superstition:

Here we have an ultra Right wing Austrian member of parliament holding forth against it:

Here is the story:

“I received today a letter from H.C. Strache, leader of the extreme right wing Austrian Freedom party. He is complaining about lacking security in Vienna and he hopes, that he will be the next mayor of Vienna and will oust Michael Häupl, the socialist mayor of Vienna. He also argues that the immigration to Vienna has risen to an unacceptable level. Oh, and he promised to fight Islamism as well.

So I have been looking to see what the Freedom party MPs have been up to in Parliament.

Mostly, they ask questions.

On November 23 some Freedomite MPs asked the Minister of Health for data relating to the circumcision of boys under the age of 15. They want to know, specifically, how many boys are circumcised for medical reasons and how many for “traditional ritual reasons”.

All in all they have asked 324 questions – when printed, the list of questions runs to 29 pages.

Those MPs know of course that in Austria there are no statistics on this sort of thing and an answer to their questions would cost millions of Euro to obtain. So why do they ask?

Jews and Muslims circumcise their boys. The obvious reason that they’re asking has nothing to do with fighting Islamism and everything to do with inciting people against Jews and Muslims.

Life is tough in Austria. We have students striking against the bad conditions at Austrian universities. We have rising unemployment and a whole series of other problems.

But the Freedomite MPs would much rather count foreskins.”

http://engageonline.wordpress.com/2009/11/27/uncut-racism-in-the-austria...

If you want racism, here it is, Luis. Do you think H.C. Strache also lives in the universal?

Anti-circumcisers as a movement (private people have a right to circumcise or not to circumcise) has usually been antisemitic.

“As far as I'm concerned, even if we have not completely overcame the dialectic between the universal and the particular (and thus even if we are not yet at Hegel's absolute spirit stage), I'm sure we could consider ourselves as having passed that folkloric stage...”

Have we? (Who is the we) Tell that to H.C. Strache and his ilk.

Also ask yourself if being anti-circumcision is a sign of having passed the “folkloric” or tribal stage. I don’t see shedding membership in the particular or the local as a sign of progress. Historically it’s led to a lot of bloodshed.

Hegel usually speaks of concepts like the universal and the particular in more than one place. I found this reference on line which I am posting here. (I don’t have the payience to type a long passage.)

From Hegel’s Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences

“Nature shows us a countless number of individual forms and phenomena. Into this variety we feel a need of introducing unity: we compare, consequently, and try to find the universal of each single case. Individuals are born and perish: the species abides and recurs in them all: and its existence is only visible to reflection. Under the same head fall such laws as those regulating the motion of the heavenly bodies. To-day we see the stars here, and tomorrow there; and our mind finds something incongruous in this chaos — something in which it can put no faith, because it believes in order and in a simple, constant, and universal law. Inspired by this belief, the mind has directed its reflection towards the phenomena, and learnt their laws. In other words, it has established the movement of the heavenly bodies to be in accordance with a universal law from which every change of position may be known and predicted. The case is the same with the influences which make themselves felt in the infinite complexity of human conduct. There, too, man has the belief in the sway of a general principle. From all these examples it may be gathered how reflection is always seeking for something fixed and permanent, definite in itself and governing the particulars. This universal which cannot be apprehended by the senses counts as the true and essential…”

“In thus characterising the universal, we become aware of its antithesis to something else. This something else is the merely immediate, outward and individual, as opposed to the mediate, inward, and universal. The universal does not exist externally to the outward eye as a universal. The kind as kind cannot be perceived: the laws of the celestial motions are not written on the sky. The universal is neither seen nor heard, its existence is only for the mind.”

luispc
"Well, Tocqueville's Democracy in America is a "book of my own choosing"...
On Americans, perhaps they are not the best self-interpreters of themselves. It's not rare that the best interpretations are made by foreigners."

This is a self serving comment and it has neither merit nor veracity. It merely gives you an excuse to hold forth on issues with which you are only tangentially familiar.

As to your other comments, well I emphatically disagree beginning with your contention that Acquinas thought of Jesus as "a perfect man" (to him he was "god" and not merely a "perfect man") and ending with your reading of Hegel.

Hegel's notion of a spirit that transcends the dialectic is idealistic and not to be taken seriously.

Finally, your distaste for circumcision is aesthetically based and is very common in Europe no matter the rarified language you use to justify it.

luispc
"like Akhil Reed Amar's, do not even understand it as originally commited with individual rights, but with rights of the states..."

Most constitutional scholars do not agree with this interpretation.

btw: laws pertaining to freedom of speech or of assembly could hardly have been intended to apply to States.

The dislike of circumcision in Europe is the Volkisch point ot view. As H.C. Strache, leader of the extreme right wing Austrian Freedom party shows.

luispc
"Well Jackson, it seems I am only "tagentially" aware of many things. On Aquinas I would sugest the reading of his "Treatise of the Incarnated Verb" which uses the expression "principle of perfection in human nature" right after criticizing those readings that denied a "human will" in Christ, seeing only a "divine will" there (Question 1, Article 6)."

Do you really believe that Aquinas denied the divinity of Jesus? You can'it it both ways either you view Jesus as fully human and not divine or you view him as a god. If the latter he can't be "a perfect man."

As for the bill of rights, it makes no sense to say that laws pertaining to freedom of speech or assembly were meant to apply to States and not to citizens of the US. And if Amar said than he is wrong.

But again these people are not the issue, it's your understanding of them that is the issue.

luispc
"As I said, I never thought seriously about circumcision. But mere "membership" surely will not convince me... "

Who cares, if it convinces you or not. No one is asking you to circumcise anyone. This isn't about you, Luis.

"It's strange if it doesn't convince that Austrian right-winger, since he would detect some familiarity in argument..."

Really, apperently you and that right winger have a lot in common.

"It's strange if it doesn't convince that Austrian right-winger, since he would detect some familiarity in argument..."

Really, apperently you and that right winger have a lot in common, when it comes to circumcision that is.

jacksondyer: The other day, my wife helped deliver a baby whose arm was broken by the physical stress of delivery. The infant was unable to move the arm at all. A doctor of course set the fracture, and it will heal very quickly. Barring an unforseen circumstance there will be no lasting disability.

The infant, when grown, will not recall being injured at birth, but I guarantee you, no one in the delivery room - parent, nurse, or midwife, would disagree that the child was injured.

Yet, you think it dispositive that you don't recall being injured at 8 days of age? I doubt you recall anything else about that day either. By this standard, one could lop the small toes off every newborn, without anesthetic, and it wouldn't be an injury. They wouldn't remember it, and it would in no way limit their future prospects in any field of endeavor I can imagine. By your logic, no injury, and no mutilation.

Your indignation at my use of the word mutilation, I understand. Your willingness to defy the meaning of the word injury pretty much demonstrates that indignation is the only argument you've got here.

References that infants experience an injury at circumcision go back 30 years. Here's one of the first: http://pdfs.journals.lww.com/greenjournal/1976/08000/Adrenal_Cortical_Response_to_Circumcision_in_the.20.pdf?token=method|ExpireAbsolute;source|Journals;ttl|1259537077749;payload|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;hash|njzHnL3WCxMmuYymIlZADg==

Here's another: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TBX-484NB8K-4...

Both are typically dry scientific works, but use an accepted method to measure pain and fear response in non-communicative subjects - the release of significant cortisol into the bloodstream during and after the procedure.

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned that not only do Jews circumcise for religious reasons but Muslims do as well. And for many years almost all American parents had their male children circumcised for health reasons. There has been very little adverse consequence if done at a reputable hospital.

sdemuth I hav en ideas what you are talking about.

Your articles refer to abstracts of reports written in the 1970's and early 1980's. Isn't there any more recent research than that/

Moreover, do you really think a study of circumcision will find that cicumcised scientists, athletes, army officers, business executives have been adversely affected by their loss of foreskin?

If you have a horror of the practice, based on personal or aesthetic grounds say so. Why the need to medically prove your case?

What next, will you be arguing that people who get "nose jobs" or have the shape of their eyes changed also suffer from some adverse affect?

Do you think that uncircumcised people are smarter, more moral, more honest, saner, better companions than uncircumcised ones? Is that your point?

luispc
"Aquinas did not deny the divinity of Jesus. He stated that his divinity was not incompatible with his humanity: that the second person of the trinity was both God and man, not being exclusively God!"

This is double talk.

A divine entity cannot be a "perfect human being," just as a human being cannot be a "perfect animal."

"On freedom of speech, it did not limit originally the Federation (but only the states) and it is very doubtful that originally it was freedom of any speech by any person. Many say that it was consecrated to protect the freedom of the participants in the political process."

I have no idea what you are saying here.

And who are "the many who say?" And why is political speech not "freedom of any speech by any person?"

Please Luis, you are playing with words.

I had enough of this nonsense.

Typical response by an obsessed idealist polemicist, first he offers a nonsensical proposition and then beings to cite his chosen books to justify his contradictory statement.

Wow -- 62 comments on the subject of circumcision but not a single one from clumsymohel?

So, jacksondyer - I oppose circumcision and therefore I'm an antisemite? Fuck you, you intellectually lazy hack. It's impossible for one to oppose mutilating infant boys without being a Jew hater? Great logic. Moreover, you cite the alleged medical benefits as it NOT being circumcised is somehow detrimental to male life. Funny - we evolved just fine without such medical intervention. Religious hokum aside, males do just fine with their manhood intact.

Illiterate csmiller is foaming at the mouth, again:

“So, jacksondyer - I oppose circumcision and therefore I'm an antisemite? Fuck you, you intellectually lazy hack.”

Well, well, the guilty ridden imp with a castration complex as big as his mouth shows that he is also illiterate.

I didn’t call you an antisemite, though your latest outburst surely shows exactly what you are: a foul mouthed bigot.

“It's impossible for one to oppose mutilating infant boys without being a Jew hater? “Great logic.”

Circumcision isn’t mutilation and no one has shown that it is. Fear of circumcision as in your case can be shown to be a mutilation of the mind. This is the "great logic" of your post.

“Moreover, you cite the alleged medical benefits as it NOT being circumcised is somehow detrimental to male life.”

I never said any such thing and the fact that you confuse me with other posters shows how to a paranoiac like you all who do not oppose circumcision are the same. I didn’t use the fact that there are some health benefits to being circumcised as a reason for my support of circumcision.

But this is a fact lost on an asshole like you.

“Funny - we evolved just fine without such medical intervention. Religious hokum aside, males do just fine with their manhood intact.”

Tell that to people suffering diseases like AIDS (or more common certain penile infections) that might have been helped by having been circumcised. (Though, again, this is not the reason I support circumcision. It is, though, one important reason I wouldn’t be against it even if I weren’t a Jew.)

In any case, people who have been circumcised; “do just fine,” also.

Male circumcision is choice that should be left up to the individual.

jacksondyer wrote:

Has anyone noticed that two opponents of circumcision mentioned by Wieseltier Andrew Sullivan and Christopher Hitchens were both British born writers who late in life became Americans?

Much of the “gentlemanly” antisemitism in Europe these days comes from the British Isles (John Le Carré is the pen name of David Cornwell, John Mortimer, and others, especially Roald Dahl who had called Jewish victims of the Holocaust “cowards.” Hitchens too has had his problems with survivors like Elie Wiesel.) Unsuspecting American readers often pass over these views without thinking, certainly without much comment."

And then ...

"Well, well, the guilty ridden imp with a castration complex as big as his mouth shows that he is also illiterate.

I didn’t call you an antisemite, though your latest outburst surely shows exactly what you are: a foul mouthed bigot. "

After impliedly (and lazily) lumping Americans (like me) who oppose circumcision with those "gentlemanly" antisemites whose claims go unchallenged by those same Americans, you say no - you (incredibly) didn't imply I'm an antisemite. Then you call me a bigot. Which is it? Am I an antisemite or not? Can't quite figure it out since you seem to want it both ways; you can imply it and claim you didn't say it, but then you say it but provide no basis for my bigotry. And there's the castration thing again. Is this supposed to get my machismo-addled blood boiling? What does chopping off a piece of an infant boy's sexual organ (and robbing him of a lifetime of maximum sexual fulfillment) have to do with castration? Not quite sure what you're getting at other than calling me out as some sort of eunuch, or someone who fears becoming one.

"Circumcision isn’t mutilation and no one has shown that it is. Fear of circumcision as in your case can be shown to be a mutilation of the mind. This is the "great logic" of your post."

The intentional destruction of a body part isn't mutilation? And you're calling me illiterate while not knowing the definition of mutilation? And I'm not sure how objection to circumcision is being fearful of it. I'm circumcised. I was too young to fear it as an infant and certainly don't fear it now. I just think it's pointless destruction of a boy's anatomy and, therefore, is wrong. The removal of the foreskin is known to abridge male penile sensitivity - why on earth would anyone knowingly do that? If it's for medical reasons, how about just teaching basic hygiene?

And as for you not citing medical rationale for circumcision:

"I never said any such thing and the fact that you confuse me with other posters shows how to a paranoiac like you all who do not oppose circumcision are the same. I didn’t use the fact that there are some health benefits to being circumcised as a reason for my support of circumcision."

Oh, no? What about this?

"And I agree with Lawrence Gulotta when he says that “The practice of circumcision is widespread in the United States and is, therefore, only incidental to religious identity or membership. Get over it. The medical benefits of circumcision have overwhelmed the religious meaning of the practice.”"

As for leaving well enough alone (anatomically speaking):

"Tell that to people suffering diseases like AIDS (or more common certain penile infections) that might have been helped by having been circumcised. (Though, again, this is not the reason I support circumcision. It is, though, one important reason I wouldn’t be against it even if I weren’t a Jew.)"

The vast majority of human males are not circumcised, and the last time I checked, AIDS or other penile problems are not demonstrably higher among the uncircumcised. "Might have been helped" isn't a high enough standard to intentionally inflict unnecessary pain on an infant boy.

And then this whopper:

"Male circumcision is choice that should be left up to the individual. "

Oh, really? How would that work? How does a newborn boy object to his penis being disfigured? Yes, there are millions of men who choose to be circumcised later in life for a variety of reasons, but the vast majority of men don't consciously make that choice.

I try to avoid ad hominem attacks on comment boards like this, but in this case I could not, having been accused of hating Jews because I oppose circumcision. jacksondyer - don't insult me and then claim not to have insulted me. You're no good at doubletalk. Stop it.