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evolutionary psychology criticism Who Will Hold the Accountants to Account?
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pre-JudeoChristian folk religions should read the books by Kevin MacDonald for an academic perspective on ethnocentric distortions of history driven by evolutionary psychology: http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?srefer=&author_... An ethnic group with a religious eugenics program to increase verbal IQ will, without any need for conspiracy, overtake centers of historic account keeping and suffer from a conflict of interest in said position. While I differ with MacDonald on the morality of ethnocentrism (he is against it, I am for it for everyone, including Jews to the extent they can put 2000 years of supremacy behind them) we agree that ultimately The Jewish Question is an ethical dilemma facing any ethnic group in a position of historic account-keeping trust with other ethnic groups: Who will hold the accountants to account? STATEMENT OF PROFESSOR KEVIN MACDONALD 1. I, KEVIN MACDONALD, Professor of Psychology at California State University-Long Beach, Long Beach, CA 90840-0901 USA, will say as follows:- 2. I have a Ph. D. in Biobehavioral Sciences from the University of Connecticut. I have published six books (including two edited books) and over 30 academic papers in the area of evolutionary approaches to human behavior, particularly in the field of evolutionary psychology and the application of evolutionary psychology to understanding ethnic conflict in history (e.g., Social and Personality Development: An Evolutionary Synthesis. New York: Plenum, 1988). I am editor of the journal Population and Environment, published by Human Sciences Press, a division of Kluwer Academic Publishers. This journal deals with issues related to the interface between environmental issues and human population, including issues of ethnic conflict. I am also Secretary/Archivist and member of the Executive Board of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, the main academic organization dealing with the application of evolutionary biology to the study of human affairs. 3. Since 1991 I have been involved in extending the evolutionary paradigm to the study of Judaism. This project has resulted in three books: A People That Shall Dwell Alone: Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy (Westport, CONNECTICUT: Praeger, 1994; 302 pp.) delineates key aspects of Judaism within an evolutionary theory of groups. The basic proposal is that Judaism can be interpreted as a set of ideological structures and behaviors that have resulted in the following features: (1) the segregation of the Jewish gene pool from surrounding gentile societies; (2) resource and reproductive competition with gentile host societies; (3) high levels of within-group cooperation and altruism among Jews; and (4) eugenic efforts directed at producing high intelligence, high investment parenting, and commitment to group, rather than individual, goals. Separation and Its Discontents: Toward an Evolutionary Theory of Anti-Semitism (Westport, CONNECTICUT: Praeger, 1998; 325 pp.) develops an evolutionary theory of anti-Semitism. The basic thesis is that Judaism must be conceptualized as a group strategy characterized by cultural and genetic segregation from gentile societies combined with resource competition and conflicts of interest with segments of gentile societies. This cultural and genetic separatism combined with resource competition and other conflicts of interest tend to result in division and hatred within the society. A major theme of this volume is that intellectual defenses of Judaism and of Jewish theories of anti-Semitism have throughout its history played a critical role in maintaining Judaism as a group evolutionary strategy. The book discusses tactics Jewish groups have used over the centuries to combat anti-Semitism. Particularly important are discussions of Jewish self-interest, deception, and self-deception in the areas of Jewish historiography, Jewish personal identity, and Jewish conceptualizations of their ingroup and its relations with outgroups. The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements (Westport, CONNECTICUT: Praeger, 1998; 376 pp.) Ethnic conflict is a recurrent theme throughout the first two volumes, and that theme again takes center stage in this work. However, whereas in the previous works ethnic conflict consisted mainly of recounting the oftentimes bloody dynamics of Jewish-gentile conflict over the broad expanse of historical time, the focus here shifts to a single century and to several very influential intellectual and political movements that have been spearheaded by people who strongly identified as Jews and who viewed their involvement in these movements as serving Jewish interests. Individual chapters discuss the Boasian school of anthropology, psychoanalysis, leftist political ideology and behavior, the Frankfurt School of Social Research, and the New York Intellectuals. An important thesis is that all of these movements may be seen as attempts to alter Western societies in a manner that would end anti-Semitism and provide for Jewish group continuity either in an overt or in a semi-cryptic manner. 4. The main point of my testimony is that the attacks made on David Irving by Deborah Lipstadt and Jewish organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League should be viewed in the long-term context of Jewish-gentile interactions. As indicated by the summaries of my books, my training as an evolutionist as well as the evidence compiled by historians leads me to conceptualize Judaism as self-interested groups whose interests often conflict with segments of the gentile community. Anti-Jewish attitudes and behavior have been a pervasive feature of the Jewish experience since the beginnings of the Diaspora well over 2000 years ago. While anti-Semitic attitudes and behavior have undoubtedly often been colored by myths and fantasies about Jews, there is a great deal of anti-Jewish writing that reflects the reality of between-group competition exactly as expected by an evolutionist. Particularly important have been the themes of separatism-the fact that Jewish groups have typically existed as recognizably distinct groups and have been unwilling to assimilate either culturally or via marriage to the wider society, the theme of economic, political, and cultural domination, and the theme of disloyalty. Because anti-Jewish attitudes and behavior have been such a common response to Jews as a Diaspora group, Jewish groups have developed a wide variety of strategies to cope with their enemies. Separation and Its Discontents discusses a great many of these strategies, including a very long history of apologia dating to the ancient world. In the last century there have been a great many intellectual activities, most notably many examples of Jewish historigraphy which present Jews and Judaism in a positive light and their enemies in a negative light, often with little regard for historical accuracy. Most importantly for the situation of David Irving, Jewish groups have engaged in a wide range of political activities to further their interests. In general, Jews have been active agents rather than passive martyrs; they have been highly flexible strategizers in the political arena. The effectiveness of Jewish strategizing has been facilitated by several key features of Judaism as group evolutionary strategy-particularly that the IQ of Ashkenazi Jews is at least one standard deviation above the Caucasian mean. In all historical eras, Jews as a group have been highly organized, highly intelligent, and politically astute, and they have been able to command a high level of financial, political, and intellectual resources in pursuing their group goals. For example, Jews engaged in a very wide range of activities to combat anti-Semitism in Germany in the period from 1870 to 1914, including the formation of self-defense committees, lobbying the government, utilizing and influencing the legal system (e.g., taking advantage of libel and slander laws to force anti-Jewish organizations into bankruptcy), writing apologias and tracts for distribution to the masses of gentile Germans, and funding organizations opposed to anti-Semitism composed mainly of sympathetic gentiles. Jewish organizations commissioned writings in opposition to scientific anti-Semitism, as exemplified by academically respectable publications that portrayed Judaism in negative terms. Academic works were monitored for such material, and Jewish organizations sometimes succeeded in banning offending books and getting publishers to alter offensive passages. The result was to render such ideas academically and intellectually disreputable. A theme of anti-Jewish writing in the contemporary U. S. has been that Jewish organizations have used their power to make the discussion of Jewish interests off limits. Individuals who have made remarks critical of Jews have been forced to make public apologies and suffered professional difficulties as a result. Quite often the opinions in question are quite reasonable-statements that are empirically verifiable and the sort of thing that might be said about other groups or members of other groups. For example, media critic William Cash (1994), writing for the British magazine The Spectator, described the Jewish media elite as culturally nihilist, suggesting that he believed Jewish media influence reflects Jewish lack of concern for traditional cultural values. Kevin Myers, a columnist ... read more »
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