How raising the issue of antisemitism puts you outside the community of the progressive: The Livingstone Formulation

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Hirsh, David. 2017. How raising the issue of antisemitism puts you outside the community of the progressive: The Livingstone Formulation. In: Eunice G Pollack, ed. Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism: Past & Present. Boston: Academic Studies Press. ISBN 9781618115652 [Book Section] (In Press)

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This paper defines the features of the rhetorical device which I have named the Livingstone Formulation. It is a means of refusing to engage with an accusation of antisemitism; instead it reflects back an indignant counter-accusation, that the accuser is taking part in a conspiracy to silence political speech. The Livingstone Formulation functions to de-legitimise scholarly or political analysis of antisemitism by treating analysis of antisemitism as an indicator of anti-progressive discourse. This mode of refusal to engage rationally with antisemitism is often facilitated by the treatment of antisemitism as a subjective sentiment rather than as an external and objective social phenomenon. This paper offers a large number of examples of the Livingstone Formulation taken from diverse public discourse; from both explicitly antisemitic and also from ostensibly antiracist social spaces.

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