Villains make complicated stories simple.

I'll admit it, I've got a rollercoaster relationship with antisemitism.

There are days when I read comments, posts, or articles, and I will find myself in a rage.

Disgusted and furious- my zealous nature bubbling under the surface.

I rant about the lack of justice, the lies, the libels, the lunacy of it all...

I will barely contain my anger at the ignorance, stupidity, the evil that underlies Jew-hatred and all the fallout from its sudden upswell post Oct 7.

And most days I just watch it unfold from the outside.

Noting their dysregulation. Their anger. Their hatred.

Studying it. Trying to understand it. Wondering about how so many people got to this place.

Wondering if they had been there all along, or if now they just feel permission to talk about it?

I've started wondering whether one of the strongest human impulses isn't justice.

It's the desire for a villain.

Villains make complicated stories simple.

They spare us from wrestling with competing truths, unintended consequences, and our own responsibility.

If someone else is the source of all evil, then we know exactly who we are.

It seems to me that our public conversations increasingly reward moral simplicity over moral complexity.

Binaries and archetypes of dynamics are much easier to apply, even when they don't fit the reality.

Victimhood is often treated as evidence of goodness, as though being wronged automatically means you cannot also be wrong.

Or so that's the train of thought.

If you can blame an entire people- .2% of the world's population- for the underhanded manipulation of culture, politics, money, and all the world's problems...

And you are their victim...

They are evil, and you are good.

Which relieves people of uncomfortable questions.

It offers a kind of moral certainty.

It creates a sense of belonging among people who believe they are standing on the side of justice.

Hence the radicalization of many in the Western world, to the right and the left.

Often I think, if I can understand this widening phenomenon, it'll feel less personal.

Less targeted.

And then I see another comment.

I wrestle all over again.