Den skæve moralske kompasnål er blevet vor tids sygdom: Den tilstand, hvor det gode ikke længere søger sandheden, men retfærdiggør sig selv gennem løgnen; når mennesket bruger moralen til at retfærdiggøre sin egen umoral, og kalder det dyd

Lars Hedegaard of the University of Southern Denmark and the Copenhagen Business School reports that

Daniel Karpantschof har skrevet en tankevækkende opsats om det moderne jødehads udspring. Teksten er lang, men værd at læse. Jeg bider især mærke i, at begrebet Nakba – katastrofen, da det blev lanceret i 1948, oprindeligt havde en ganske anden betydning end den, som dagens palæstinensere bruger. Jeg finder det også interessant, at landet Israel ikke kan betegnes som en kolonimagt – sådan som de såkaldte "antizionister" har for vane. Tvært imod er Israel et resultat af en afkolonisering.

Here is the Karpantschof essay, which focuses on Jews, Israel, and anti-Semitism, while also addressing — when you think about it — the assassinations, attempted or otherwise, of Charlie Kirk and Donald Trump, as well as pronouncements by Leftist politicians, campaigners, bloggers, podcasters, harpies, "demented schoolgirls", and other drama queens and Locofocos in places like Virginia and Connecticut, where a mainstream Democratic Congressman Suggest[ed a] Democratic President Might Assassinate MAGA Republicans. Indeed, in Adieu New York, Lars Hedegaard wrote that 

Når jeg ser billeder af demokraternes borgmesterkandidat i New York, den konstante grinende muhamedaner Zohran Mamdani, kommer jeg til at tænke på et af de tilnavne, som muslimer giver Allah: den smilende dræber. Mamdani er så godt som sikker på at vinde valget den 4. november, da han står til at få ca. halvdelen af de afgivne stemmer. New York bliver således den næste vestlige storby efter London, der kommer under muslimsk kontrol. Det tog kun muslimerne få årtier at gennemføre denne fundamentale og irreversible samfundsomvæltning. Hvad bliver den næste vestlige metropol, der falder i Allahs turban? Vi kan være sikre på, at planerne for længst er lagt, men vesterlændingene opdager aldrig, at der er en plan, som nogen har lagt i Qatar eller andre islamiske centre.… 

Tilbage til Karpantschofs opsats:

𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐬 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐭

Af Daniel Karpantschof

Forleden ringede en gammel ven.

Vi har kendt hinanden i tyve år.

Han sagde: “Nu er krigen slut — så kan vi godt tale sammen igen.”

Jeg havde intet hørt fra ham, mens jødehadet voksede.

Ikke mens Carolineskolen fik udvidet vagthold, og børn igen blev rådet til at gemme deres Davidsstjerne, ikke mens der blev klistret røde trekanter op, og ikke mens klistermærkerne på Store Kongensgade skrev at det var bedre at dræbe en zionist end et dyr.

Men nu, hvor han mente, at det hele var “overstået”, syntes han, at det igen var ufarligt at have en jødisk ven.

Jeg lagde røret på og tænkte, at det her — denne skæve moralske kompasnål — er blevet vor tids sygdom: Den tilstand, hvor det gode ikke længere søger sandheden, men retfærdiggør sig selv gennem løgnen. Det, jeg senere indså, var begyndelsen på det, jeg kalder moralens inversion.

Når virkeligheden bliver absurd

Dage efter 7. oktober skrev jeg til Roskilde Festivals direktør, Signe Lopdrup.

Jeg foreslog, at festivalen — som symbol på frihed og fællesskab og til mindre om ofrene for brutal, bestialsk terror — burde fordømme det terrorangreb, hvor unge israelere blev myrdet, voldtaget og taget som gidsler på Nova Festival.

Jeg tilføjede, at havde det været en hvilken som helst anden festival, hvor som helst i verden, ville reaktionen have været øjeblikkelig. Men der kom intet svar. Ikke et ord.

Tavsheden sagde alt.

For i det øjeblik blev absurditeten virkelig: Det var ikke længere volden, der afgjorde, om vi reagerede — men hvem volden ramte.

Moralens inversion er når det gode vendes på hovedet, så handlingens moralske værdi ikke længere måles på dens indhold — men på dens afsender.

Det er den tilstand, hvor skyld bliver til dyd, og hvor retfærdighed bliver et spørgsmål om hvem, ikke om hvad.

Moralens inversion er det øjeblik, hvor vi ophører med at bedømme handlinger efter deres natur og i stedet dømmer efter, hvem der udfører dem.

Det er dér, civilisationens akse forskydes — fra etik til identitet, fra sandhed til sympati. Når moralens akse først har vendt sig, bliver fordrejningen hurtigt til kultur. Det, der begynder som undtagelse, bliver norm.

Det er dér, den næste fase indtræder: moralens perversitet.

Moralens perversitet er når det omvendte bliver normalt — når mennesket bruger moralen til at retfærdiggøre sin egen umoral, og kalder det dyd.

Det er den tilstand, hvor empati bliver selektiv, hvor sandhed bøjes af hensyn til følelser, og hvor ondskab udføres i det godes navn.

Perversiteten er ikke inversionens brud — den er dens efterliv.

Det er øjeblikket, hvor vi holder op med blot at fordreje det gode og begynder at dyrke fordrejningen som godhed. Hvor moralens sprog selv bliver et redskab til at retfærdiggøre løgnen.

Da frihed skiftede side

Den amerikansk-jødiske digter Emma Lazarus skrev: “Until we are all free, we are none of us free.”

Hun skrev det ikke som et slogan, men som en erfaring. Frihed var for hende ikke et privilegium — men en pligt.

I dag står hendes ord på plakater for og råbt af dem, der ønsker at ophæve den stat, der blev skabt for at give hendes eget folk et hjem. Lazarus skrev om frihed — de citerer hende for at angribe den.

Frihedens sprog bruges nu til at nægte frihed, og retfærdighedens ideal til at retfærdiggøre uretfærdighed. Det er moralens perversitet i sin reneste form:

Når det, der engang var godt, bliver tjenende for det onde — og mennesket kalder sin egen medskyldighed for dyd.

Den omvendte kolonihistorie

Et af de tydeligste eksempler på denne fordrejning er fortællingen om staten Israel.

I dag bliver Israel ofte omtalt som et koloniprojekt — som en fremmed magt, pålagt Mellemøsten af Vesten. Men det er en inversion af både historie og sandhed.

Israel blev ikke født af kolonisering, men af dens ophør.

Det var en af verdens første antikoloniale stater — skabt i kølvandet på de gamle imperiers sammenbrud.

Et folk, fordrevet og forfulgt gennem to tusind år, vendte tilbage til sit historiske hjemland, efter at netop kolonimagterne havde trukket sig tilbage. Israel er produkt af afkolonisering.

At kalde jøderne for koloniherrer i Israel er ikke bare historieløst; det er en inversion af historie, moral og sandhed.

Det er at tage det eneste eksempel på et oprindeligt folk, der genvandt sit land efter årtusinders eksil, og forvandle det til fortællingen om en besættelse.

Når ofrene for historiens kolonialisme gøres til symbol på den, afsløres ikke Israels fejl, men moralens inversion.

Katastrofen, der ændrede betydning

Da den syriske historiker Constantin Zureiq i 1948 kaldte arabernes nederlag for Nakba — katastrofen — mente han det bogstaveligt.

Han skrev, at katastrofen ikke lå i nederlaget, men i selvbedraget: Syv arabiske hære gik i krig for at udslette en nyfødt jødisk stat — og tabte.

I dag betyder Nakba noget helt andet.

Det er ikke længere et opgør med fejl og ansvar, men en fortælling om evigt uskyldige ofre. Her ser vi inversionen i praksis: skyld er blevet dyd.

Og dens resultat — perversiteten — er en kultur, hvor ansvar er synd, og offerrollen den højeste moral. Symbolet på den moderne perversitet

Greta Thunberg er — på sin egen måde — blevet et spejl af vores tid.

Ikke som person, men som fænomen: et symbol på en generation, der har lært at føle stærkt, men tænke svagt. Hun blev berømt for at skulke fra skole for en sag — noget bedre symbol på antividen findes næppe.

Da hun postede et billede af en “udsultet palæstinenser”, viste det sig, at det i virkeligheden var et jødisk gidsel holdt fanget af Hamas. Da sandheden kom frem, slettede hun opslaget. Ikke for at rette, men for at glemme.

Det var ikke ondskab, men moralens perversitet — den refleks, hvor man hellere vil bevare sin selvforståelse som god end stå ansigt til ansigt med virkeligheden. Thunberg er ikke synderen — hun er blot spejlet. Et billede på, hvordan vestlig empati er blevet forblændet af sit eget spejlbillede.

Danmarks spejl

Også herhjemme får perversiteten plads.

Ifølge PET og Justitsministeriets Tryghedsmåling 2024 er antallet af antisemitiske hændelser steget markant siden oktober 2023 — fra chikane og hærværk til trusler og overfald.

Det Jødiske Samfund advarer igen om, at danske jøder skjuler symboler, ændrer ruter og undgår at tale om Israel offentligt.

Jøder har længe været udelukket fra det fælles arbejde om mindearrangementet for Krystalnatten — en begivenhed, der skulle forene ofrene, men i stedet blev et billede på, hvordan de skrives ud af historien om antisemitisme, og det jødiske samfund har måtte skabe sit eget alternative arrangement.

Den ultimative manifestation af moralens inversion — og dens endestation, moralens perversitet: jøder udelukket fra mindearrangement om Krystalnatten.

I København går nogen til valg på “Zionister ud af byen.”

De, der lægger billederne op, ser sig selv som antiracister -- men gentager Europas mørkeste sprog. Ordene er næsten de samme som i 1930’ernes Tyskland: “Juden raus.”

Når en europæisk hovedstad igen ser had mod jøder som “meningsytring”, viser det, hvor langt vi er sunket i den moralske dissonans, som moralens perversitet efterlader.

Bevægelser af moralens vogtere, der hæver stemmen, når verden ikke stemmer med deres følelser, og kalder det samvittighed ses idag, med netop denne forvitring.

De skriver erklæringer, hænger bannere op, råber ude foran statsministerens lejlighed, spænder ben for cykelsport, kulturarrangementer, og sangkonkurrencer og tror, at indignation er det samme som ansvar. Men moral behøver ikke vogtere. Den behøver vidner.

Vogteren dømmer. Vidnet ser.

Vogteren vil eje sandheden. Vidnet søger den.

De gamle vogtere, som engang stod vagt om moral og menneskelighed, er i dag blevet vogtere af selve moralens perversitet — beskyttere af den selvretfærdighed, der opstår, når inversionen bliver system. De forsvarer illusionen om det gode, men ikke længere selve det gode.

Moralens inversion opstår, når vogteren glemmer, at moral ikke er et spejl mod andre, men mod sig selv. Moralens perversitet indtræffer, når denne glemsel bliver kultur — når det gode fordrejes, så det retfærdiggør sin egen intolerance i dydens navn.

Og her opstår det, man kunne kalde banalitetens ondskab:

Ikke ondskabens banalitet, som Hannah Arendt beskrev den — men dens moderne omvending.

For i dag er det ikke blind lydighed, der nærer ondskaben, men den bevidste, selektive distance.

En form for moralsk dovenskab, hvor mennesket adoptere en moralsk inversion, fordi det er mere behageligt ikke at vide. Fordi perversiteten har slået rødder.

Det er ikke længere systemet, der gør os medskyldige, men den moralske inversion af bekvemmelighed. Ikke totalitarismen, men selvtilfredsheden.

Ikke hadet, men uvidenheden, selektionen, inversionen.

Det er banalitetens ondskab:

Den stille, kultiverede apati, hvor moralens inversion får lov at gro — fordi ingen længere gider kende forskel på det, der er rigtigt, og det, der blot føles rigtigt.

Fordi følelsen af ret vejer tungere end viden om ret, og mange føler ret stærkt og tænker ret svagt.

Lars Hedegaard of the University of Southern Denmark and the Copenhagen Business School reports that 'Daniel Karpantschof has written a thought-provoking essay on the origins of modern anti-Semitism. The text is long, but worth reading. I particularly notice that the term Nakba – the catastrophe, when it was launched in 1948, originally had a completely different meaning than the one used by today's Palestinians. I also find it interesting that the land of Israel cannot be described as a colonial power – as the so-called "anti-Zionists" are accustomed to. On the contrary, Israel is the result of decolonization.'

The Perversion of Morality

By Daniel Karpantschof

An old friend called the other day. We have known each other for twenty years. He said: “Now the war is over — so it's okay for us to talk again.” I had heard nothing from him while hatred of Jews was growing.

Not while Carolineskolen, the only Jewish school in Denmark, had increased security guards and children were once again advised to hide their Stars of David, not while red triangles and red lines were being pasted up in marches favoring the Palestinians, and not while the posters on Copenhagen's Store Kongensgade said that it was better to kill a Zionist than an animal.

But now that he thought it was all “over,” he thought it was safe to have a Jewish friend again.

I hung up the phone and thought that this — this crooked moral compass — had become the disease of our time: The state in which good no longer seeks the truth, but justifies itself through lies. What I later realized was the beginning of what I call the inversion of morality.

When reality becomes absurd

Days after October 7th, I wrote to Roskilde Music Festival's director, Signe Lopdrup.

I suggested that the festival — as a symbol of freedom and community and less about the victims of brutal, bestial terror — should condemn the terrorist attack in which young Israelis were murdered, raped, and taken hostage at the Nova Festival.

I added that had it been any other festival, anywhere in the world, the reaction would have been immediate. But there was no response. Not a word.

The silence said it all.

For at that moment the absurdity became real: It was no longer the violence that determined whether we reacted — but whom the violence affected. [See also Charlie Kirk, etc…]

The inversion of morality is when goodness is turned upside down, so that the moral value of an action is no longer measured by its content — but by its sender.

It is the state in which guilt becomes virtue, and justice becomes a question of who, not what.

The inversion of morality is the moment when we stop judging actions by their nature and instead judge by who does them.

That is where the axis of civilization shifts — from ethics to identity, from truth to sympathy. Once the axis of morality has turned, the distortion quickly becomes culture. What begins as an exception becomes the norm.

That is where the next phase enters: the perversity of morality.

The perversity of morality is when the opposite becomes normal — when man uses morality to justify his own immorality, calling it virtue.

It is the state in which empathy becomes selective, where truth is bent for the sake of emotion, and where evil is done in the name of good.

Perversity is not the rupture of inversion — it is its afterlife.

It is the moment when we stop simply distorting the good and begin to cultivate the distortion as goodness. Where the language of morality itself becomes a tool for justifying the lie.

When freedom changed sides

Emma Lazarus wrote: “Until we are all free, we are none of us free.”

The American-Jewish poet wrote it not as a slogan, but as an experience. Freedom was not a privilege for her — but a duty.

Today her words are on posters and shouted by those who want to abolish the state that was created to give her own people a home. Lazarus wrote about freedom — they quote her to attack it.

The language of freedom is now used to deny freedom, and the ideal of justice to justify injustice. This is the perversity of morality in its purest form:

When what was once good becomes the servant of evil — and man calls his own complicity a virtue.

The inverted colonial history

One of the clearest examples of this distortion is the story of the state of Israel.

Today Israel is often referred to as a colonial project — as a foreign power imposed on the Middle East by the West. But it is an inversion of both history and truth.

Israel was not born of colonization, but of its demise.

It was one of the world's first anti-colonial states — created in the wake of the collapse of the old empires. A people, displaced and persecuted for two thousand years, returned to their historic homeland after the colonial powers had withdrawn. Israel is the product of decolonization.

Calling the Jews the colonial masters of Israel is not just ahistorical; it is an inversion of history, of morality, and of truth.

It is to take the only example of an indigenous people reclaiming their land after millennia of exile and transform it into the narrative of an occupation.

When the victims of history's colonialism are made its symbol, what is revealed is not Israel's mistake, but the inversion of morality.

The catastrophe that changed meaning

When the Syrian historian Constantin Zureiq called the Arab defeat the Nakba in 1948 — the catastrophe — he meant it literally.

He wrote that the catastrophe lay not in the defeat but in self-deception: Seven Arab armies went to war to annihilate a newborn Jewish state — and lost.

Today, the Nakba means something entirely different.

It is no longer a showdown with mistakes and responsibilities, but a narrative of eternally innocent victims. Here we see the inversion in practice: guilt has become virtue.

And its result — perversity — is a culture where responsibility is sin, and victimhood the highest morality. The symbol of modern perversity

Greta Thunberg has — in her own way — become a mirror of our times.

Not as a person, but as a phenomenon: a symbol of a generation that has learned to feel strongly but think weakly. She became famous for skipping school for a cause — there is hardly a better symbol of anti-knowledge.

When she posted a picture of a "starving Palestinian," it turned out that it was actually a Jewish hostage held captive by Hamas. When the truth came out, she deleted the post. Not to correct, but to forget.

It was not evil, but the perversity of morality — the reflex in which one would rather maintain one's self-perception as good than face reality. Thunberg is not the culprit — she is merely the mirror. A picture of how Western empathy has been blinded by its own reflection.

Denmark's mirror

Here too, perversity finds its place.

According to Denmark's Security and Intelligence Agency (PET) and the Ministry of Justice's 2024 Security Survey, the number of anti-Semitic incidents has increased significantly since October 2023 — from harassment and vandalism to threats and assaults.

The Jewish Community warns again that Danish Jews are hiding symbols, changing routes, and avoiding talking about Israel in public.

Jews have long been excluded from the joint work on the memorial event for Kristallnacht — an event that was supposed to unite the victims, but instead became a picture of how they are being written out of the history of anti-Semitism, and the Jewish community has had to create its own alternative event.

The ultimate manifestation of the inversion of morality — and its final destination, the perversity of morality: Jews excluded from the memorial event for Kristallnacht.

In Copenhagen, some people are running for office on the slogan “Zionists out of town.”

Those who post the pictures see themselves as anti-racists — but they repeat Europe's darkest language. The words are almost the same as in 1930s Germany: “Juden Raus!”

When a European capital once again sees hatred of Jews as “expression of opinion,” it shows how far we have sunk into the moral dissonance left by the perversity of morality.

Movements by guardians of morality, who raise their voices when the world does not agree with their feelings and call it conscience, are seen today, with precisely this erosion.

They write declarations, hang banners, shout outside the prime minister's apartment, brace themselves for cycling, cultural events, and singing competitions, and believe that indignation is the same as responsibility. But morality does not need guardians. It needs witnesses.

The guardian judges. The witness sees.

The guardian wants to own the truth. The witness seeks it.

The old guardians, who once stood guard over morality and humanity, have today become guardians of the perversity of morality itself — protectors of the self-righteousness that arises when inversion becomes a system. They defend the illusion of the good, but no longer the good itself.

The inversion of morality occurs when the guardian forgets that morality is not a mirror to others, but to itself. The perversity of morality occurs when this forgetfulness becomes culture — when good is distorted so that it justifies its own intolerance in the name of virtue.

And here arises what one might call the evil of banality:

Not the banality of evil, as Hannah Arendt described it — but its modern inversion.

Because today it is not blind obedience that nourishes evil, but conscious, selective distance.

A form of moral laziness, in which man adopts a moral inversion because it is more comfortable not to know. Because perversity has taken root.

It is no longer the system that makes us complicit, but the moral inversion of convenience. Not totalitarianism, but complacency.

Not hatred, but ignorance, selection, inversion.

It is the evil of banality:

The quiet, cultivated apathy where the inversion of morality is allowed to grow — because no one cares anymore to know the difference between what is right and what just feels right.

Because the feeling of right weighs more heavily than the knowledge of right, and many people feel quite strongly and think quite weakly.