Jew really know what I'm thinking?

In a fascinating article in Forward, 'Judaism and the Culture of Outburst', Jay Michaelson considers the peculiar censoriousness of modern American society (and probably wider Western society) in religious terms:

'Today we have cooked up a toxic brew of the Jewish and the Protestant. On the one hand, our taboos are very "Jewish." They govern the external (what one says), not the internal (what one feels); in the hyper-PC world, you can be as racist or communist as you like, as long as you keep your mouth shut. On the other hand, our response to these Old Testament transgressions is a New Testament assumption that racist speech means a racist heart... At the risk of oversimplification, the Jewish approach is "Thou shalt not say this word." The Christian approach is "Thou shalt not have this thought." And our current approach is "If you say this word, you probably have this thought, and so we condemn you."'

The result is a caginess about speaking freely, since saying the wrong thing will not only offend, but reveal us to be bad people. Inevitably this leads to occasional un-PC and otherwise offensive outbursts, when frustration about issues that can't be discussed combines with resentment about the fact that they can't be discussed to make us plain angry. Furious outbursts rarely lead to constructive arguments, however. We desperately need to be able to discuss controversial issues without taking offence. That means having the courage to speak freely, and giving the benefit of the doubt to others who do the same: you might say combining Protestant conviction with Jewish humour.

Dolan Cummings