One Lajdak Doesn't Make A Poland

An ethico-mathematical question: how many lajdaks make a Poland? Dmitri Karamazov says of a Pole he has insulted, "If I call him a scoundrel, it doesn't mean I'm calling all of Poland a scoundrel. One lajdak doesn't make a Poland." But do two, three, a million? To put it another way, how many Americans must be fat before we can call the United States a fat country? How many Philistines must be philistines before it becomes a general insult? Or to cite a historiographical controversy, how many Germans must support the Nazis before it can be called a nation of "willing executioners"?

Maybe God can do the math. On behalf of Sodom, Abraham pleads to the Lord, "Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it?" God replies, "If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake." However as it eventually emerges that there are not even ten righteous Sodomites, the city is destroyed.

Aside from Sodom, there are usually more than ten exceptions. Take the 100,000 Jews who served in the German army in the First World War. Hitler subscribed to the stab-in-the-back theory, which held unpatriotic Jews responsible for Germany's loss. Imagine Abraham speaking to Hitler, on behalf of his people this time and not the Sodomites, "Suppose there are 88,000 proven patriotic Jews (12,000 perished in battle) in Germany. Will you then sweep away the Jews and not spare them for the 88,000 proven patriots?" Hitler, having transcended Judeo-Christian (the prefix is what killed it for him) morality, replies, "No, I will not." The God of the Bible is wrathful, but unlike the psychopathic god, He recognizes exceptions.

Long before Hitler, many Europeans used "bigoted language" in conversation, but it was taken for granted that both listener and speaker were civilized enough to recognize the exceptions. That "One lajdak doesn't make a Poland" was a general given. Yet like so much else, Hitler ruined racism. It is human nature to judge a group by prevalent characteristics. It is human decency not to take that judgment to irrational extremes, the most irrational extreme being genocide.

It was once said of German Jews that they combined Prussian charm with Jewish modesty. Nowadays such a sentiment would be thought but not said. Is this such a great evolution? It is a sign of a civilization unmoored when such comments can be taken as "hate speech" instead of valves for dissipating hatred into a common recognition of collective foibles. Yet the "progressive" political correctionists are symptoms of this unmooring, not the cause. Their excesses are a perhaps inevitable reaction to the much greater historical excesses of scientific racism. "Reactionary" racism, of the kind muttered by a Gentile out-bargained by a Jew, is different than the uniquely modern skull-measuring racism that also calls itself "progressive." Reactionary racism tends to express itself in ethnic slurs that may lead to a fist-fight; progressive racism tends to express itself in ideologies that may lead to mass murder.

The story of Sodom's destruction is not a lesson against the evils of stereotyping. Rather it is a lesson against the annihilationism of brutal consistency. Brutal consistency is not making off-colour racist jokes; it is believing in their literal truth and more importantly, acting on them. Brutal consistency is the sign of a mirthless and rigid mindset as common on the left as on the right. It is the inability to recognize exceptions.

Laws that target speech do not recognize the nuances of speech. Laws that target groups of people do not recognize the nuances among groups of people. Let us remember Dmitri Karamazov's statement that calling one Pole a scoundrel is not calling all of Poland a scoundrel before we call him a bigot; and let us remember Abraham's admonition not to sweep away the righteous before we call all of Poland a scoundrel. And that if there is one thing that can unite race or creed without exception, it is that we all have our lajdaks.