Quote "Portrait of the Anti-Semite" #1

Portrait of the Anti-Semite
Jean-Paul Sartre
translated by Erik de Mauny
London 1948

Page 13-14
"I said earlier that anti-semitism emerges as a passion. Everyone can see that at the root of the ailment lies hatred or anger. But in the ordinary way, hatred or anger are provoked by something: I may, for example hate someone who causes me suffering,, insults me, or wounds my pride. WE have just seen that the passion felt by the anti-semite must be of a quite different order; it not only anticipates those facts which might be expected to give rise to it, but seeks them out in order to feed upon them, and even then must interpret them in arbitrary fashion in order to find them really offensive. And yet, if you merely mention a Jew to an anti-semite, he shows all the symptoms of the liveliest irritation. If, at this point, we remember that in order to show anger over something, we must always first allow that anger to arise in us (we speak, for instance, of a person "working himself up" into a rage), it must be agreed that the anti-semite has chosen to let his life be dominated by his particular passion. A good many people, it is true, prefer to let their lives be ruled by passion rather than by reason. But in this case, their passion is inspired by certain objects; women, fame, power, or money. Since the anti-semite has chosen hatred, we are forced to conclude that it is the state of being in a passion that he cherishes."