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Full text from The Last
Ditch,
Whole No. 19, December 19, 1997.
A self-chosen
people?
By STEPHEN J. SNIEGOSKI
Jews have been amazingly successful at survival. Living
among hostile majorities, they have retained their
ethnic identity and distinctive culture for millennia.
And in many societies they have commanded
considerable wealth and power. In contemporary
Western society, the role of Jews in society is a non-topic in Establishment circles, considered too
dangerous for open discussion. What Kevin MacDonald
attempts in A People That Shall Dwell Alone is
nothing less than a scientific understanding of
Judaism.
MacDonald is a young professor of psychology at
California State University, Long Beach, with a
background in evolutionary biology. In previous studies
he has looked at wolf behavior, child development, and
monogamy, all through the lens of evolutionary biology.
Using a similar approach in analyzing Judaism,
MacDonald amasses considerable historical evidence
(drawn almost entirely from Jewish sources) to
support his thesis that Judaism is a group evolutionary
strategy. Although mainstream Darwinism traditionally
has focused on the process of natural selection at the
level of the gene or the individual organism, some of its
proponents in recent years have considered natural
selection at the group level. MacDonald sees the human
mind as especially able to create and enforce group
strategies through the development of various laws and
ideologies. Different human groups can adopt different
strategies to achieve evolutionary success.
The central element of the Jewish evolutionary
strategy has been the perpetuation of ethnic purity,
according to MacDonald. Throughout history Jews have
stressed endogamy — marriage within their
group — and have staunchly resisted genetic
assimilation with surrounding peoples. As recorded in
the Old Testament, the policy of the ancient Hebrews
was "to commit genocide rather than permitting
intermarriage with the conquered peoples." (p. 39) To
prevent group intermarriage in later periods, Jews
have sought to separate themselves from others.
Separation has been enforced by a panoply of cultural
practices: religious beliefs, language and mannerisms,
physical appearance, customs, occupations, and
physically separated areas of residence. As a result,
geographically separated Jewish populations today are
more closely related to each other than to neighboring
Gentiles. [1]
According to MacDonald, the Jews developed the
monotheist concept to further separatism. Monotheism
served to prevent the worship of foreign gods, which
most polytheistic people were wont to practice
— and religious syncretism historically has
facilitated ethnic assimilation. Moreover, in contrast to
the gods of the Greeks and Romans, who were
concerned with cosmology and the workings of nature,
"Israelite theology is intimately bound up with Israelite
history." (p. 45) "The Israelite god represents the
racially pure Israelite gene pool" (p. 47); the nature of
that god is a "mark of separateness and is closely
linked with an abhorrence of exogamy and with
aggression against foreigners." (p. 44) MacDonald
concludes that, from an evolutionary perspective, the
"Jewish sense of moral and religious idealism" is "a
mask for a self-interested evolutionary strategy aimed
at promoting the interests of a kinship group that
maintains its genetic integrity during a diaspora." (p.
64)
Integral to their separatism has been the Jewish
proclivity toward group altruism — the
willingness to put group goals above individual interests
— and a concomitant hostility to outsiders.
Moreover, throughout history Jews have competed
intensely with other groups for resources and have
attained great success, often at others' expense. Jews
have filled specialized niches in the economy of the
broader society, serving as middlemen for Gentile
primary production and in positions requiring high
degrees of education and intelligence.
MacDonald maintains that the Jewish evolutionary
strategy was freely adopted as opposed to having been
either genetically or environmentally determined. It
was especially not a defensive response to Diaspora
anti-Semitism, since Jewish solidarity long predated
the Diaspora. MacDonald calls the Jewish evolutionary
strategy an "experiment in living" (p. 7) which was
developed while Jews were quasi-nomadic sojourners
in the second millennium B. C. and which was continued
during the Diaspora because of its success.
Notwithstanding his references to Judaism as a freely
chosen strategy, MacDonald allows for significant
deterministic components. He holds to the view that
Jews and their ancestors were biologically predisposed
to group solidarity. In the untold centuries before
Christ, MacDonald maintains, strong group allegiance
was more likely to originate and serve as a vital
element for survival in the densely populated Middle
East, where there were many competing groups, than in
what was then sparsely populated Europe. Moreover,
Judaism, once established, provided eugenic
reinforcement effects. The biological interrelatedness
of Jews stemming from endogamous marriages
heightened group altruism and group loyalty —
scientific studies have shown that humans, like animals,
sacrifice the most for those closely related to
themselves. Judaism's strong social controls also drove
away individuals who were unable to accept such a
collectivistic environment, thereby restricting the gene
pool.
The Jewish gene pool was skewed not only toward
group conformity but also toward high intelligence, a
factor that has contributed to Jewish competitive
success vis-à-vis other groups. Jewish law,
MacDonald shows, became basic to maintaining group
solidarity, and it was transmitted through education.
Apart from community-wide elementary education,
Judaism emphasized the operation of legal scholars who
mastered Rabbinic dicta. Since the Talmud and other
Rabbinic commentaries are dense and convoluted
works, mastery required a high level of intellectual
ability. (Talmudic study and debate served the function
of forming a Jewish elite, but it was not, MacDonald
points out, of value in terms of content. It did not
involve a search for truth about the outside world, like
the philosophical endeavors of the ancient Greeks, but
dealt with arbitrary, often minuscule, points of neither
philosophical interest nor practical application. In
essence, Talmudic study consisted of "intellectual
disputation for its own sake." [p. 171]).
Through the process of natural selection, the writer
says, the emphasis on an educated elite ineluctably led
to an overall increase in the intelligence of the group
— IQ tests show Jews to be highly intelligent in
all areas outside of mechanical skills. Religious
scholars were highly favored by the Jewish
community: they were able to marry early, having
their choice of the daughters of wealthy Jewish
families, and they were showered with considerable
wealth. Consequently, they had more surviving children
than poorer Jews. [2] In
addition, Judaism's emphasis on education meant that
less-intelligent Jews were ostracized. That allowed
them fewer breeding opportunities. Moreover, such
unintelligent Jews also left the community more
readily, thereby removing themselves from the Jewish
gene pool.
The fact that Jews have survived ethnically intact for
thousands of years shows that their evolutionary
strategy was well-designed. The key to Jewish
success, MacDonald maintains, has been their
collectivistic nature, which has enabled them to
outperform groups whose members have been
individualistic. Although Jewish strategy has shown
some flexibility over time, its very success has caused
it to remain fundamentally the same. MacDonald claims
that Jews have flourished when the groups with whom
they competed were the most individualistic; and that
when Gentiles have developed a strong allegiance to
their group — as in Europe of the High Middle
Ages, Islam since the Middle Ages, and Nazi Germany
— Jews have been stymied.
***
MacDonald's assumption of the strategic superiority of
collectivism over individualism rings hollow in
individualist-libertarian ears. Despite surface
appearances, however, MacDonald's thesis does not
necessarily contradict individualist libertarianism. His
use of the terms individualism and collectivism is
somewhat misleading, since it has nothing to do with
the enforcement power of the state. [3]
Group solidarity is referred to as collectivism; lack of
group cohesion is labeled individualism. Cohesion has
been maintained among Jews without state
enforcement. Statist and even totalitarian Gentile
polities have not necessarily harmed Jewish interests:
in fact, Jews have sometimes thrived in such regimes,
e. g. , early Bolshevik Russia and the American welfare
state, attaining disproportionate representation and
power in the regimes' political institutions. [4] In
those cases, however, statist regimes existed in the
absence of any strong ethnic loyalty among Gentiles.
What has counteracted Jewish power has been not
government control per se but rather group solidarity,
which can exist even in the absence of state power.
(The antebellum South would exemplify the persistence
of group, in this case racial, cohesion without recourse
to an elaborate statist apparatus.)
MacDonald's discussion of resource competition with
Gentiles also deserves comment; some aspects of it
have been dealt with by other scholars. For example,
Nathaniel Weyl portrays Jews as a "creative elite"
whose superior intellectual talents have benefited
others as well as themselves. [5] In
free-market economies, that should be the case.
However, for most of history, economies have been
largely unfree, thus making one group's gain another
group's loss. (That is MacDonald's basic view.)
MacDonald says the downside of the Jewish
evolutionary strategy, with its intense resource
competitiveness, lies in its provocation of anti-Semitism. He points out that Jewish reliance on the
power of the state especially has led to anti-Semitic
reactions. Jews acted as intermediaries in traditional
societies, serving the ruler, while "behaving in a purely
instrumental manner, including exploitation, toward the
rest of the population." (p. 112) MacDonald writes that
"the prototypical Jewish role as an instrument of
government oppression has been that of the tax farmer." (p. 114) Gentile rulers were quite willing to rely on
the superior service of Jews to exploit their subjects:
"Elites are unlikely to identify with the interests of the
society as a whole, and they are relatively eager to
agree to arrangements that are personally beneficial."
(p. 113)
By presenting anti-Semitism as the Gentile response to
Jewish solidarity and its concomitant intense resource
competitiveness, MacDonald makes Gentile hostility
appear rational and almost inevitable. Anti-Semitism,
as MacDonald points out, has existed in almost all
societies where Jews have dwelt. Its pervasive nature
undercuts the conventional view that it is an irrational
hatred peculiar to Christianity — a view
poignantly expressed in the film on anti-Semitism at
the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. [6]
In his depiction of Judaism as an evolutionary strategy
for group success, MacDonald is explicitly denying that
it is a universalistic religion like Christianity and
Islam. Diaspora Jews have claimed universalist status
for Judaism in order to make it palatable in the Gentile
world. MacDonald notes that although Diaspora Judaism
has allowed for converts and intermarriage (the
trappings of universalism, at the theoretical level), it
has minimized them in practice with numerous
barriers. In short, Judaism is a national/ethnic religion,
in contrast to the universalism of Christianity and
Islam. Despite a dramatic decline in Orthodox Jewish
religious worship in the modern world, Jews still
maintain a high degree of allegiance to their group,
perhaps underscoring MacDonald's contention that
Jewish religion has been a "mask" for an evolutionary
strategy. Zionism, MacDonald asserts, is the most
recent ideological manifestation of the Jewish
ethnocentric impulse. Today, "support for Israel,
rather than any particular religious beliefs, has become
the litmus test of being a Jew." (p. 101)
As is quite apparent from MacDonald's depiction, the
ethnocentric ideology of Judaism is the polar opposite
of the progressive universalist ideologies —
communism, socialism, statist liberalism. The great
irony, which MacDonald discusses at length in a yet-to-be-published sequel, is that Jews have been the most vociferous champions of those universalist
ideologies and staunch opponents of any form of
ethnic nationalism for other groups. [7]
From the perspective of modern liberalism, for
example, ethnic and racial groups are expected to
assimilate, integrate, and essentially abandon their own
group identities. It is the rare liberal Jew, of course,
who applies that universalistic standard to attack
Jewish positions, especially Zionism. The apparent
contradiction becomes understandable when Judaism is
perceived as an evolutionary strategy. For by
weakening the solidarity of other groups, Jews enhance
the relative strength of their own unified group, which
can more easily prevail in a deracinated society. And it
is quite apparent that Jews have improved their
position with the triumph of universalist ideologies
— although in the case of Soviet Communism
their success was short-lived.
***
A qualification is in order regarding MacDonald's
emphasis on self-interest as a motive for Jewish
action. As noted by the Jewish paleoconservative
scholar Paul Gottfried, Jewish hatred of Gentiles has
sometimes tended to overshadow considerations of
self-interest. It would seem that many Jews are
unwilling to abandon views stemming from past
centuries — most significantly, animosity toward
Christianity — even when such views no longer
accord with reality. Thus, many American Jews rail
against the Christian Right, which nowadays is
effusively pro-Jewish and pro-Zionist. Furthermore,
many Jews supported communism as the enemy of the
Christian West even after communism had become anti-Semitic in Eastern Europe and anti-Zionist. Today, Jews
support liberal and leftist anti-Christian social policies
even though their realization would undermine the very
society conducive to Jewish success. Neoconservative
Jews seem to have realized the danger of those
anachronistic animosities and seek to pursue programs
directly in line with current Jewish group interests.
However, most Jews still identify with the liberal Left,
except on issues directly affecting Israel.
MacDonald's contention that the Jewish evolutionary
success was consciously planned is also questionable.
Without denying conscious elements, one can also argue
that certain aspects of Jewish culture enhanced
evolutionary success without being intended for that
purpose. For example, it is difficult to believe that
mediæval Jews deliberately intended the long-term eugenic improvement of their people by rewarding
intelligent scholars or prohibiting intermarriage. (On
the other hand, as MacDonald points out, they did
believe in the importance of heredity.) Any increase in
group intelligence would more likely be a byproduct of
other cultural goals.
Similarly, it is hard to accept MacDonald's contention
that the Jews designed the concept of a single God in
order to promote separatism. It would seem that the
monotheist concept serves many other purposes, and
this reviewer believes that the One God actually exists.
In sum, although MacDonald's idea of a conscious
evolutionary strategy can account for many aspects of
Judaism, I do not see it as an all-encompassing
explanation.
Finally, it seems that MacDonald sometimes conflates
two dissimilar concepts of success: success in
Darwinian terms — survival (reproductive
success) — and success according to conventional
thinking — wealth and power. Although Jews
historically have succeeded according to both
definitions, the concepts are not identical. As
MacDonald illustrates, for many centuries, when
neighboring groups lived near the starvation level,
Jewish wealth did allow for reproductive success.
However, as he also notes, Jews were the first group
to adopt a low-fertility strategy suitable to economic
success in the modern industrial world. And because of
their very economic success and concomitant political
power, Jews have become accepted at the highest
levels of Western society. As a result, Jews today face
assimilation and possible extinction as a group. [8]
In contrast, primitive peoples around the world have
survived for countless generations virtually unchanged
owing to their very primitiveness and poverty. The
population of black Africans today is increasing
exponentially, despite the fact that they live in dire
poverty. In Darwinian terms, the reproductive strategy
of black Africans may be regarded as superior to that
of Jews (at least at this time).
Whatever its limitations, MacDonald's
extremely ambitious work provides much food for
thought. Moreover, MacDonald has done far more than
produce an intellectual tour de force. Since he moves
deep into non-P.C. territory, MacDonald must be
credited with displaying a great deal of courage in a
less-and-less-free society. Let's hope that much more
can be heard from him.
Posted September 19, 2003
© 2003 WTM Enterprises. All rights
reserved.
Kevin MacDonald's home page is at www.csulb.edu/~kmacd.
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