The Civic Platform - A Political Journal of Ideas and Analysis

Academic departments at California State University Long Beach have posted statements on Kevin MacDonald’s publications on Jews and Judaism.

Dept. of History: http://www.csulb.edu/colleges/cla/departments/history/

Dept. of Psychology: http://karl.papubs.csulb.edu/cla/psychology/

Dept. of Jewish Studies:
http://thedistrictw eekly.com/ wp_dev/wp- content/uploads/ 2008/03/appendix -to-csulb- jewish-studies- program-final. pdf

MacDonald’s reply to the statement by the dept. of Jewish Studies:

Response to Jewish Studies Program Statement

In general, the Appendix to the Jewish Studies Program Statement (hereafter, the Statement) provides a fairly accurate account of my views on various topics, with some notable exceptions. In general, it does not provide evidence that my views are incorrect, nor does it delve into evidence that I provide to support my positions. It basically states that I have come to certain conclusions — as if that in itself is enough to constitute a sufficient indictment. It is similar therefore to a legal proceeding in which the prosecution need only make a case that certain laws have been broken. There is no need to show that the laws are justified.

In this case, the laws are the received wisdom of the intellectual left that has dominated intellectual discourse in the West on issues of race and ethnicity for the last 75 years or so. One need only show that someone disagrees with these ideas in order to banish him or her from the realm of reasonable discourse. Indeed, the dogmas of the intellectual left seem so obviously true to many academics that to dissent from them is quite on a par with saying that the earth is flat or that God created the universe in six days. In the following, I correct some of the claims in the Statement and expand on some of these issues.

White Ethnocentrism

The Statement does not argue against my claim that whites are coalescing into implicit white communities, but terms this “de facto segregation.” My claim on whites coalescing into implicit white communities is merely a conclusion on my part — based on a great deal of data, such as white flight. It is not a public policy suggestion. The point is that whites are already doing this on their own without any encouragement from me, and that this is entirely expected given what we know about human psychology. Indeed, I provide evidence that highly educated whites like liberal university professors are more likely to succeed in this project than are less highly educated whites.

The claim that the best way to defend ethnic interests is to develop an ethnostate certainly reflects the reality of ethnic relations in the last century or so. Jews of all people should understand the attraction of establishing an ethnostate. There is no question that the defense of Israel is absolutely central to Jewish identity not only in Israel, but at least since the 1967 war, to American Jews as well.

Israel is a classic ethnostate. It is a state that aggressively polices its immigration policies and marriage policies to ensure the biological integrity of its population. Anxieties about the growth of the Palestinian population of Israel and the West Bank and what that means for the long term viability of Israel as an ethnostate are common and explicit, even among Israelis who have highly visible positions of power and influence.

As I pointed out in an earlier post on the CLA list, many early Zionists such as Arthur Ruppin, and Vladimir Jabotinsky (the hero of the Likud Party in Israel throughout its history) were motivated by the prospect that a Jewish state would prevent intermarriage and other assimilative tendencies of Western societies. I made special mention of Vladimir Jabotinsky who was an important early Zionist and the spiritual guide of the Likud party in Israel and its leaders—people like Sharon, Begin, and Shamir. He is also a hero to many American neoconservatives. Jabotinsky was deeply ethnocentric, believing that Jews were shaped by their long history as a desert people and that the establishment of Israel as a Jewish state would allow the natural genius of the Jewish race to flourish, stating, for example: “These natural and fundamental distinctions embedded in the race are impossible to eradicate, and are continually being nurtured by the differences in soil and climate.”

What is striking is that virtually the entire organized Jewish community in the United States is allied to the political right and the settler movement in Israel, whose leaders openly idolize Jabotinsky. Indeed, as Geoffrey Wheatcroft recently pointed out, at the present time Israel “is governed by [Jabotinsky’s] conscious heirs.”

The attack on my by the Jewish Studies Program is massively hypocritical. Jewish liberal/leftists pose as the most enlightened, tolerant people in the world, but they somehow fail to wrest control of the Israel Lobby in the US from extreme Jewish ethnonationalists who dominate the Lobby. This occurs despite the fact that Jewish liberal/leftists constitute the great majority of American Jews and despite their involvement in funding and activism on behalf of the left in this country. James Petras says it well:

Given the high salience of being pro-Israel for the majority of American Jews and the fact that the source of their identity stems more from their loyalty to Israel than to the Talmud or religious myths and rituals, then it is clear that both the ‘progressive [sic; I think he meant ‘progressive’], majority of Jews and the reactionary minority who head up all the major American Jewish organizations have a fundamental point of agreement and convergence: Support and identity with Israel and its anti-Arab prejudices, its expansion and the dispossession of Palestine. This overriding convergence allows the reactionary Presidents of the Major Jewish Organizations in America to speak for the Jewish community with virtually no opposition from the progressive majority either within or without their organizations.

Nevertheless, despite the fact that support for Israel as an ethnostate has become the primary basis of Jewish identification for American Jews, a major theme of my writing has been that important Jewish intellectual and political movements have led the opposition to ethnonationalist conceptions of the United States and other Western countries.

A large component of the Statement relates to my attitudes on ethnonationalism for people of European descent. In the following I want to illustrate just how normative ethnonationalist attitudes are and how important ethnonationalism is in understanding the contemporary world. The general topic of ethnonationalism was recently broached in an important article in Foreign Affairs by Jerry Z. Muller. As Muller points out, the anomaly whereby Western nations have sought to turn their backs on ethnic homogeneity is quite recent: “The ethnonationalist view has traditionally dominated through much of Europe and has held its own even in the United States until recently. For substantial stretches of U.S. history, it was believed that only the people of English origin, or those who were Protestant, or white, or hailed from northern Europe were real Americans. It was only in 1965 that the reform of U.S. immigration law abolished the system of national-origin quotas that had been in place for several decades. This system had excluded Asians entirely and radically restricted immigration from southern and eastern Europe.”

Muller’s essay is important because it highlights the normality of ethnonational strivings, even among Europeans. In a very short period, Europe and European-derived societies have shifted from an unprecedented level of ethnic homogeneity following World War II to a stifling political correctness where any tiny vestige of ethnocentrism on the part of Europeans is squashed with all the power elites can muster. This is taking place while the rest of the world continues to undergo modernization via the creation of ethnostates. Muller’s essay makes one realize that this multicultural moment really may be but a moment—and a backward falling one at that, toward the failed multicultural empires of the pre-modern era.

The pall of political correctness that surrounds discussion of the ethnonationalist aspects of immigration policy in the West must be seen for what it is: a massively provincial anomaly when seen in cross-cultural perspective. As Muller notes,

More or less subtle forms of ethnonationalism, for example, are ubiquitous in immigration policy around the globe. Many countries — including Armenia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Serbia, and Turkey — provide automatic or rapid citizenship to the members of diasporas of their own dominant ethnic group, if desired. Chinese immigration law gives priority and benefits to overseas Chinese. Portugal and Spain have immigration policies that favor applicants from their former colonies in the New World. Still other states, such as Japan and Slovakia, provide official forms of identification to members of the dominant national ethnic group who are noncitizens that permit them to live and work in the country. Americans, accustomed by the U.S. government’s official practices to regard differential treatment on the basis of ethnicity to be a violation of universalist norms, often consider such policies exceptional, if not abhorrent. Yet in a global context, it is the insistence on universalist criteria that seems provincial.

In attempting to account for this trend in opposition to ethnonationalism in Western societies, my writing has emphasized the triumph of the left and particularly the role of Jewish intellectual and political movements and segments of the organized Jewish community as a bulwark of the left and the most important force in the passage of the 1965 immigration law. As Muller’s essay makes clear, Jews were prime victims of others’ ethnonationalism, at least until the end of World War II. Anti-Semitism was a general force throughout Eastern and Central Europe, culminating in the slaughters of World War II. And Muller notes that a prime motivation was that Jews dominated areas of the economy and social class structure to which others aspired — a principal theme of Separation and Its Discontents.

This history of victimization as a result of others’ ethnonationalism doubtless goes a long way toward explaining the main thrust of Jewish intellectual and political movements in the West, at least since the 1930s. This is a principal theme of The Culture of Critique. For example, the opposition of the organized Jewish community to immigration policies favoring the European majority of the US spans the entire mainstream Jewish political spectrum, from the far left to the neoconservative right.

As Muller notes, “Social scientists go to great lengths to demonstrate that [ethnonationalism] is a product not of nature but of culture, often deliberately constructed. And ethicists scorn value systems based on narrow group identities rather than cosmopolitanism. But none of this will make ethnonationalism go away.”

Indeed, a bulwark of the intellectual left since Franz Boas and his disciples came to dominate academic anthropology beginning in the 1920s has been a rejection of theories which allow for any biological influences on culture. A corollary is that different peoples and different cultures do not, therefore, have legitimate, biologically based conflicts of interest. But the data are quite clear: There are genetic distances between different peoples and different peoples therefore have legitimate conflicts of interest. This is at the very heart of evolutionary thinking. And there are deep psychological roots to ethnocentrism that make us attracted to and more trusting of genetically similar others. These biological realities will not simply disappear, no matter how fervently social scientists and other political and cultural elites wish they would.

But that doesn’t mean that they can’t be controlled — at least temporarily. The response of the left has been to entrench a culture of political correctness in the West in which ethnonationalist aspirations by Europeans are proscribed. Organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League seek draconian penalties against such expressions by Europeans (and only Europeans). Europe and Canada have legal penalties that enforce intellectual conformity on these issues, while in America the sanctions are more informal but nevertheless similarly effective. Ultimately, this is what the campaign against me is all about.

Whatever the drawbacks to ethnic nationalism (and the most obvious is the bloodshed that typically accompanies the creation of ethnostates), there are at least three overriding advantages expressed or implied by Muller: As also noted by Frank Salter, because of closer ties of kinship and culture, ethnically homogeneous societies are more likely to be open to redistributive policies such as social welfare. Sociologists such as Robert Putnam have also shown that ethnic homogeneity is associated with greater trust of others and greater political participation. And finally, as Muller notes, ethnic homogeneity is complementary to liberal democracy. At a theoretical level, this is because ethnic conflict produces deep divisions within the society that are all the more psychologically salient because they are ethnically based rather than based only on social class — the main theme of the last chapter of The Culture of Critique. Ultimately, these ethnic conflicts result in group-based competition for resources and political power. The difficulty of establishing democracy and the rule of law in societies divided by ethnic conflict is a major theme of the contemporary world.

This implies that the present culture of political correctness in the West cannot be maintained without continually ratcheting up the social controls on individual thought and behavior. Western societies will experience increased ethnic conflict and their governments will increasingly be forced to enact Draconian penalties for deviations from political correctness and to correct ethnic imbalances in social status and political power — much as the Hapsburg and Ottoman empires of old were forced in their declining years to constantly deal with nascent ethnic conflict. Democracy and representative government are likely casualties.

Racial Differences

The Statement claims that I have argued that Europeans are “uniquely talented.” The only time I have used the phrase “uniquely talented” is to describe the views not of me but of U.S. military officers in the early 20th century. This occurs in my review of Joseph Bendersky’s The ‘Jewish Threat’: Anti-Semitic Politics of the U.S. Army: “Schooled in the theories of Madison Grant, Lothrop Stoddard, Henry Pratt Fairchild, William Ripley, Gustav Le Bon, Charles Davenport, and William McDougall, this generation of U.S. military officers viewed themselves as members of a particular race and believed that racial homogeneity was the sine qua non of every stable nation state. They regarded their racial group as uniquely talented and possessed of a high moral sense.” To claim that this reflects my views is false and defamatory.

Regarding my citation of Fritz Lenz, as I noted in the recent CLA listserve discussions, if I notice that someone like Lenz had made a similar suggestion on the evolutionary origins of these patterns, should I just ignore it, or should I, as a scholar, give him a citation? Should I only cite people with whom I agree on everything? This is nothing more than yet another argumentum ad hominem — a technique that has been used against me repeatedly in the last 18 months since the SPLC and their allies at the university began its campaign against me. And in no sense does the argument rely on Lenz. My argument cites ecological theory, anthropological patterns, and historical patterns in family structure (simple household) and marriage (monogamy) to “suggest” an evolutionary interpretation. That is, I do not make a claim of certainty, but a suggestion based on the preponderance of evidence.

Regarding racial differences in IQ, so far as I know, no one disputes whether there are average racial differences in IQ. The only controversial question is to what extent those differences are influenced genetically. My statement that it is reasonable to suppose the differences are influenced by genetic differences is entirely mainstream. My present (very mainstream) text is negative about the views of Arthur Jensen on race differences but it notes “although some researchers supported this view, many more researchers have opposed it, in general asserting that social and environmental factors have as much influence on intelligence as inherited factors” (Mavis Hetherington & Ross Parke, Child Psychology, 6th edition, McGraw-Hill, 2006, p. 427). In other words, most psychologists believe that genetic differences play some role.

The causes of race differences in IQ continue to be debated in mainstream journals in psychology. For example, both of the following articles included commentaries by researchers critiquing the original article—an indication of how sensitive the topic remains.

Rushton, J. P., & Jensen, A. R. (2005). Thirty years of research on race differences in cognitive ability. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 11, 235–294.

Dickens, W. T., & Flynn, J. R. (2006). Black Americans Reduce the Racial IQ Gap: Evidence From Standardization Samples. Psychological Science, 17(10), 913–920.

As I mentioned in my talk to the department, the work of James Flynn has certainly put new life into the environmentalist camp.

Jewish Traits

The Statement complains that I compare “the European population of 40,000 years ago with the Jewish population of 4000 years ago.” In fact, the data come from ethnographic and historical studies, including my own research on European marriage practices and family structure. The basic contrasts in the table rely on a paper by Michael L. Burton et al., “Regions based on social structure” (Current Anthropology, 37: 87–123, 1996). This paper analyzes 351 cultures in Murdock’s ethnographic atlas to derive cultural regions based on social structure. Incidentally, the table as it appears in the Statement departs in several ways from the original, deleting several contrasts and re-labeling the columns. (The original contrasted “European cultural origins” and “Jewish cultural origins.”)

The Statement attributes to me the claim “that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion “seemed to describe actual Jewish behavior” [MacDonald does acknowledge it is a forgery].” Again, the passage in question clearly refers to the military officers, not me. The Statement’s claim is false and defamatory. This is the passage:

Officers were also skeptical about the notorious forgery, Protocols of the Elders of Zion, but were nonetheless intrigued by it, not because of evidence of its authenticity but because the Protocols seemed to describe actual Jewish behavior. For example, an officer who doubted the authenticity of the Protocols stated that “it is a fact that the present activities of Lenin, Trotsky and other Bolsheviks in Russia so correspond to the system as outlined herewith as to lead one to believe that this is actually the basic plan upon which the Bolshevik control functions” (pp. 64 65). Nevertheless, there were examples among the officers of “going too far” in suppositions of Jewish collusion, including fantastic tales of international intrigue among Zionist organizations, Lenin, Jewish media figures in the U.S., Jewish infiltrators of the British Secret Service, etc. (p. 136). This “going too far” in finding conspiratorial links among different Jews is a fairly common theme of anti Semitism (see MacDonald 1998, ch. 1) but in no way invalidates the strong factual basis of Jewish involvement in Bolshevism and radical leftism generally.

Regarding this last statement on Jewish involvement in Bolshevism and the radical left, see not only my work in The Culture of Critique, but also recent works such as Yuri Slezkine’s The Jewish Century (see my review).

Finally, the Statement errs in its comments on Darwin’s supposed failure to recognize the importance of selection between groups. The following famous passage from Darwin appears as an epigraph on the first page of Chapter 6 of A People That Shall Dwell Alone:

It must not be forgotten that although a high standard of morality gives but a slight or no advantage to each individual man and his children of the same tribe, yet an increase in the number of well-endowed men and advancement in the standard of morality will certainly give an immense advantage to one tribe over another. A tribe including many members who, possessing in a high degree the spirit of patriotism, fidelity, obedience, courage, and sympathy, who were always ready to aid one another, and to sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over most other tribes; and this would be natural selection.

David Sloan Wilson and E. O. Wilson begin their recent article defending group selection (including the cultural group selection that forms the basis of my work) by quoting the same passage. The theory of cultural group selection that informs my work is rock solid.

Conclusion

I understand that the ideas put forward in my writings on these issues are distasteful to many. But I would hope that the spirit of academic freedom and tolerance would extend even to ideas that one finds reprehensible.

I firmly believe that the ideas presented in my writings are soundly based. I strongly urge people to read these works in their entirety rather than relying on brief summaries of some of my conclusions, such as those presented in the Statement. As I have noted here, ideas similar to mine have been entirely mainstream in the West until very recently, and they continue to influence public policy throughout the world where ethnostates are the norm.

My theory about why this historical shift in the United States and other Western societies came about may be wrong. And the political implications that I have drawn from this analysis may be unfounded. But whatever judgments will ultimately be made about the soundness of the theories and data presented in these writings, realize that I have done my best to get the facts right. I agree entirely with Hans Eysenck who stated in his book Rebel with a Cause that “I always felt that a scientist owes the world only one thing, and that is the truth as he sees it. If the truth contradicts deeply held beliefs, that is too bad. Tact and diplomacy are fine in international relations, in politics, perhaps even in business; in science only one thing matters, and that is the facts.”

Given this attitude, it is perhaps no accident that Eysenck, the most widely cited psychologist of the 20th century, reviewed A People That Shall Dwell Alone quite positively, noting “I hope it will be widely read and pondered…. Psychology could do with more such serious attempts to look at the development of psychological differences between groups in an original and creative manner.”

I conclude with a statement that appears on the first page of that book:

This book is likely to be highly controversial and troubling to many, since it depicts Judaism as a fundamentally self-interested group strategy, which has often been in competition with at least some sections of gentile society. Bear in mind, however, that evolutionary theory is not a “feel good” theory. The theory of Judaism presented here implies that Judaism must be understood as exhibiting universal human tendencies for self-interest, ethnocentrism, and competition for resources and reproductive success. But an evolutionary theory must also suppose that these tendencies are in no way exclusive to Judaism. Indeed, the theory of anti-Semitism proposed in a companion volume, Separation and Its Discontents: Toward an Evolutionary Theory of Anti-Semitism …, essentially states that gentiles also are self-interested, are ethnocentric, and engage in competition for resources and reproductive success.

The evolutionist is regarded in many circles as a nasty and unwelcome interpreter of ethnicity and ethnic conflict. But the evolutionist is also keenly aware of the ways in which our ideologies can rationalize our self-serving behavior. And, in a very real sense, we cannot afford to continue to hide our heads in the sand while ethnic conflict continues to escalate. A basic thesis of these volumes is that ethnic conflict can be greatly illuminated by evolutionary theory. But evolutionary and psychological theory also provides some strong suggestions regarding the mechanisms for ameliorating this conflict. Only by understanding the past can we attempt to change the future in an intelligent manner.

Kevin MacDonald
Professor
Department of Psychology
California State University–Long Beach

Word document with footnotes:

jewish-studies-program-response.doc