Jean Raspail's novel Camp of the Saints (1973) has long led a fringe existence, first in French, then in translation. Even though it's been available in English since the 1970s, it was a marginal book, mostly an object of mixed curiosity and revulsion outside Europe, until the last 15 years or so. It's moved in from the fringe to become a malign influence in certain quarters. I first encountered it in the 1990s, when it was still barely known here.
It would be weird to describe the Klan (at least the post-Civil War clan in the South) as having anything to do with religion. It was initially supposed to be a guerilla movement of disbanded Confederate soldiers to extend the fight against the occupying Union army. It quickly degenerated into an secret underground organization devoted to terrorizing the freed slaves.
You might be confusing that Klan with the "new" Klan of the 1920s in the Middle West. Rarely violent, this group was indeed hostile to immigrants, Catholics in particular, and also Jews. (Of course, they didn't like black people either.) This phenomenon largely disappeared with the Depression and war. I grew up hearing stories of the "new" Klan from my parents' and grandparents' generations.
The original Klan in the South of course didn't start to weaken until the 1950s, when lists of its secret members started getting published anonymously in southern newspapers -- its power lay in its secrecy, like the Mafia. This continued in the 1960s, when the feds moved in, under their new civil rights mandate.
The antisemitic wave in NYC is disgusting. Even worse is how its tolerated and encouraged by academic administrators at NYU. Somehow, I'm not surprised.
Mimetic terrorism reminds me of the theories of René Girard. Here's a podcast on the topic:
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/the-scapegoat-the-ideas-of-ren%C3%A9-girard-part-1-1.3474195
https://stanfordmag.org/contents/history-is-a-test-mankind-is-failing-it
Jean Raspail's novel Camp of the Saints (1973) has long led a fringe existence, first in French, then in translation. Even though it's been available in English since the 1970s, it was a marginal book, mostly an object of mixed curiosity and revulsion outside Europe, until the last 15 years or so. It's moved in from the fringe to become a malign influence in certain quarters. I first encountered it in the 1990s, when it was still barely known here.
It would be weird to describe the Klan (at least the post-Civil War clan in the South) as having anything to do with religion. It was initially supposed to be a guerilla movement of disbanded Confederate soldiers to extend the fight against the occupying Union army. It quickly degenerated into an secret underground organization devoted to terrorizing the freed slaves.
You might be confusing that Klan with the "new" Klan of the 1920s in the Middle West. Rarely violent, this group was indeed hostile to immigrants, Catholics in particular, and also Jews. (Of course, they didn't like black people either.) This phenomenon largely disappeared with the Depression and war. I grew up hearing stories of the "new" Klan from my parents' and grandparents' generations.
The original Klan in the South of course didn't start to weaken until the 1950s, when lists of its secret members started getting published anonymously in southern newspapers -- its power lay in its secrecy, like the Mafia. This continued in the 1960s, when the feds moved in, under their new civil rights mandate.
The antisemitic wave in NYC is disgusting. Even worse is how its tolerated and encouraged by academic administrators at NYU. Somehow, I'm not surprised.