The Great Disinhibiting

And, you guessed it, antisemitism

Apologies for some of the language below

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The comedian Louis CK has a hilarious bit about road rage, in which he jokes:

When I’m in my car I have a different set of values. I am the worst person I can be when I’m behind the wheel.

When you’re driving, that’s when you need to be the most compassionate and responsible of any other time in your life because you are fucking driving a weapon, amongst weapons! And yet, it’s the worst people get.

I am the worst. One time I was driving, and there was a guy ahead of me, and he sort of drifted into my lane for a second, and this came out of my mouth: “Worthless piece of shit.” What an indictment! What kind of a way is that to feel about another human being? “Worthless piece of shit.” That’s somebody’s son!

And things I’ve said to other people. I was once driving, some guy in a pick up truck did, I don’t remember even, and I yelled out my window, “Fuck you!”

Where outside of a car is that even merely OK?

If you were in an elevator, and you were right next to a person’s body, and he leaned into you a bit, would you ever turn, right to their face, and go, “Hey, fuck you! Worthless piece of shit.” No. Literally zero people would ever do that. But put a couple pieces of glass and some road between you, there’s nothing you would not say to them.

“I hope you die!” I said that to a person! “I hope you die!” Why? Because he made me go like this (gestures swerving the car) for a half a second of my life. “You tested my reflexes and it worked out fine! So now I hope your kids grow up motherless!”

Now that’s observational comedy.

I think about this bit so much these days. It is actually so analogous to when many people talk about Israel and Jews. When they do, they have a different set of values. They are their worst selves. I’ll never understand it, and how deep the rot is when it comes to antisemitism.

Declining inhibitions

in·hi·bi·tion

/ˌinəˈbiSH(ə)n,ˌin(h)iˈbiSH(ə)n/

noun, a feeling that makes one self-conscious and unable to act in a relaxed and natural way.

Example: "The children, at first shy, soon lost their inhibitions.”

See also:

Disinhibition, also referred to as behavioral disinhibition, is medically recognized as an orientation towards immediate gratification, leading to impulsive behaviour driven by current thoughts, feelings, and external stimuli, without regard for past learning or consideration for future consequences (according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders).

Since about 2015, I’ve been referring to the period we are now in as The Great Disinhibiting (trademark pending). This disinhibiting, when people are decreasingly self-conscious, and willing to say the quiet part out loud, is something I started to think about during the first Trump campaign. “I love him because he speaks his mind,” is something that Trump supporters used to (and still) say. I am not weighing in on politics, but whatever you think about Trump, you’ll agree that he is disinhibition personified.

I don’t think it was Trump that caused The Great Disinhibiting (I’ll use TGD for short, trademark pending), but rather that he was the most public face of it, a symptom of something a long time coming.

The evolution

The evolution of TGD began online. At some time in the not-too-distant-past, there were things that you could simply not say to another person’s face. Imagine that.

Then the internet was invented. What was designed to be an unprecedented delivery system for the accumulation of human knowledge, also enabled people to become their worst selves. Thanks to the internet, you could now say exactly what you felt to another human being, hiding behind your computer screen, using an avatar and alias. Anonymous, you could be as mean, racist, or antisemitic as you wanted from the comfort of your own home, knowing that no one was going to out or cancel you for your drivel on an online comments section. Hate that article about that new TV show on TLC? Well, the comments section is open for your misogyny, racism, and yes, your musings about those darn Rothschilds and their Jew money.

This anonymous disinhibiting lasted for some time, until, let’s say, Facebook and then Twitter came around. Then, everyone got an account tied to their name, identity, and picture. As Facebook began to allow people to comment on photos, and then developed a “Wall” section for comments, people became slightly more brash, and a little bit more bold about what they were willing to write online, using their real identities. Then Twitter allowed you to post news and random musings for everyone to see, and anyone could in turn comments on those thoughts.

That, I would argue is when the nonymous (what’s the opposite of anonymous?) disinhibiting blew up.

As an example

People began posting their thoughts and opinions online. Blogging took time, but writing a 140 character Tweet took a few seconds, and little thought. Throwing something out there into the internet/Twitterverse could still feel, to some, anonymous in that you weren’t saying something to someone’s face. You were saying it to the internet, or to another avatar, or to someone’s profile picture, knowing that you would never actually meet them, or knowing that you could always block them if they responded.

But something more has happened in the years since Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and other online platforms continued to allow us to post comments online. The internet became real life. Comments people made online, things that they themselves could never before have imagined thinking let alone uttering, were now being spoken with their lips, and not just their fingers. It became increasingly clear that the things that people always thought (cue "Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist” from Avenue Q) were now things that they were willing to say. And not just among safe friends and family members, and not just in hushed tones around dinner tables. They were saying these things publicly, and loudly. Online bullying became real bullying, and people were increasingly fine saying shocking things to each other’s faces.

The last piece of TGD puzzle was, I would submit, the COVID-19 pandemic. Everyone suddenly got frustrated, and then angry. Everyone wanted to fight. No one wanted to give the benefit of the doubt, and the polarity of the international political zeitgeist, the need for everything to be black and white, with no patience or tolerance for anything in between, made TGD what it is now.

And guess what we learned when angry people started to speak their minds?

That people just don’t like those pesky Jews or their meddlesome little country.

Antisemitism

You’d have to be pretty ignorant to think that antisemitism just disappeared after the Holocaust, or when people stopped saying what they thought about the Jews out loud. Antisemitism is the world’s oldest conspiracy theory, and it exists today as it did more than 2,000 years ago: in the hearts and minds of many. Antisemitism today makes little sense, but then again, it never did.

And today we have Israelophobia, or Anti-Zionism, which is the modern iteration of antisemitism. Over the last 76 years, many have sought to hide their antisemitism behind language about Israel, or the Jewish State. Yes, it always bears noting that it is not antisemitic to criticize Israel’s policies just like every country, but that’s not what I’m talking about. It is the people saying that Israel has no right to exist in safe and secure borders, or those who delegitimize Israel, or who hold it to double-standards. Who criticize only Israel. These are the antisemites hiding their views in plain sight.

Yes, her.

And in the midst of all this hate, it has always been fascinating to me who the people are spouting these anti-Israel views. The anti-Israel activists on the streets, and on campus, or in government, who are White, Canadian, who have no skin in the game, no other interest in alleged human rights abuses or international humanitarian law, who are willing to burn it all down and risk their careers and reputations for the sake of being anti-Israel (read: antisemitic).

There are the students on campus who are today throwing away job opportunities and future prospects while they vandalize school property, all to make an ignorant statement about a conflict taking place somewhere overseas, the location of which they couldn’t possibly point to on a map. There are countless examples of those after 10/7 who posted pictures online sympathizing with Hamas, which led to their being fired from their jobs, or losing internships, all for the sake of sharing their disinhibited antisemitism.

And today, we have Fred Hahn. This “disgusting human being” (h/t Doug Ford), is the national vice president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), and has never been shy about voicing his opinions about the Jews, masked unconvincingly behind anti-Zionist vitriol. And Hahn just couldn’t help himself earlier this month, when he posted a video on Facebook of a Jewish athlete with a Star of David tattoo, leaping off a diving board at the Paris Olympics, turning into a bomb that explodes.

He also couldn’t help himself when he made a statement celebrating Palestinian resistance on **checks notes** October 8, 2023, one day after Palestinian civilians rampaged through Southern Israel raping, burning, and murdering over 1,000 civilians.

On August 20, 2024, when confronted by Ontario’s Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training, and Skills Development David Piccini for being antisemitic (10 points to MPP Piccini!), Hahn simply retorted that he had recently been re-elected to represent 290,000 workers, and was defiant in all his antisemitic glory. He didn’t hate Jews, just Israel.

Well on August 21, CUPE national president Mark Hancock decided that the union had “lost confidence” in Hahn, and is finally demanding his resignation. This resignation cannot come soon enough, and will indeed be celebrated by the many thousands of Jewish and pro-Israel CUPE members who have the poor fortune to be represented by Hahn. They deserve better.

In May 2024, labour and employment lawyer Kathryn Marshall also commenced a lawsuit - pro bono - at the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal against Hahn and CUPE. At the time, they were seeking to hold CUPE to account for their support of Hamas. Now, they are also seeking disclosure from CUPE as to how member dues are spent in support of, among other things, anti-Israel activism. Shockingly (though also not shockingly), CUPE is refusing to account to their members as to where their hard earned money is actually going. Good luck, counsel.

One can only hope that Hahn resigns by the time this post is published, so that he can pursue further opportunities blaming the Jews for his downfall. All because he couldn’t stop himself from talking about the Jews in his role as a Canadian union leader.

TGD and the future

Sadly, we have seen that when it comes to Israel and Jews, many people are their worst selves. They have a different set of values and a unique way of rationalizing their actions. Their justification is somehow that the Jews deserve it, or that because of antisemitism’s longevity, there must be something to it. The Jews are too successful, too sneaky, too supportive of each other, or just too much.

This is just as hard to type as it is to wrap one’s head around, but the writing is on the wall.

Literally. Photo from Windsor, Ontario.

What is also true however is that with The Great Disinhibiting, there are some people who are genuinely shocked when they hear certain things said out loud. There are non-Jews who are stunned to hear the vitriol coming from their neighbours’ mouths or newsfeeds, who are themselves willing to speak out, for good, to support our community. These allies say the things we need to hear, and help strengthen our resolve.

Victoria Mancinelli is one such ally. On October 8, just hours after CUPE Local 3906 tweeted, “Palestine is rising, long live the resistance,” Mancinelli, a senior executive at the Labourers’ International Union of North America (LiUNA), responded: ”Any form of praise or celebration when women, children and families are being killed by terrorists is unfathomable.”

Mancinelli has always stood by our community as an ardent supporter, and her boldness has pushed her to encourage other non-Jews to speak out too, writing that, “It is up to all Canadians to stand against the hate directed towards Jews. Your silence is powerful, but your words are stronger than you could ever imagine.”

So, let’s be louder as a community, to strategically counter TGD that is only growing bolder. We must have no shame in countering hate when we see it. We must empower our allies and count our friends. Only then, can we defeat our enemies.