Jews neutralized magic through ritualized duty, making them both ahead and behind civilization

Evidence

The Jews themselves have taken part in this process for thousands of years—with enlightenment as with cynicism. The oldest surviving patriarchate, the incarnation of monotheism, they transformed taboos into civilizing maxims when others still clung to magic. The Jews seemed to have succeeded where Christianity failed: they defused magic by its own power—turned against itself as ritual service of God. They did not eliminate adaptation to nature, but converted it into a series of duties in the form of ritual. They have retained the aspect of expiation, but have avoided the reversion to mythology which symbolism implies. And so they are thought to lag behind advanced civilization and yet to be too far ahead of it: they are both clever and stupid, similar and dissimilar. They are declared guilty of something which they, as the first burghers, were the first to overcome: the lure of base instincts, reversion to animality and to the ground, the service of images. Because they invented the concept of kosher meat, they are persecuted as swine. The anti-Semites make themselves the executors of the Old Testament: they want the Jews who have eaten of the tree of knowledge to return unto dust. — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 146

Categorization

• XREF: The claim that Jews were both too advanced and too backward, overly clever and overly stupid, connects to the double-bind logic of colonial discourse Said describes in Orientalism — the colonized is simultaneously degenerate and dangerously sophisticated. — connects to: Rigid adherence to ritual law destroyed originality among ancient Jews — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 1237; Jews are hated for displaying mimetic impulses civilization has repressed — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 140; Jews have been simultaneously seen as Western and Eastern peoples. (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Rigid adherence to ritual law destroyed originality among ancient Jews #expands (0.75) — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 1237
• Jews are hated for displaying mimetic impulses civilization has repressed #complicates (0.75) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 140
• Jews have been simultaneously seen as Western and Eastern peoples. #expands (0.70)