THE TROUBLE WITH GREGG

by Virginia Postrel  •  Oct 17, 2003 at 10:10 pm

http://www.dynamist.com/551/the-trouble-with-gregg

In response to my post about Gregg Easterbrook, Skip Oliva writes:

A lot of commenters (at least the ones I've been reading) have missed the forest for the trees on Easterbrook. He's not an anti-Semite, but an anti-capitalist. His attack was not on Jews per se, but on Jews who seek profit producing products he doesn't like. This is consistent with other Easterbrook targets, such as "antisocial" SUV owners, and the National Football League (he doesn't like the league's choice of DirecTV as a broadcasting partner.)

I agree. Easterbrook's easy recourse to hoary anti-Semitic rhetoric comes from his hatred of certain commercial products, not (as far as I can tell) from a hatred of Jews. Indeed, the "WTF? WTF? WTeffingF?" reaction stems, in part, from the fact that nobody expects such rhetoric from a respectable goo-goo like Easterbrook. That he slips into anti-Semitic rhetoric to attack certain movies and the people who make them just makes his self-righteous hatred more obnoxious. Of course, the slope from hating commerce to hating (or killing) Jews is one of history's most slippery.

This is a one-day story, but a revealing one.