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Apologies everyone for messing up the reply field in my original post. Charles Fishman wrote in reply : >> very interesting post on this topic, which appears to confuse >> and daunt most of us. I would like to read what you and others >> have to say about measuring the "tide"--its intensity and its >> direction. Let me say I make no claim to be less confused anyone else !!! I guess I'm guilty of pointing to a "problem' ( which I didn't define very clearly ), and of saying nothing at all about a "solution". Hopefully the notes below will clarify what I was getting at. CONTEXT : There was a wide gamut of responses/interpretations to the OK Bombing. These ranged from : : denial of reality : ( e.g there's nothing TANGIBLE to be afraid of, only fear itself) : don't worry - if it gets bad enough the authorities will do something. : vague feelings of alarm ( what if this indicates some OTHER factor I SHOULD be alarmed about e.g are rightwing groups getting out of control and are they intrinsically anti- semitic even if they don't seem so at the moment ?) : I am alarmed, but I'm not sure if I should be, and I don't want to cause others unnecessary worry by being wrongly "alarmist". : I'm already alarmed and you should be too. : I'm not even Jewish and I'm alarmed ! What I'm highlighting is that there is no objective 'reference' we can use to assess significance, so subjectivity rules. e.g .. an 'event' occurs. The questions we need to ask are : : is the 'event' anti-semitic ( however you define that term ) : what 'weighting' should we attach to this 'event'. eg is a rock hurled through the window of a jewish house by one person who flees the scene, to be considered as "more" or "less" antisemitic, than a resolution passed by the United Nations condemning Israel ? How much 'more' or 'less' ? Lets assume for the moment that we can answer these questions. This might lead to the construction of an 'index' ( a tide measure, in other words ), based for example on counting the number and type of "events", attaching a weighting and totalling. Working backwards we might even be able to PRE- establish a 'events' list with predetermined score and weightings e.g ( with tongue partly in cheek) Group 1 : POLITICAL Points Score Weighting Contribution To Index Terrorist Act involving actual or potential loss of life Terrorist Act - clearly intended to cause property damage only ... ... Leader of Militia Group secures US Senate seat State Governorship Town Mayorship Pat Buchanan elected US President Group 2 : FINANCIAL Dow Jones drops 1000 points on 1 day. etc Group 3 : MEDIA Number of times Yasser Arafats photo appeared in the New York Times during last week. etc etc ------ TOTAL INDEX VALUE You get the general idea, ( I have blithely ignored a whole host of issues, just outlining the general approach ). So we end up with this index that's calculated at regular time periods on a consistent basis, and can hence be graphed. Of itself, the index won't tell us much more than we already knew although there may be some additional insights gained. These insights probably don't justify the expense and effort involved in obtaining index values. But lets take it a step further : One of the problems of the past was this very issue - an 'event' of some sort would occur, and perhaps because of the 'subjectivity' inherent in the evaluation process, people could persuade themselves that things weren't really as bad ( or good ) as person x was claiming. And looking at the range of responses referred to at the beginning of this post, you can see the scope that exists for wide variations of personal opinion about the relative significance of an 'event' Perhaps then, the index can be used as an aid to planning e.g Index level reaches Action To Take xxxxxxxx ??????????????????? This process could become as complicated as you care to make it, so some suitable ground-rules would be : : information collectable at low cost, simple to extract. : use lessons from RECENT past e.g early years of Nazi regime, so that events and weightings are based on reliable past data : construction of index kept simple - its a tool to use, not an end in itself. As I see it, the PRIMARY purpose of the index is to serve as a guide to FUTURE actions/responses, derived from a reasonably objective analysis of facts. In that context, I would attach LESS weighting to the actions of extremists - the extremist act tends to be self- defeating in terms of its influence on the mindset of the average John Doe in the population - and MORE to an increase in (say) the publication of Holocaust denial material. What seems more important to me is the underlying 'tide' of wider public opinion, not the direct and openly anti-semitic actions of small groups who get media attention out of all proportion to their significance. The tension between the two aspects - the extremist act is more immediately anti-semitic, but could conceivably lead to decreases in public anti-semitism in the long-term, whereas circulation of plausible near-hate literature appears less immediately threatening but is more dangerous in long term - could be simply resolved by using two indexes. ( it would be interesting to see if there was any lagged correlation between the two ) I hope you can all get the general gist of what I'm driving at. Just to summarise : PROBLEM : develop an objective index/indices that measure BOTH the overt levels of anti-semitism and the underlying trend of public opinion for the purposes of : PRIMARY : to assist in planning the appropriate community/personal responses when pre-determined indice(s) levels are reached. I guess I've been rather verbose for a newcomer to the list - let me know if I should keep quiet. Regards Des
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