← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Mr.Wilson
Thread ID: 5254 | Posts: 86 | Started: 2003-02-27
2003-02-27 19:48 | User Profile
In the March 10,2003 issue of TAC,there's a hostile review of "The Culture of Critique".The title of the review is: "The Marx of the Anti-Semites",by John Derbyshire.
2003-02-27 21:13 | User Profile
Anybody seen this yet? It isn't on their website, which still has the February 24 edition.
I'd be interested in hearing exactly how Derbyshire critiques MacDonald. Next to Sullivan, Derbyshire is one of the most paleo-friendly, anti-immigration staffers at National Review, but when the Jewish question comes up even O'Sullivan knows he must be dutifully obsiquous, (and I'm sure not just at National Review) so it will be interesting to see the spin on this, and also figure out TAC's reasons for soliciting his comments.
2003-02-27 21:44 | User Profile
Any publicity is good publicity. Does that hold true here?
I have it on good authority that attacks on MacDonald's work (Shulevitz's in particular) have prompted at least one very active nationalist to read the book.
I'm cautiously optimistic. Will TAC publish pro-MacDonald letters in the next issue?
2003-02-27 21:55 | User Profile
Derbyshire's review has been up at VNN for a couple of days.
OOPS! Sorry, Sert. :ph34r:
2003-02-27 22:13 | User Profile
Originally posted by Ruffin@Feb 27 2003, 21:55 **Derbyshire's review has been up at VNN for a couple of days.
OOPS! Sorry, Sert. :ph34r:**
OK, you got me Ruffin. I coudn't find it
Moderator request - please provide (yes - VNN) link.
Pretty Please? ;)
2003-02-27 22:44 | User Profile
Go to Reader Mail, scroll about 4/5 down. It's dated 2/25.
2003-02-27 23:02 | User Profile
Originally posted by Ruffin@Feb 27 2003, 22:44 Go to Reader Mail, scroll about 4/5 down. It's dated 2/25.
Thank you Ruffin. Since you are apparently not willing to join the ranks of Il Ragno's "VNN cut and paste weenies", ;) I'll do the honor's myself. I don't see the TAC title, but I assume its the same article.
I'm sure other's will have comments :D . The general tendency I see here is that Derbyshire is trying to do, as of course you would expect from a NR contributing editor working alongside, Ron Dreyer, David Frum, and Jonah Goldberg, is to be as skeptical of the book as his own rather obvious private appreciation of the book and his personal intellectual honesty allows. In fact he says as much right at the start.
The Jew Thing
The Culture of Critique by Kevin MacDonald
1stBooks [sic] 466 pages, $00.00
One evening early on in my career as an opinion journalist in the U.S.A., I found myself in a roomful of mainstream conservative types, standing around in groups and gossiping. Because I was new to the scene, a lot of the names they were tossing about were unknown to me, so I could not take much part in the conversation. Then I caught one name that I recognized. I had just recently read and admired a piece published in Chronicles under that name. I gathered from the conversation that the owner of the name had once been a regular contributor to much more widely read conservative publications, the kind that have salaried congressional correspondents and full-service LexisNexis accounts, but that he was welcome at those august portals no longer. In all innocence, I asked why this was so. "Oh," explained one of my companions, "he got the Jew thing." The others in our group all nodded their understanding. Apparently no further explanation was required. The Jew thing. It was said in the kind of tone you might use of an automobile with a cracked engine block, or a house with subsiding foundations. Nothing to be done with him, poor fellow. No use to anybody now. Got the Jew thing. They shoot horses, don't they? Plainly, getting the Jew thing was a sort of occupational hazard of conservative journalism in the United States, an exceptionally lethal one, which the career-wise writer should strive to avoid. I resolved that I would do my best, so far as personal integrity allowed, not to get the Jew thing. I had better make it clear to the reader that at the time of writing, I have not yet got the Jew thing ââ¬â that I am in fact a philosemite and a well- wisher of Israel, for reasons I have explained in various places, none of them difficult for the nimble web surfer to find.
If, however, you have got the Jew thing, or if, for reasons unfathomable to me, you would like to get it, Kevin MacDonald is your man. MacDonald is a tenured professor of psychology at California State University in Long Beach.. He is best known for his three books about the Jews, developing the idea that Judaism has for 2,000 years or so been a "group evolutionary strategy." The subject of this review is a re-issue, in soft cover, of the third and most controversial of those books, The Culture of Critique, first published in 1998. Its subtitle is: "An evolutionary analysis of Jewish involvement in twentieth-century intellectual and political movements." The re-issue differs from the original mainly by the addition of a 66-page preface, which covers some more recent developments in the field, and offers responses to some of the criticisms that appeared when the book was first published. The number of footnotes has also been increased, from 135 to 181, and they have all been moved from the chapter-ends to the back of the book. A small amount of extra material has been added to the text. So far as I could tell from a cursory comparison of the two editions, nothing has been subtracted.
The main thrust of this book's argument is that Jewish or Jewish- dominated organizations and movements engaged in a deliberate campaign to de-legitimize the Gentile culture of their host nations ââ¬â most particularly the U.S.A. ââ¬â through the twentieth century, and that this campaign is one aspect of a long-term survival strategy for the Jews as an ethny. In MacDonald's own words: "[T]he rise of Jewish power and the disestablishment of the specifically European nature of the U.S. are the real topics of CofC." 1 He illustrates his thesis by a close analysis of six distinct intellectual and political phenomena: the anti-Darwinian movement in the social sciences (most particularly the no-such-thing-as-race school of anthropology associated with Franz Boas), the prominence of Jews in left-wing politics, the psychoanalytic movement, the Frankfurt School of social science (which sought to explain social problems in terms of individual psychopathology), the "New York intellectuals" centered on Partisan Review during the 1940s and 1950s, and Jewish involvement in shaping U.S. immigration policy.
MacDonald writes from the point of view of evolutionary psychology ââ¬â a term that many writers would put in quotes, as the epistemological status of this field is still a subject of debate. I have a few doubts of my own on this score, and sometimes wonder whether evolutionary psychology may eventually turn out to be one of those odd fads that the human sciences, especially in the U.S.A., are susceptible to. The twentieth century saw quite a menagerie of these fads: Behaviorism, Sheldonian personality- typing by body shape (ectomorph, mesomorph, endomorph), the parapsychological reseaches of Dr. J.B. Rhine, the sexology of Alfred Kinsey, and so on. I think that the evolutionary psychologists are probably on to something, but some of their more extreme claims seem to me to be improbable and unpleasantly nihilistic. Here, for example, is Kevin MacDonald in a previous book: "The human mind was not designed to seek truth but rather to attain evolutionary goals." 2 This trembles on the edge of deconstructionist words-have-no-meaning relativism, of the kind that philosopher David Stove called "puppetry theory," and that MacDonald himself debunks very forcefully in Chapter 5 of The Culture of Critique. 3 After all, if it is so, should we not suppose that evolutionary psychologists are pursuing their own "group evolutionary strategy"? And that, in criticizing them, I am pursuing mine? And that there is, therefore, no point at all in my writing, or your reading, any further?
To be fair to Kevin MacDonald, not all of his writing is as silly as that. The Culture of Critique includes many good things.There is a spirited defense of scientific method, for example. One of the sub- themes of the book is that Jews are awfully good at creating pseudosciences ââ¬â elaborate, plausible, and intellectually very challenging systems that do not, in fact, have any truth content ââ¬â and that this peculiar talent must be connected somehow with the custom, persisted in through long pre-Enlightenment centuries, of immersing young men in the study of a vast body of argumentative writing, with status in the community ââ¬â and marriage options, and breeding opportunities ââ¬â awarded to those who have best mastered this mass of meaningless esoterica. (This is not an original observation, and the author does not claim it as such. In fact he quotes historian Paul Johnson to the same effect, and earlier comments along these lines were made by Koestler and Popper.) MacDonald is very scathing about these circular and self- referential thought-systems, especially in the case of psychoanalysis and the "pathologization of Gentile culture" promoted by the Frankfurt School. Here he was precisely on my wavelength, and I found myself cheering him on. Whatever you may think of MacDonald and his theories, there is no doubt he believes himself to be doing careful objective science. The same could, of course, be said of Sheldon, Rhine, Kinsey et al.
It is good to be reminded, too, with forceful supporting data, that the 1924 restrictions on immigration to the U.S. were not driven by any belief on the part of the restrictionists in their own racial superiority, but by a desire to stabilize the nation's ethnic balance, which is by no means the same thing. (In fact, as MacDonald points out, one of the worries of the restrictionists was that more clever and energetic races like the Japanese would, if allowed to enter, have negative effects on social harmony.) MacDonald's chapter on "Jewish involvement in shaping U.S. immigration policy" is a detailed survey of a topic I have not seen discussed elsewhere. If the Jews learned anything from the twentieth century, it was surely the peril inherent in being the only identifiable minority in a society that is otherwise ethnically homogeneous. That thoughtful Jewish-Americans should seek to avoid this fate is understandable. That their agitation was the main determinant of postwar U.S. immigration policy seems to me more doubtful. And if it is true, we must believe that 97 per cent of the U.S. population ended up dancing to the tune of the other 3 per cent. If that is true, the only thing to say is the one Shakespeare's Bianca would have said: "The more fool they."
Similarly with MacDonald's discussion of Jewish involvement in the Bolshevik takeover of the Russian Empire and the many horrors that ensued. This was until recently another taboo topic, though the aged Alexander Solzhenitsyn, presumably feeling he has nothing much to lose, has recently taken a crack at it. I believe MacDonald was driven by necessity here. Having posited that Jews are out to "destroy" (this is his own word 4) Gentile society, he was open to the riposte that if, after 2,000 years of trying, the Jews had failed to accomplish this objective in even one instance, Gentiles don't actually have much to worry about. So: the Jews destroyed Russia. Though MacDonald's discussion of this topic is interesting and illuminating, it left me unconvinced. As he says: "The issue of the Jewish identification of Bolsheviks who were Jews by birth is complex." 5 Paul Johnson gives only 15-20 percent of the delegates at early Party congresses as Jewish.6 If the other 80-85 per cent were permitting themselves to be manipulated by such a small minority, then we are back with Bianca.
Since the notion of "group evolutionary strategy" is central to MacDonald's case, I wish he had been better able to convince me of its validity. For instance: I happen to be fairly well acquainted with the culture and history of China, a nation which, like the diaspora Jews, awarded high social status and enhanced mating opportunities to young men who had shown mastery of great masses of content-free written material. Anyone who has read stories from the premodern period of China's history knows that the guy who gets the girl ââ¬â who ends up, in fact, with a bevy of "secondary wives" who are thereby denied to less intellectual males ââ¬â is the one who has aced the Imperial examinations and been rewarded with a District Magistrate position. This went on for two thousand years. Today's Chinese even, like Ashkenazi Jews, display an average intelligence higher by several points than the white-Gentile mean. So: was Confucianism a "group evolutionary strategy"? If so, then plainly the Chinese of China were, in MacDonald's jargon, the "ingroup". But then... what was the "outgroup"?
The more I think about the term "group evolutionary strategy," in fact, the more I wonder if it is not complete nonsense. From an evolutionary point of view, would not the optimum strategy for almost any European Jew at almost any point from A.D. 79 to A.D. 1800 or so have been conversion to Christianity? Rather than learning to argue fine points of theology, wouldn't a better strategy have been to learn, say, fencing, or Latin? Sure, the Jews held together as a group across 2,000 years. The gypsies held together pretty well, too, across many centuries; yet their "group evolutionary strategy" was the opposite of the Jews' at almost every point. And the Jewish over-representation in important power centers of Gentile host societies became possible only after Jewish emancipation ââ¬â which, like abolition of the slave trade, was an entirely white-Gentile project! Did the genes of 12th- century Jews "know" emancipation was going to happen 700 years on? How? If they didn't, what was the point of their "evolutionary strategy"? There is a whiff of teleology about this whole business.
Kevin MacDonald is working in an important field. There is no disputing the fact that we need to understand much more than we currently do about how common-ancestry groups react with each other. Group conflicts are a key problem for multiracial and multicultural societies. Up till about 1960, the U.S. coped with these problems by a frank assertion of white-Gentile ethnic dominance, very much as Israel copes with them today by asserting Jewish ethnic dominance. This proved to be quite a stable arrangement, as social arrangements go. It was obviously objectionable to some American Jews, and it is not surprising that they played an enthusiastic part in undermining it; but they were not the sole, nor even the prime, movers in its downfall. It was replaced, from the 1960s on, by a different arrangement, characterized by racial guilt, shame, apology, and recompense, accompanied by heroic efforts at social engineering ("affirmative action"). This system, I think it is becoming clear, has proved less stable than what went before, and has probably now reached the point where it cannot be sustained much longer. What will replace it? What will the new arrangement be?
At times of flux like this, there are naturally people whose preference is for a return to the older dispensation. It is obvious that Kevin MacDonald is one of these people. If this is not so, he has some heavy explaining to do about phrases like: "the ethnic interests of white Americans to develop an ethnically and culturally homogeneous society." 7 Personally, I think he's dreaming. The older dispensation wasn't as bad as liberal commentators and story- tellers would have us believe, but it is gone for ever, and will not return. For America, the toothpaste is out of the tube.
(And on the point of Israel having something very much like the old American dispensation, I am unimpressed by MacDonald's oft-repeated argument ââ¬â it is a favorite with both Israelophobes and antisemites ââ¬â that it is hypocritical for Jews to promote multiculturalism in the U.S. while wishing to maintain Jewish ethnic dominance in Israel. Unless you think that ethnic dominance, under appropriate restraining laws, is immoral per se ââ¬â and I don't, and Kevin MacDonald plainly doesn't, either ââ¬â it can be the foundation of a stable and successful nation. A nation that can establish it and maintain it would be wise to do so. The U.S.A. was not able to maintain it, because too many Americans ââ¬â far more than 3 per cent ââ¬â came to think it violated Constitutional principles. Israel, however, was founded on different principles, and there seems to be no large popular feeling in that country for dismantling Jewish-ethnic dominance, as there was in Lyndon Johnson's America for dismantling European dominance. The Israelis, most of them, are happy with Jewish- ethnic dominance, and intend to keep it going. Good luck to them.)
The aspect of Macdonald's thesis that I find least digestible is his underlying assumption that group conflict is a zero-sum game, rooted in an evolutionary tussle over finite resources. This is not even true on an international scale, as the growing wealth of the whole world during this past few decades has shown. On the scale of a single nation, it is absurd. These Jewish-inspired pseudoscientific phenomena that The Culture of Critique is concerned with ââ¬â Boasian anthropology, psychoanalysis, the Frankfurt School and so on ââ¬â were they a net negative for America? Yes, I agree with MacDonald, they were. Now conduct the following thought experiment. Suppose the great post-1881 immigration of Ashkenazi Jews had never occurred. Suppose the Jewish population of the U.S. in 2003 were not the two to four per cent (depending on your definitions) that it is, but the 0.3 per cent it was at the start of the Civil War.8 **Would anything have been lost? Would America be richer, or poorer? Would our cultural and intellectual life be busier, or duller? **
It seems incontrovertible to me that a great deal would have been lost: entrepreneurs, jurists, philanthropists, entertainers, publishers, and legions upon legions of scholars: not mere psychoanalysts and "critical theorists," but physicists, mathematicians, medical researchers, historians, economists ââ¬â even, as MacDonald notes honestly in his new preface, evolutionary psychologists! The first American song whose words I knew was "White Christmas," written by a first-generation Ashkenazi Jewish immigrant. The first boss I ever had in this country was a Jew who had served honorably in the U.S. Marine Corps. Perhaps it is true, as MacDonald claims, that "most of those prosecuted for spying for the Soviet Union [i.e. in the 1940s and 1950s] were Jews." 9 It is also true, however, that much of the secret research they betrayed to their country's enemies was the work of Jewish scientists. The Rosenbergs sold the Bomb to the Soviets; but without Jewish physicists, there would have been no Bomb to sell. Last spring I attended a conference of mathematicians attempting to crack a particularly intractable problem in analytic number theory. A high proportion of the 200-odd attendees were Jews, including at least two from Israel. Sowers of discord there have certainly been, but on balance, I cannot see how anyone could deny that this country is enormously better off for the contributions of Jews. Similarly for every other nation that has liberated the energies and intelligence of Jewish citizens. Was Hungary better off, or worse off, after the 1867 Ausgleich? Was Spain better off, or worse off, before the 1492 expulsions? "To ask the question is to answer it."
Now, Kevin MacDonald might argue that he, as a social scientist, is not obliged to provide any such balance in his works, any more than a clinical pathologist writing about disease should be expected to include an acknowledgment that most of his readers will be healthy for most of their lives. I agree. A scientist, even a social scientist, need not present any facts other than those he has uncovered by diligent inquiry in his particular narrow field. He is under no obligation, as a scientist, to soothe the feelings of those whose sensibilities might be offended by his discoveries. Given the highly combustible nature of MacDonald's material, however, it wouldn't have hurt to point out the huge, indisputably net-positive, contributions of Jews to America, right at the beginning of his book, and again at the end. MacDonald has in any case been fairly free in CofC with his own opinions on such matters as U.S. support for Israel, immigration policy, and so on. He is entitled to those opinions: but having included them in this book, his claim to dwell only in the aery realm of cold scientific objectivity does not sound very convincing.
This is, after all, in the dictionary definition of the term, an antisemitic book. Its entire argument is that the Jews, collectively, are up to no good. This may of course be true, and MacDonald is entitled to say that the issue of whether his results are antisemitic is nugatory, from a social-science point of view, by comparison with the issue of their truth content. I agree with that, too: but given the well-known history of this topic, it seems singularly obtuse of MacDonald not to keep a jar of oil close at hand to spread on the troubled waters his work is bound to stir up. From my own indirect, and rather scanty, knowledge of the man, I would put this down to a personality combination of prickliness and unworldliness, but I am not sure I could persuade less charitable souls that my interpretation is the correct one, and that there is not malice lurking behind MacDonald's elaborate sociological jargon. Who knows? Perhaps Catholic Celts have a "group evolutionary strategy," too. Are they still taught, in Sister Perpetua's Scripture class, that "the Jews killed Our Lord"?
John Derbyshire (http://www.olimu.com) is a Contributing Editor of National Review and a twice-weekly columnist for National Review Online. His book Prime Obsession, an account of the Riemann Hypothesis, will be published April 18 by National Academies Press.
1 p. lxviii 2 Separation and Its Discontents, p.261. 3 p. 199 ff. 4 p. xxix 5 p.53 6 HotJ, p.452. 7 p.85. 8 150,000 (Paul Johnson, History of the Jews, p.366) out of 50m (Colin McEvedy, Penguin Atlas of North American History, p.84). 9 p. xlii
2003-02-28 00:20 | User Profile
**To be fair to Kevin MacDonald, not all of his writing is as silly as that. **
None of his writing is as silly as that, "that" being the Derbyshire inanity immediately preceding this comment.
**Here, for example, is Kevin MacDonald in a previous book: "The human mind was not designed to seek truth but rather to attain evolutionary goals." 2 This trembles on the edge of deconstructionist words-have-no-meaning relativism, of the kind that philosopher David Stove called "puppetry theory," and that MacDonald himself debunks very forcefully in Chapter 5 of The Culture of Critique. 3 After all, if it is so, should we not suppose that evolutionary psychologists are pursuing their own "group evolutionary strategy"? And that, in criticizing them, I am pursuing mine? And that there is, therefore, no point at all in my writing, or your reading, any further? **
This is an offensively frivolous critique. When MacDonald says The human mind was not designed to seek truth but rather to attain evolutionary goals, it doesn't mean that the human mind doesn't seek truth. It means, of course, that to the extent that the human mind seeks truth, it does so because such truth-seeking is adaptive. And individuals and groups vary in the degree to which the ability to seek truth must face conflicting mechanisms of self-deception designed to hide truth.
The depths of Derbyshire's facetiousness is reached in the several instances in which he conflates individual humans with groups of humans.
2003-02-28 00:23 | User Profile
I just e-mailed MacDonald and, among other things, expressed hope that this publicity would spur sales. I mentioned that the Shulevitz hysteria had prompted at least 11 sales of CoC. :D
2003-02-28 05:07 | User Profile
According to his e-mail message,Prof.MacDonald will be posting a reply to TAC article at his website in the very near future.
2003-02-28 06:55 | User Profile
Originally posted by Mr.Wilson@Feb 28 2003, 05:07 According to his e-mail message,Prof.MacDonald will be posting a reply to TAC article at his website in the very near future.
Here's a good reply already from Bill White.
[url=http://www.overthrow.com/lsn/news.asp?articleID=3803]Squinty Pat And Tacky Take On MacDonald - And Fall Flat On Their Face[/url]
2003-02-28 07:23 | User Profile
Originally posted by wintermute@Feb 28 2003, 00:17 ** The magazine is explicitly anti-neocon, which means that it attempts to criticize Jewish power but will not say so. Most of the magazine's subscribers would probably feel at home here on OD. If TAC can not find a place for them, I think it would be fair to judge the whole effort as a boondoggle and place our hopes elsewhere.
**
Ditto.
At some point PJB and company will have to take off the gloves. It's clear to anyone with an internet connection and eyes to see that "the Jews are up to no good."
And I don't mean that offensively, either. The Jews are a nation with their own rights and interests, and I join Derbyshire in wishing them luck in Israel. The essence of MacDonald as I understand him is that the Jews' evolved instincts for group defense ensure that they will turn their very considerable talents against the host country when they are in diaspora. Jewish subversion is an historical fact. MacDonald and evolutionary psychology reveal that this subversion is largely unconscious to Jews, which it seems to me makes the whole matter morally less culpable. However, NOW THAT WE KNOW the truth about (largely unconscious) Jewish subversive tendencies, we have a moral obligation to speak up and work to SEPARATE.
Derbyshire's position is thus a really slimey moral cop-out.
Let them go to Israel, and we'll all prosper. I don't consider myself to be an anti-Semite, and I don't think MacDonald is, either. Again, I WISH THEM WELL, but we have to get honest about the fact that their presence among us is destroying America, and that it cannot be otherwise. Those Jews who genuinely love America will leave it.
Derbyshire really steps in it when he says that an ethnically-pure America isn't legitimate now because people don't want it - this in the face of Jewish dominance of the opinion-forming American media. He's saying in effect that if Jews can acheive an ethnically-pure Israel by force of arms then that's fine, and if they can subvert an ethnically-pure America by stealthy control of the information flow then that's fine, too. Does might makes right, Mr. Derbyshire? Do stealth and crypsis make right?
The European, Christian and English-speaking American nation has a right to live, and the majority opinion - forged in the furnace of Jewish subversion - be damned. Here's creeping, damnable Democracy in all its middle-brow glory.
Walter
2003-02-28 08:57 | User Profile
Originally posted by Walter Yannis@Feb 28 2003, 07:23 He's saying in effect that if Jews can achieve an ethnically-pure Israel by force of arms then that's fine, and if they can subvert an ethnically-pure America by stealthy control of the information flow then that's fine, too. Does might makes right, Mr. Derbyshire? Do stealth and crypsis make right?**
The European, Christian and English-speaking American nation has a right to live, and the majority opinion - forged in the furnace of Jewish subversion - be damned**
I think you're right here Walter, about the defects of John's moral reasoning in comparison to Kevin MacDonald's. But if there is a legitimate criticism of Culture of Critique and of evolutionary psychology (at least that as epitimized by MacDonald), it strikes me it might be in the centrality of this moral criticism aspect of CoC, found throughout the book and implicit it seems to its theme, if not always its stated premise.
It strikes me when MacDonald puts on his moralistic hat, he is taking off his scientific hat as an "empirical" evolutionary psychologist, and putting on his hat as a humanist. It perhaps could be criticized as being not unlike what the authors of The Authoritarian Personality did when they used the scientific looking methodology to justify a priori moral assumptions and agenda's.
However, I seriously doubt any of his critics is going to do nearly as good a job on CoC as MacDonald did on The Authoritarian Personality. Academics today are too lazy.
I'd be interested in what moral skeptics like NeoNietszche think about this part of MacDonaldism.
2003-02-28 09:17 | User Profile
Originally posted by Frederick William I@Feb 27 2003, 23:02 ** Israel, however, was founded on different principles, and there seems to be no large popular feeling in that country for dismantling Jewish-ethnic dominance, as there was in Lyndon Johnson's America for dismantling European dominance. The Israelis, most of them, are happy with Jewish- ethnic dominance, and intend to keep it going. Good luck to them **
That's perfect ten score on the Goofymeter.
No white American wanted to "dismantle European dominance" in Lyndon Johnson's America. Proof is the Senate hearings on changing the immigration law in 1965, during which time a parrot named Teddy Kennedy (among others) kept reassuring white folks that the new law would not alter the ethnic profile of America, hence European dominance.
It's good Derbyshire announced his cowardice at the beginning.
2003-02-28 09:50 | User Profile
Originally posted by Ragnar@Feb 28 2003, 09:17 > Originally posted by Frederick William I@Feb 27 2003, 23:02 ** Israel, however, was founded on different principles, and there seems to be no large popular feeling in that country for dismantling Jewish-ethnic dominance, as there was in Lyndon Johnson's America for dismantling European dominance. The Israelis, most of them, are happy with Jewish- ethnic dominance, and intend to keep it going. Good luck to them **
That's perfect ten score on the Goofymeter.
No white American wanted to "dismantle European dominance" in Lyndon Johnson's America. **
Well what's more noticable than the goofy-meter was the sly dissembling around the real point of the question. The point > And on the point of Israel having something very much like the old American dispensation, I am unimpressed by MacDonald's oft-repeated argument ââ¬â it is a favorite with both Israelophobes and antisemites ââ¬â that it is hypocritical for Jews to promote multiculturalism in the U.S. while wishing to maintain Jewish ethnic dominance in Israel.
Didn't pertain to Israeli Jews position towards Israel, but American Jews position towards Israel vis a vis their own country. Here it certainly seems hypocritical, especially when American Jews get mad about the ""dual-loyalty" issue being raised.
2003-02-28 11:02 | User Profile
Originally posted by Okiereddust@Feb 28 2003, 08:57 ** It strikes me when MacDonald puts on his moralistic hat, he is taking off his scientific hat as an "empirical" evolutionary psychologist, and putting on his hat as a humanist. **
I think that MacDonald avoids moralizing pretty well, perhaps you're remembering things that I've forgotten.
But I agree that nothing in MacDonald's scientific work supports "anti-Semitism" - defined as hating Jews just because they're Jews.
I believe in the Natural Law - the notion that our empirical observations of the workings of creation point to the intentions of the Creator and that our reason, prompted by our faith and guided by our experience, can lead us to an understanding of objectively true morality.
Evolutionary psychology is an empirical science, and as such it is properly concerned only with "empirical observations". It is the task of philosophy and religion to make moral judgements based on those observations. It's a bifurcated proceeding, as we lawyers like to say. Science needs to stay out of moral judgements, and I think that MacDonald does that rather well.
The key "empirical observations" are that evolution designed man (1) with a dual nature - he tends to love and trust his own and to hate and fear outsiders; (2) with an instinctive group defense response that expresses itself in ways both subtle (as detailed in CoC) and overt (fighting, wars, even genocide); (3) to hide from his conscious mind his true motives, since the man convinced of the rightness of his cause will be stronger than the man tormented by doubts and thus such a mechanism arose as it conferred a survival advantage.
These empirical facts point to the morality of nationalism. Assuming that we want to promote peace and harmony (a reasonable assumption, I think), it seems clear to me that ethnic groups should live separately, lest their group defense instincts will express themselves in all sorts of ways, from the subtle psychological warfare as detailed in CoC to the many overt acts of agression that pockmarked the 20th century.
Of course, none of this is a new discovery - the Old Testament ruled on this in the story of Babel, and the European tradition long accepted the rights of nations. See also the Catechism of the Catholic Church Articles 56-58, which link personal salvation to membership in "nations" defined by territory, blood and culture. While evolutionary psychology tells us why nationalism is part of the Natural Law, human tradition has long since recognized the simple truth that humans live better in ethnically homogeneous territories, and that morality lies in showing due respect for the natural boundaries between families, clans, tribes, and nations.
Empire is the very sin of Babel, multiculturalism is on the side of death, this much has always been clear.
Jewish nationalists from Theordore Herzl to Ariel Sharon all criticize the diaspora, since they see that Jews are destructive to their host societies and ultimately undermine themselves in diaspora. History suggested that conflict was inevitable, evolutionary psychology proves it so. Am I an anti-Semite to agree on this point with Herzl, Sharon and a host of others? I think not.
I see other moral implications. Note the Atlantic Monthly column "Seeing Around Corners" that [url=http://www.ddc.net/ygg]Yggdrasil[/url] mentions on his webpage. Computer modeling proves that inter-ethnic conflicts - from segregation to genocide - are inevitable. They are in fact "natural disasters." But under established legal principles "natural disasters" are liability-erasing "force majeure" events; moral culpability diminishes or disappears altogether to the extent that actions arise from force majeure circumstances. Thus, for example, the German nation as a collective is, in my opinion, not entirely culpable in the reprisals against Jews in the 1940's, and likewise the Jewish people living in the Pale as a group are not entirely culpable for the Bolshevik coup d'etat and its ensuring horrors. This is a strong argument that after 57 years of reparations Germany as a collective has already more than discharged any conceivable duty it owed to the Jewish nation, in my opinion.
I would also conclude that the individual Jewish proponents of the onslaught of cultural destruction we've endured for the past 60 years are not, in my opinion, entirely culpable for the damage they've done. That's because they were personally unaware of their true motives, inasmuch as they have an evolved instinct to hide the truth from thevselves. There is a mens rea element to every crime - the accused my have some sort of bad intention (from negligence to premeditation) for guilt to attach, and evolutionary psychology would tend strongly to show that the Gloria Stienems of the world just didn't know what they were doing. However, as evolutionary psychology casts its light on the depravity of our own hearts, this excuse becomes increasingly less available.
Indeed, it seems to me that failing to speak of these things is the truly morally culpable act (omission). John Derbyshire in writing this nonsense (Bill White does a great job of taking his arguments apart, by the way) does a great disservice to mankind - he helps to perpetuate the lies that are leading us to Enoch Powell's "rivers of blood." This is the real moral issue: now that science has revealed the truth about the dangers of multiculturalism, will we find the moral courage to implement a reasoned nationalism?
John Derbyshire just failed his first exam.
Walter
2003-02-28 12:13 | User Profile
The re-issue differs from the original mainly by the addition of a 66-page preface, which covers some more recent developments in the field, and offers responses to some of the criticisms that appeared when the book was first published. The number of footnotes has also been increased, from 135 to 181, and they have all been moved from the chapter-ends to the back of the book. A small amount of extra material has been added to the text. So far as I could tell from a cursory comparison of the two editions, nothing has been subtracted.
It's early and Derbyshire is already getting cute. I think this is his way of saying that, between the two editions, K-Mac had plenty of time to add a few grovelling 'clarifications', delete the odd 'hurtful' passage, and in general hold the reader's hand and softly utter the sorts of 'yes - BUT' egghead alibis that translate into "I wrote this, but as IamnotanantiSemite (yes! it's one word, by George!) I of course repudiate my own conclusions."
All this paragraph says to me is that, should the Derb ever attempt such a project himself, he would cleverly rig it with escape hatches throughout, and wording just vague enough to offer the writer plausible deniability.
One of the sub- themes of the book is that Jews are awfully good at creating pseudosciences that do not, in fact, have any truth content. MacDonald is very scathing about these circular and self- referential thought-systems, especially in the case of psychoanalysis and the "pathologization of Gentile culture" promoted by the Frankfurt School. Here he was precisely on my wavelength, and I found myself cheering him on. Whatever you may think of MacDonald and his theories, there is no doubt he believes himself to be doing careful objective science.** **
Heavens to Murgatroid! Never mind the Frankfurts...here is the quintessential ** example of the Spinning Buckley School at its peak of soft-shoulders say-nothingism masked as tough talk. Whatever they may say in the village about Dr Frankenstein and that monster he stitched together from corpses, rest assured he really believes he's advancing science! I shudder at the Derb's judgment were he not "cheering him on" here....
**If the Jews learned anything from the twentieth century, it was surely the peril inherent in being the only identifiable minority in a society that is otherwise ethnically homogeneous. That thoughtful Jewish-Americans should seek to avoid this fate is understandable. **
Really? But before the advent of WW2, Jews in America had prospered as merchants and entrepreneurs, already had a stranglehold on mass media (save the thousands of small-market independent newspapers whose time was already nigh) and suffered a total of ZERO pogroms and systematic gassings. Leo Frank was their one shining claim to victimhood, and only if you didn't look too closely at the case. (And what was Frank doing owning such a large concern - in Georgia! - at a time of such "rampant anti-Semitism" anyway?)
..if it is true, we must believe that 97 per cent of the U.S. population ended up dancing to the tune of the other 3 per cent. If that is true, the only thing to say is the one Shakespeare's Bianca would have said: "The more fool they."
Now HERE at last we come to the spot where the rubber meets the road. For to understand how the 97 dances for the 3, we need to set aside the cerebral, contemplative tone of K-Mac for the ruder, nastier informality of the Pierces and the Linders. I submit that you cannot julienne-slice Derb's tired argument without a consideration of the link between media and information in the West, and further an examination of racial/ethnic patterns, not just in titular ownership, but in the key decision-making and upper-management posts. While you're at it, better give those recent essays by Philip Weiss and Stephen Steinlight another once-over as well. Who controls the information flow controls the populace. As for Willie the Shake, for the last 20 years we in the West have been living the truth of Bianca's words.
FW1 concisely parboiled Derb's argument for Israel's uniculturalism being consonant with our own 'multiculturalism' as the will of the people.
**Having posited that Jews are out to "destroy" (this is his own word Gentile society, he was open to the riposte that if the Jews had failed to accomplish this objective in even one instance, Gentiles don't actually have much to worry about. So: the Jews destroyed Russia. **
Are still destroying Russia, John....unless you want to put the blinders back on and categorize the organitsaya as the "Russian mafia". Between them and the Jew oligarchs, post-USSR Russia is Old Detroit from the ROBOCOP movie .
**White-Gentile ethnic dominance was obviously objectionable to some American Jews, and it is not surprising that they played an enthusiastic part in undermining it; but they were not the sole, nor even the prime, movers in its downfall. It was replaced, from the 1960s on, by a different arrangement, characterized by racial guilt, shame, apology, and recompense, accompanied by heroic efforts at social engineering. **
Again, I don't really know what to make of this. Derb seems to think that a dismissive wave of the hand nullifies any fact-based argument he personally finds offensive. Thus Jews "were not the sole, nor even the prime, movers" in subversion of the Old Order because...well, they just weren't. (Frankly, there are any number of Americans who are still overly awed & bamboozled by mellifluous nonsense if spoken in a clipped British accent, and I think Derbyshire's has stuck many, many Anglophiles with the bar tab at last call.) What he kinda doesn't want to point out here is that those post-60s footsoldiers were made up of the kind of blacks who'd had David Horowitz as varsity coach, and white idealists who'd signed up for Prof Shimmelkorn's Sociology class after seeing THE PAWNBROKER and EXODUS and THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK and thinking themselves unutterably virtuous for being so moved by it all.
**Suppose the great post-1881 immigration of Ashkenazi Jews had never occurred. Suppose the Jewish population of the U.S. in 2003 were not the two to four per cent (depending on your definitions) that it is, but the 0.3 per cent it was at the start of the Civil War. Would anything have been lost? Would America be richer, or poorer? Would our cultural and intellectual life be busier, or duller? **
The wiesenheimer in me wants to say "then the mass media and institutions of influence in this country would be controlled by 0.3% of the population." This is Derb the snake-oil salesman here, offering the ol' all-or-nothing. If you don't want Jews controlling the spheres of influence in your homeland (and thus your daily life), then it stands to reason you favor the mass murder of all Jews. I also notice one other thing common to philosemites: they concentrate solely on certain aspects of Jewish influence- political activism, business, the law, medicine. Never is media, publishing & communications broached. Makes the defense attorney's job easier: your Honor, how in the world could a few dozen longhaired Commies, a couple hundred furriers & orthodontists, Bernard Baruch and Felix Frankfurter possibly hold 97% of the population under sway? It's an area even K-Mac treads lightly upon. But it's exactly the sort of offensively vulgar territory that the cartographers at VNN map out daily. Hey, there's no NICE way to count the Jews in a credit-scroll at the end of a film or tv program; if you mingle in polite society and suggest 'I know - let's turn on the tv and count how many non-whites we see in an hour, and in what context'...you ain't gettin' invited back. We're in a world of sht, kids, but you're never going to get any*where if you have to prove it without resorting to any references to guano.
The two things that really jump out at me in the above passage, though: one is the utter self-hatred and defeat of that sobbing, chest-heaving "where would we BE without our Jews?" As if, by 1950, society would've ground to a standstill since we'd have gone back to the Square Wheel by then...if we hadn't already been conquered by seafaring travellers brandishing Zippo lighters, thus becoming our new gods. Maybe Derbyshire is convinced a world without knishes and pornography and whiplash lawyers is a world not worth living in, but you wouldn't have to hard-sell me into buying a ticket - I'd take a chance.
The other is the identifying mark of the shabbas goy for at least the last 50 years: the tearful, makes-us-all-kin reminiscence of that First Encounter With A Jew being Irving Berlin's "White Christmas". Is there an echo in here? How many times must my heartstrings be plucked with this honest-to-God true story that about 200 gentile neocons ALL remember so clearly? I'd better go out and buy a Bing Crosby cd so I can play Junior THAT SONG before I turn out the Geraldo show and expose him to Prof Dershowitz for the first time! Far be it from me to break with so deeply Anglo a tradition....
**This is, after all, in the dictionary definition of the term, an antisemitic book. Its entire argument is that the Jews, collectively, are up to no good. This may of course be true, but given the well-known history of this topic, it seems singularly obtuse of MacDonald not to keep a jar of oil close at hand to spread on the troubled waters his work is bound to stir up. **
Perhaps THE BELL CURVE,or HATING WHITEY, might be similarly 'improved' by a pointed reminder, at the beginning and the end of the book, that while blacks are assaulting, raping and murdering the citizenry like there's no tomorrow**, boy can they dance and play the box-and-in! **
This is Derbyshire punishing K-Mac for lacking the fish-faced duplicity of...well, Derbyshire. "I don't care for Jews either, but you don't catch me putting a noose around my own neck saying it like that, dear boy. Diplomacy! Diplomacy's the key!"
I am not sure I could persuade less charitable souls that my interpretation is the correct one, and that there is not malice lurking behind MacDonald's elaborate sociological jargon. Who knows? Perhaps Catholic Celts have a "group evolutionary strategy," too. Are they still taught, in Sister Perpetua's Scripture class, that "the Jews killed Our Lord"?
THE most damning paragraph. Earth to Derb: the Jews killed Christ: they howled for his blood and hounded Pilate to make it so. Every other 'interpretation' is New Age spin. Certainly, no one upbraids the sons of Zion for maintaining a millenia-old hostility to the Arabs...yet for Christians to refuse to pretend the facts of the Crucifixion are somehow vague and unimportant is 'uncivilized'. Hmmmm. And you gotta love that "I am not sure I could persuade..." hand grenade at the top. Whether or not this book is true is less important that what the Jews who sign my checks will think. Their pleasure, or displeasure, trumps any value to be found in a trio of books addressing the present state, and the very future, of gentile civilization.
Remember "White Christmas"! Fight the good fight!
2003-02-28 13:54 | User Profile
Just as the mind is not designed to find truth, professional writers are not paid to tell it.
They are hired for their skill with words, and exceptional skill was required here to put the shot into the target.:ph34r:
Dislike the cause, but you have to admire the skill.
BTW- Get the Occidental Quarterly instead. No nifty pictures on the cover, but no obfuscation like the above either. :D
2003-02-28 15:37 | User Profile
**Never is media, publishing & communications broached. It's an area even K-Mac treads lightly upon. **
Correction: I now understand MacDonald's new preface discusses this at great length.
2003-02-28 16:21 | User Profile
**The full-scale assault on K-Mac is now underway. **
I'm not so sure.
Alike. And make no mistake, they have to torpedo MacDonald now....one too many citings of "The Culture of Critique" have dovetailed with the growing (and open) hostility to the War For Eretz Yisroel. Much to Zionist chagrin, the old 'pretend-it-never-happened' tactic re the K-Mac trilogy isn't working
I don't see the evidence of this. Can you elaborate on your observations?
2003-02-28 17:04 | User Profile
**It strikes me when MacDonald puts on his moralistic hat, he is taking off his scientific hat as an "empirical" evolutionary psychologist, and putting on his hat as a humanist. **
I do not sense what you sense. I think MacDonald maintains a detached and dispassionate tone at all times, with the possible exception of his discussion of S.J. Gould. Your inference of moral judgment may be a reflection of your own moral sense.
What passages strike you as exemplary of moralism?
2003-02-28 17:04 | User Profile
What I mean by that is not aboveground, Paris Review-type mentions, but anm ever-widening awareness and (I assume) sales of the books. The trilogy - dispassionate and scholarly - have been seized upon by ZOG's discontents (not just on OD but any number of venues) as part-validation, part-holy icon (in that here is a serious work that cannot be as easily dismissed as one of those secret-history type books more associated with Loompanics or similar guerilla-press publishers). The trilogy, particularly CoC, is not going away, and is not being dismissed as lunatic racist fantasy, either. Even its detractors have to attack it using a lot of "yes, but"s. And each new, higher-profile mention it gets centers it just that much more in Hymie's crosshairs.
MacDonald's testimony for the plaintiff at the Irving trial absolutely put him on the Zionist hit list (there were the usual calls for his professional head) but the growing profile of his books guarantees high-profile hatchet jobs are coming. Look....now John Derbyshire of NR - a popular writer, notan obscure academic - has written about the book in a manner that is guaranteed to enrage Jews and antiSemites for different reasons. The goy went first; the puck has been dropped. Now there is less to prevent a John Podhoretz or a Joe Farah from launching a full-scale attack, especially since they can shift their stance from Media Jewry Crushing Dissent to a sort of Chicken Little public service announcement, alerting the lemmingry to the 'danger' of Being Like Derb, momentarily swayed by the book's "evil logic" and "distortion of facts". Remember: they left Farrakhan alone for years until Screwy Louie started naming the Jew as loudly as possible to the biggest crowds he could muster.
Jewsare not going to allow the MacDonald Trilogy to be used as WN recruitment material, and the tone of Derb's review suggestr it's already successfully acquired that status. I look for Big Media to start hitting MacDonald and his work hard, in as public a manner as possible. Dan Pipes would be an excellent choice as his type of 'journalism' occasionally ends in the arrest of college professors, and always their harassment. We'll see.
2003-02-28 18:46 | User Profile
I understand, IR. But who among those in that circle of ever-widening awareness would be swayed by an attack on the book by the usual suspects? What would be the point? Anyone capable of appreciating the book's thesis would understand that such attacks themselves fall squarely within the culture of critique.
His testimony at the Irving trial prompted the Shulevitz article at Slate. I imagine that by now she has been told that she made an error in judgment.
I ran a quick search and found something vastly superior to what I had hoped to find regarding book sales figures:
[url=http://www.fonerbooks.com/surfing.htm]http://www.fonerbooks.com/surfing.htm[/url]
It would appear that Amazon is selling COC at a rate of 100 to 150 a year, and this is a marked improvement over two or three years ago. Amazon is not the only outlet, of course, and I would estimate that 1,000 to 5,000 copies have been sold to the public. I'm not sure of library sales, but the local university has PTSDA but not SAID or COC.
2003-02-28 19:27 | User Profile
I think Bill White is referring to a TAC article already discussed in the Culture Wars Forum here, originally appearing in The Last Ditch:
The TAC article Bill White refers to is not available online. It's an unsinged article on page 4 of the Feb. 24 issue, in the "Fourteen Days" section titled "Diversionary Arguments"
And, as White points out, it does read very much like Raimondo's writing style.
2003-02-28 19:48 | User Profile
I answer your question with another question. Since he has never ONCE said, "The Holocaust was a hoax/never happened/etc"....and his books were primarily of interest to historians & buffs [indeed, were reference sources for them!], why the long vicious slow-motion auto da fe of David Irving, culminating in the Lipstadt trial? Why the unconscionable mounting pressure on St Martin's to publicly disown him and drop the Goebbels property at the last minute?
You could offer any number of reasons, but for me the overriding one is because David Irving is an impeccable historian and his work reflected that. You can't pull a Leo on a David Irving, shout him down as a toothless Nazi pig.....they had to chip away, chip away, hit him high with ethical questions, authenticity questions, 'interpreting' his motives; but simultaneously hit him low with personal dirt and drag every minor behind-the-scenes squabble he'd ever had with anyone into the most lurid light possible....make him look bad before going full-tilt-boogie with the Leo stuff: "Jew hater", "Holocaust denier", etc....multiple attacks from multiple directions over a period of years. Hey, it takes time & effort to bring a good man down. Today, any yarmulked lout can bash away at Irving to his heart's content; there's nobody but Irving left to defend himself. I guarantee you that any major news-organization mention of him in the last 2 years has been as "Holocaust denier David Irving". I know, because I used to email all of these media outlets, pointing out that he'd never actually etc etc. Like spitting into the wind. They no longer care if it's true or not, he's on the DO NOT DEFEND WHEN ATTACKED list. And that's that.
Like Irving, K-Mac is very professional, very methodical, makes a very persuasive case: this isn't a Jack Chick pamphlet he's peddling. His trilogy is a work that - should it fall into the hands of an open-minded gentile reader with no previously discernible anti-Jew bias, is going to create a little. You're going to look at Jews with more explicit awareness of their Jewishness after reading MacDonald.
And that, my friend, is not Good For Jews and never has been. Pinchas Schmeckelstein doesn't become "Paul Sutherland" for a change of pace one fine day. I see parallels developing between MacDonald & Irving. If the Prof's as smart as he seems, he'll ignore his detractors; but I notice he's vowing to refute the Derbyshire review, point by point, in an update to his website. He may be doing that sort of thing full-time in a year or so.
2003-03-01 01:31 | User Profile
**OK, you got me Ruffin. I coudn't find it
Moderator request - please provide (yes - VNN) link.
Pretty Please?**
May I most humbly second that request? If Alex Linder hadnââ¬â¢t written favorably about O.D. on a number of occasions I would never have found my way here. Iââ¬â¢m grateful to him for leading the way. He was right, this is a very good forum.
VNN and O.D. are like Astaire and Rogers. He gives her class and she gives him pizzaz. Iââ¬â¢ll leave it to you to decide who gives what to whom.
Lots of potential Original Dissenters over there, too.
2003-03-01 01:41 | User Profile
Seq,
Go to the first page of this thread and find the post by Frederick William below Ruffin`s. The article, "The Jew Thing" is there.
2003-03-01 02:16 | User Profile
Go to the first page of this thread and find the post by Frederick William below Ruffin`s. The article, "The Jew Thing" is there
Sertorius,
Should I take this response to mean you won't even discuss the request fcr a VNN link, which I was only seconding in my post?
2003-03-01 02:19 | User Profile
I thought you didnt see the article.
2003-03-01 03:31 | User Profile
IR, Compare Prof.Kevin MacDonald to Prof.Arthur Butz,the author of "The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century".Both are tenured professors and both keep their non-course materials out of their classrooms.
2003-03-01 05:09 | User Profile
Originally posted by il ragno@Feb 28 2003, 11:04 ** Jews are not going to allow the MacDonald Trilogy to be used as WN recruitment material, and the tone of Derb's review suggestr it's already successfully acquired that status. I look for Big Media to start hitting MacDonald and his work hard, in as public a manner as possible. **
I seriously doubt it. If only a few thousand people have read it, the worst thing the jews could do is bring attention to the book, even negative attention. Myself, I first found VNN via someone mocking it--and OD through Linder mocking it. You can bet the jews know exactly how this works, as they're the people who promote behavior by bashing it in the media. The things they really want to disappear are generally not attacked, but left completely off the table.
Instead, I expect a shakedown of retailers selling MacDonald's books.
-D
2003-03-01 07:31 | User Profile
Originally posted by Drakmal@Mar 1 2003, 05:09 **I seriously doubt it. If only a few thousand people have read it, the worst thing the jews could do is bring attention to the book, even negative attention.....
Instead, I expect a shakedown of retailers selling MacDonald's books.
-D**
Basically I think you're right there. The silent treatment is the most common, but ocasionally they resort to "oh, no smart, withit person want's to read this silly old pap". That's why usually you find a media blackout over White-Nationalist books.
The exception we talked about was a not-too-distant attack on CoC in Salon magazine, which we agree was probably considered know to be a mistake on the reviewers part.
2003-03-01 08:29 | User Profile
Originally posted by mwdallas@Feb 28 2003, 17:04 > It strikes me when MacDonald puts on his moralistic hat, he is taking off his scientific hat as an "empirical" evolutionary psychologist, and putting on his hat as a humanist. **
I do not sense what you sense. I think MacDonald maintains a detached and dispassionate tone at all times, with the possible exception of his discussion of S.J. Gould. Your inference of moral judgment may be a reflection of your own moral sense.
What passages strike you as exemplary of moralism?**
Well one passage in particular stand out > . Although many intellectuals continue to attempt to alter fundamental Western tendencies toward assimilation, muted individualism, and hierarchic harmony, there is a real possibility that these Western ideals are not only more achievable but also profoundly ethical**. Uniquely among all stratified cultures of the world, prototypical Western societies have provided the combination of a genuine sense of belonging, a large measure of access to reproductive opportunities, and the political participation of all social classes combined with the possibilities of meritocratic upward social mobility. **
I may be jumping the gun, but don't you get some sense from passages such as this that MacDonald is not just speaking as a dispassionate scientist predicting the future evolution of societies and their respective moral systems, but actually wants western society and its certain brand of ethicism to truimph?
Of course, in part that is the inherent ambivalence of the social scientist mind studying human subjects, between the objectivity needed to interpret his results, and the basic empathy that is necessary to work with human research subjects. And I do feel this at work in MacDonald's writings. I suppose it is necessary for him to do his work - a certain unscientific passion and personal objectivity toward his work. Scientific work must be directed toward productive ends - not just mere fetishism of facts (oops - an Adornoism has crept up on me :lol: )
In any sense, the last chapter of CoC is full of various commentary regarding the tendencies of various ideologies toward moral judgement. I count 18 uses of that word or forms of it in the last chapter alone. Most of it of course is in the more dispassionate, or critical commentary on various ideologies moral content. But it is there. I'm sure evolutionary psychology has a theory on moral systems, but I'm sure each researcher has his own particular ambivalences. Its the nature of the work.
2003-03-01 11:08 | User Profile
**The things they really want to disappear are generally not attacked, but left completely off the table.
Instead, I expect a shakedown of retailers selling MacDonald's books.**
Drak, that had occurred to me; were this 1983, you'd be right and we'd be reading the trilogy in mimeographed-pamphlet form. If at all. It was also a time where, ifyou lived in a town without three or four well-stocked booksellers, you were generally out of luck and had to go via mail-order.
But one of the lesser-known benefits of living in the Internet Age is its fragmentation of the old mass-media distribution system. Though the monolithic corporate imprints of course still exist, they're starting to resemble dinosaurs catching their first and only cold these days. No, you probably can't achieve Top-10 sales yet by pulling an end-around past the ZOG publishing houses, but you can get your product into more people's hands now, with fewer hoops to jump through. (You might even earn a little dosh while you're at it.)
Living as we are in a world where anyone who wants a book by K-Mac, Duke, Shahak, Evola, Devi, etc can get it with no more effort than a mouse-click (and worse yet for ZOG...can find it without rummaging through stacks and stacks of books, or bookstore after bookstore), I think the Beast's hands are tied as far as SUPPRESSING unpopular books. So the focus must necessarily be shifted to attacking/discrediting.
Incidentally, in the old days, the court of last resort would've been harassing retailers. It's too public a method, and too ineffective besides. The sneakier way to freeze a book out of the marketplace was to harass and pressure DISTRIBUTORS, the lowest-profile link in the chain of book-publishing but the most vital (ie, you can't sell what they haven't shipped to your store).
One last sidebar: though booksellers like Amazon watch reader-review content very carefully, they will certainly post them for WN/paleo books so long as you practice restraint. And one of the best methods for spreading the word to fence-sitters is - as MWDallas has pointed out to me - writing reviews and/or judiciously assembling an Amazon 'listmania' list (you're allowed up to 25 hyperlinks to similar or related work, as well as a sentence or two to concisely describe the item in question). In either case, a mouse-click will take you to the full 'file' of that reader's reviews/lists. I find myself using them constantly as dowsing rods pointing out work I might otherwise have missed, or passed up. A couple of excellent examples:
[url=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/3TPA12MD47ARH/qid=1046513243/sr=5-1/ref=sr_5_1/102-1656074-8926527]http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listm...1656074-8926527[/url]
(believe this guy's an OD regular already)
[url=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/cm/member-reviews/-/A2VQC817BT8H32/1/ref=cm_cr_auth/102-1656074-8926527]http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/cm/me...1656074-8926527[/url]
There are others, of course, this is just an illustration. What I find most refreshing is how many of the positive reviews for MacDonald, Shahak, John Sack, Paul Findlay, etc are written by non-ideologues. You click this or that name and find mostly reviews for all sorts of books/movies/cds, good and bad, obscure and well-known: to me, this is a sign of hope, because it says that the truth is reaching everyday people not otherwise consumed with politics and WW2 revisionism, who have a wide range of interests. It indicates that there are many, many more people sick to death of being spoonfed Jewish-"victim"-worship by media oligarchs (and who realize this is exactly what's happening) than the standard information outlets will ever acknowledge. And these are the exact types of people we will need if we're ever to regain our sovereignty, free of ZOG's heavy hand.
2003-03-01 15:34 | User Profile
Originally posted by Frederick William I@Mar 1 2003, 02:29 Well one passage in particular stands out > . Although many intellectuals continue to attempt to alter fundamental Western tendencies toward assimilation, muted individualism, and hierarchic harmony, there is a real possibility that these Western ideals are not only more achievable but also profoundly ethical. Uniquely among all stratified cultures of the world, prototypical Western societies have provided the combination of a genuine sense of belonging, a large measure of access to reproductive opportunities, and the political participation of all social classes combined with the possibilities of meritocratic upward social mobility. **
I may be jumping the gun, but don't you get some sense from passages such as this that MacDonald is not just speaking as a dispassionate scientist predicting the future evolution of societies and their respective moral systems, but actually wants western society and its certain brand of ethicism to triumph?**
In a previous post, FWI inquired about the Neo-Nietzschean perspective on KM's "moralizing" - and it appears that the issue of slavish moralizing (which arouses the ire of all good Nietzscheans) does not arise in Der Fall MacDonald. But KM does seem to have a distinctive take on Western temperament and culture, born of selective emphasis and failure to take account of factors involving political economy in which he is not instructed. The Faustian Pact with institutionalized Christianity during the West's first millenium, for example, formed and deformed the foundation upon which the present arrangement with Jewry rests, and the Western expansion into the New World also introduced a deformative element into Western evolution of which MacDonald does not take proper account in divining and defining that which is of the essence.
2003-03-01 16:06 | User Profile
I would offer, as against MacDonald's assessment, a picture of Western Man as possessed of a technical acuity burdened by philosophical fatuity. Think of a tribe composed of juvenile delinquents and techno-nerds fallen under the influence of Alice Cooper, Ozzy Osbourne, Marilyn Manson, and Mother Theresa.
2003-03-01 22:50 | User Profile
Interesting addition to this thread.
[url=http://www.praguepost.com/P03/2003/Art/0226/news6.php]http://www.praguepost.com/P03/2003/Art/0226/news6.php[/url] [SIZE=3] Author accused of anti-Semitism [/SIZE] Critics compare book to Mein Kampf, say it could encourage racists By Mindy Kay Bricker
Staff Writer
The Prague Post
(February 26, 2003)
Last summer, the Supreme Court ruled that the publication of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf could not be banned.
Now, a new book that some have decried as anti-Semitic has sparked a new legal battle.
Within two weeks of the mid-February release of Petr Bakalar's Taboos in Social Sciences, a lawsuit was filed to halt the book's publication. Critics have denounced the work as racist propaganda.
"It seems to be more dangerous than the publication of Hitler's Mein Kampf," said Tomas Jelinek, chairman of the Prague Jewish Community. He said the book could become a manual for Czech racists and anti-Semites.
The 300-page book, which is presented as scholarly research with about 400 footnotes, describes theories purporting that levels of human intelligence are based on race and ethnicity.
The book "tries to bring new arguments about the influence of the Jews in the world and about the role of Jews in undermining the role of Christian societies," Jelinek said.
"As a citizen of the Czech Republic, I found many arguments in the book outrageous, and I don't understand the scientific methodology of the book," he added. "What was it that he wanted to prove? What was it that he wanted to say?"
Brisk sales
**Olomouc-based publishing house Votobia printed 4,500 copies. It does not plan to translate the book for sale in other countries. Within one week, 4,000 copies were sold. **
"The book is dangerous because it appears as scientific work. And its form corresponds to it," said Prague sociologist Tomas Kamin, who filed a lawsuit against Bakalar.
The lawsuit is based on paragraph 260 of the penal code. The paragraph states: "Someone who supports or promotes a movement that explicitly aids the suppression of the rights of man or promotes ethnic, religious, nationalist or class hatred against some person will be punished by one to five years in prison."
"The author has only chosen quotations from specific sources so that they correspond to his objective. And his goal, in my view, is to present racist and anti-Semitic views," Kamin said.
Bakalar, 33, rejects the racist label.
"I state in the book that Mongoloids [peoples of East Asia and the indigenous peoples of the Americas] have the highest IQ, so I'm not a white supremacist," he said.
In his book, Bakalar concludes that Eastern European Jews have higher IQs than other Eastern Europeans. He reasons that concentration camps created a "survival-of-the-fittest" atmosphere -- those who were more intelligent either escaped or were able to survive in the camps, he said.
"You can't even say [Jews] have high IQs -- that is anti-Semitic," he said. "You can write about Jewish suffering, but you can't write about, or analyze, the reason why so many people were against them. The main reason was economic competition."
Bakalar also says that the number of Jews working in the American entertainment industry, media and academia support his theory.
He said Eastern European Jews have an average IQ of 115. Other Eastern Europeans test at 100.
[LSN: That statement right there is so demonstrably untrue as to be ridiculous. Even folk who make the false claim that "Jews have higher IQs" -- which is untrue and based upon fraudulently methodology in the three or so studies that have found it -- don't claim their IQ is one sigma higher. :-> ]
Bakalar said his work has been criticized because he focused much of his work on Jews. If he had written The Psychology of Gypsies, he said, "I probably would not have such controversy."
Reaction anticipated
Petr Jungling, owner of Votobia, said he anticipated the negative responses. "I read it and, of course, I don't agree that it is racist," he said.
Since its publication, the book has received positive feedback, Jungling said. "I think that the situation on the Czech book market is very conformist," he said.
Jungling and Bakalar said they wanted to break taboos that would prompt discussions that are not socially acceptable.
"I couldn't find any other topics that would be hotter than this," Bakalar said during an interview in his Mala Strana flat, a home that he jokes will be a museum one day.
"Of course, I had in mind that people would be outraged and [the book would be] analyzed by experts," he said.
"But they are just facts. I didn't have, and I don't have, any censorship."
Bakalar said that he is open to criticism.
"Everybody can make mistakes. That is not a sin -- if you show me mistakes in the book -- it's not the Bible -- I will correct them. But nobody will show me. I think the main concept stands."
"The motivation of many endeavors is boredom, and I was bored by the conventional psychological authorities and the political correctness," he said.
"Political correctness and science cannot go together."
What I foresee for the MacDonald trilogy if it continues to grow in popularity....
2003-03-02 00:20 | User Profile
** Think of a tribe composed of juvenile delinquents and techno-nerds fallen under the influence of Alice Cooper, Ozzy Osbourne, Marilyn Manson, and Mother Theresa. **
Don't forget Stevie Ray Vaughan!
2003-03-02 01:00 | User Profile
Originally posted by wintermute@Mar 1 2003, 17:34 **I do not understand how Western expansion into the New World 'introduced a deformative Element'. Certainly the means of Imperialism under Christian Europe is quite different than that practiced by Rome - but this would be more 'deformative' for the societies encountered - not our own. Do you mean the wealth extracted from the New World, or was there some other deformative element present?
Wintermute**
Some other element. Which was a release of demographic pressures such as to perpetually frustrate the consummation of Western political and cultural evolution in Imperium on the classic pattern. World-wide English colonialism, in particular, reinforced contrary (classical) liberal tendencies and influence by virtue of granting an ever-present resource frontier to the expanding economic regimes of the day, which required such for their material maintenance and moral justification. The "Contending" European states were repeatedly frustrated by this same England which thus never came to the point of being driven to make its own attempt at pan-European hegemony, following the Spanish/Hapsburg and Napoleonic French efforts. Hitler's later measures, of course, met the same fundamental obstacle which he had long hoped and planned to avoid.
2003-03-02 01:07 | User Profile
Originally posted by il ragno@Mar 1 2003, 18:20 **> ** Think of a tribe composed of juvenile delinquents and techno-nerds fallen under the influence of Alice Cooper, Ozzy Osbourne, Marilyn Manson, and Mother Theresa. **
Don't forget Stevie Ray Vaughan!**
Stevie Ray will never be forgotten.
We have the "Live from Austin Texas" DVD in the player right now.
Can't beat Western Culture.
2003-03-02 01:54 | User Profile
Originally posted by wintermute@Mar 1 2003, 23:34 > The Faustian Pact with institutionalized Christianity during the West's first millenium, for example, formed and deformed the foundation upon which the present arrangement with Jewry rests, and the Western expansion into the New World also introduced a deformative element into Western evolution of which MacDonald does not take proper account in divining and defining that which is of the essence. ** **
I just have to comment here on the linguistic irony of atheists using the term "Faustian Pact". You criticize Christianity in terms and methodology which are irredeemably Christian.
**I think I follow this, but require a few clarifications. I agree that the 'Faustian' pact did deform Western Culture, and in addition, was a eugenic disaster, since it enforced celibacy on a majority of the literate, in a relatively small population, over a period of a thousand years. We'd have at least the 115 IQ of Ashkenazi Jewry without Holy Mother Church. **
Firstly, and this admittedly is a view tinged by Protestantism, but one can make a good argument that the changes introduced in Christianity throughout the years by Catholicism represented, not something intrinsic to Christianity, but a gradual adoption of themes and categories from Judaism, and one who's consequences represented a heresy foreseen and bitterly fought by the earliest Christians. See for instance the book of Galations on the Judaizers and II Timothy on mandatory celibacy.
**I also agree that Christianity prevents any realistic grappling with the Jewish problem. Many here might offer the example of Edward or Isabella, but I would counter that these soverigns were acting under the most extreme duress imaginable, and that the general cultural conditioning provided by Christiantiy makes certain that Jews will be back. For every Edward there is a Cromwell, who not only facilitated the physical entry of Jews, but was a Judaizer of culture as well.
**
You certainly won't find this feeling in any Jewish work on their history, or in the works of MacDonald. For both, medieval Christianity was a collectivistic culture that universally rejected the legitimacy of Judaism theologically and strongly contrained it politically.
For the same reason both credit the emancipation of the Jews entirely with the enlightenment, i.e. the decline of the temporal power of Christianity.
2003-03-02 02:31 | User Profile
I saw this BTW and cross posted it. See they've heard about us over at LP! :P
**Well, Derbyshire has written an article that really stands out. His real character and courage shine for all to see! Conservatives like Derbyshire and others at the "National Review" give me lots to think about.....
There is something you should know: there is a site that has alot of very anti-Jewish stuff on it, probably even more than Liberty Forum---that site is Original Dissent. Over there, they like this MacDonald guy. **
[url=http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readarticle.cgi?113+11146+0+1]Squinty Pat and Tacky Taki Take on MacDonald - And Lose (Liberty Post)[/url]
2003-03-02 02:42 | User Profile
Originally posted by Okiereddust@Mar 1 2003, 19:31 I saw this BTW and cross posted it. See they've heard about us over at LP! :P
Okie,
Are those people, like plainsman, for real or are they parodies? :blink:
2003-03-02 02:58 | User Profile
Originally posted by madrussian@Mar 2 2003, 02:42 > Originally posted by Okiereddust@Mar 1 2003, 19:31 I saw this BTW and cross posted it.ÃÂ See they've heard about us over at LP! :P**
Okie,
Are those people, like plainsman, for real or are they parodies? :blink:**
Who knows? NewFork thinks I'm a parody :D
**Flag to: John Deere
Is Okiereddust an alter ego of JustStopIt and texoma?** [url=http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=news_international&Number=471512&Forum=All_Forums&Words=Okiereddust&Match=Username&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Old=allposts&Main=470589#Post471512]Liberty Forum[/url]
2003-03-02 03:32 | User Profile
Madrussian- plainsman is definitely posting a parody. I found it quite amusing, myself, hell, even weikel thought it was witty.
2003-03-02 03:43 | User Profile
Originally posted by Phillip Augustus@Mar 2 2003, 03:32 Madrussian- plainsman is definitely posting a parody. I found it quite amusing, myself, hell, even weikel thought it was witty.
Parody of what? Sounds like a Palo Verde clone to me.
Liberty Post attracts on odd mix - a lot of people not unlike Palo Verde IMO. People who got out of FR not really because they were much different than JR ideologically, but just because he's too mean, and FR isn't fun anymore.
A lot of types like Arator, JJbrouwer, etc. If FR is for the neocons and the shallow, LP sometimes seems like its for those too shallow to be neocons.
2003-03-02 05:35 | User Profile
Awright....which one of you guys is "plainsman"? Cause that guy's an OD'er for sure!
2003-03-02 06:28 | User Profile
Originally posted by il ragno@Mar 2 2003, 05:35 Awright....which one of you guys is "plainsman"? Cause that guy's an OD'er for sure!
Will the real plainsman please - don't sit up. Stay low. You're doing a good job.
We in fact could use a few more plainsman over at Free Republic. Stir up some excitement. Warn people about that "dangerous" OD site, and how they had better stay away from there. Maybe even stir up a little FR brouhaha. Accuse some of the members and even moderators of being secret OD spies and provoceteurs.
Well we don't really have time for that, but we can always dream ;)
2003-03-02 13:13 | User Profile
Originally posted by Frederick William I@Mar 1 2003, 19:54 **...one can make a good argument that the changes introduced in Christianity throughout the years by Catholicism represented, not something intrinsic to Christianity, but a gradual adoption of themes and categories from Judaism, and one whose consequences represented a heresy foreseen and bitterly fought by the earliest Christians.ÃÂ
...medieval Christianity was a collectivistic culture that universally rejected the legitimacy of Judaism theologically and strongly constrained it politically.**
:huh:
2003-03-02 19:11 | User Profile
Originally posted by il ragno@Mar 1 2003, 05:08 Living as we are in a world where anyone who wants a book by K-Mac, Duke, Shahak, Evola, Devi, etc can get it with no more effort than a mouse-click (and worse yet for ZOG...can find it without rummaging through stacks and stacks of books, or bookstore after bookstore), I think the Beast's hands are tied as far as SUPPRESSING unpopular books. So the focus must necessarily be shifted to attacking/discrediting.
I agree with you that it's difficult to completely suppress unpopular books nowadays. But if you were a strategist for world jewry, which do you think would be a better tack: publicly attacking MacDonald and his books and thus arousing a lot of curious interest in what it is that's so awful about them, or pressuring the bigger retailers like Amazon and B&N (and maybe the distributors of the book) into not carrying them? Sure, people who really wanted the books could import them from a small Internet-based dealer in Japan or something, but without a ton of publicity, who would know about them but people already sympathetic to what they say?
K-Mac's (boy that sounds like a gang name :P) critics have already lost the intellectual battle; all they can do now is damage control. Bringing added publicity to scholarly works critical of you is not damage control, at least not as long as its sales are only in the thousands.
Drakmal
2003-03-02 22:06 | User Profile
Originally posted by Drakmal@Mar 2 2003, 19:11 ** K-Mac's (boy that sounds like a gang name :P) critics have already lost the intellectual battle; all they can do now is damage control. **
Yes indeedy but which damage?
CofC has two themes that focus the mind wonderfully. The first (stated) theme is "Jewish evolutionary strategy" which is all anyone discusses.
The second (a subtext louder than the main thesis) is the lousiness and vulnerability of Western nations to Jewish manipulation. For my money K-Mac basically uses "Jews" as a plot device; his real subject is non-Jew ineptitude.
Given that, the job of K-Mac's critics might be harder than we think. It makes sense to attack CofC as antisemetic to keep people from reading it too closely -- because when they do, they realize the book is far more "anti-gentile" if read the right way.
And once read the right way it becomes a guide to action. That makes it a thorny problem for critics, IMO.
2003-03-02 22:46 | User Profile
Originally posted by NeoNietzsche@Mar 2 2003, 13:13 > Originally posted by Frederick William I@Mar 1 2003, 19:54 ...one can make a good argument that the changes introduced in Christianity throughout the years by Catholicism represented, not something intrinsic to Christianity, but a gradual adoption of themes and categories from Judaism, and one whose consequences represented a heresy foreseen and bitterly fought by the earliest Christians.ÃÂ
...medieval Christianity was a collectivistic culture that universally rejected the legitimacy of Judaism theologically and strongly constrained it politically.**
:huh:**
Uh-huh. I'm not sure what you're specific question is, but your consistent hostility to Christianity as leading invariably to philo-semitism is rebutted rather completely by Chapter 4, "Reactive Anti-Semitism In the Medieval Era" , in Kevin MacDonald's Separation and Its Discontents (SAID).
2003-03-02 23:12 | User Profile
The second (a subtext louder than the main thesis) is the lousiness and vulnerability of Western nations to Jewish manipulation. For my money K-Mac basically uses "Jews" as a plot device; his real subject is non-Jew ineptitude.
Except "ineptitude" is not the right word. "Susceptibility" might work, though.
Any study of parasitism involves study of the parasite and the host.
2003-03-02 23:52 | User Profile
Originally posted by Phillip Augustus@Mar 1 2003, 20:32 Madrussian- plainsman is definitely posting a parody. I found it quite amusing, myself, hell, even weikel thought it was witty.
The scary part that the real thing is even more extreme and whacky. That Elie Wiesel FR thread was something.
2003-03-02 23:55 | User Profile
Originally posted by Frederick William I@Mar 2 2003, 15:46 Uh-huh. I'm not sure what you're specific question is, but your consistent hostility to Christianity as leading invariably to philo-semitism is rebutted rather completely by Chapter 4, "Reactive Anti-Semitism In the Medieval Era" , in Kevin MacDonald's Separation and Its Discontents (SAID).
It's apparent that there was no philo-semitism in traditional churches in the Old World. Americans may have never known the traditional church in the last few decades and may be poisoned by the Judaeo-Christianity schlock, but the traditional Christianity is a rejection of the Pharisees.
2003-03-02 23:57 | User Profile
The ad of OD was the only thing that gave plainsman away.
2003-03-03 02:47 | User Profile
Originally posted by wintermute@Mar 3 2003, 01:23 > Christians began many a war of extermination against their own heretics while leaving Jews in peace. St. Thomas Aquinas insisted that Jews were not to be attacked at the same time that he defended the bloody extirpation of heretics in Provence.1 The religious wars of the 17th century wiped out more than half the German-speaking population of Europe, but left the Jews in peace.**
More than half the German speaking population. I smell YHVH all over that..........
The above quote is from a modern Jewish disciple of Franz Rosenzweig, a major theologian of the rabbinical persuasion. **
Well you are starting to play a shell-game with history. Who attacked who, and were there any gentiles attacked while Jews were not - this thereby demonstrates Christianity's - Philosemitism. If not susceptiblity to Jewish intrique and subversion - obviously not only the thirty years war, but every war ever undertaken by Christian Europe must have been at the behest of the Jews. Yeah right.
Medieval Christianity tolerated Jews to some extent, and did not destroy them. Is this per se demonstration of their love of the Jews? Neusner and Rosensweig certainly aren't saying that.
Different beliefs can pragmatically and opportunisticaly work with each other, without fundamentally changing in their nature regarding their hostility to one another. It is historically inaccurate to focus on occasional examples of tolerance and cooperation as evidence of fundamental change.
I could for instance, by the same token, say since you are now quoting Jewish theologians that obviously makes you a semitophile and agent of the ADL and Mossad! :lol:
**I'm very interested in the two statements that NN brought up - you claim on the one hand that
**...one can make a good argument that the changes introduced in Christianity throughout the years by Catholicism represented, not something intrinsic to Christianity, but a gradual adoption of themes and categories from Judaism, and one whose consequences represented a heresy foreseen and bitterly fought by the earliest Christians. **
Well, this must be the medieval Christianity spoken of by K-Mac in his infamous Chapter 4, a "collectivistic culture that universally rejected the legitimacy of Judaism theologically and strongly constrained it politically. " Our people call it Catholicism. You claim that it represents an "adoption of themes and categories from Judaism", and add that it is a "heresy foreseen and bitterly fought by the earliest Christians." And yet it "universally rejected the legitimacy of Judaism . . . and constrained it". Which is it? I note, in passing, that Judaisizing strands in Calvin and Luther go unmentioned.**
Yes, I can't mention everything. And I raise it as a possibility, but I'll decline getting into detail at this time with you putative experts on the history of Christianity, and how "because they never exterminated the Jews they must have been its dupes and stooges" arguments.
Our website is still up. I suppose this might nean you presume TD has become a Mossad agent. Except you're still well and web-surfing too, and you're the one who's started to quote Jewish theologians.
When do you take your Bar Mitzvah? :lol:
> Uh-huh. I'm not sure what you're specific question is, but your consistent hostility to Christianity as leading invariably to philo-semitism is rebutted rather completely by Chapter 4, "Reactive Anti-Semitism In the Medieval Era" , in Kevin MacDonald's Separation and Its Discontents (SAID). **
Compare with
[list] [*] As Jacob Neusner observes, Judaism survived in the Christian world not only because Jews chose to remain Jewish, but also because Christianity chose to permit it to survive.
[*]Christians began many a war of extermination against their own heretics while leaving Jews in peace.
[*] St. Thomas Aquinas insisted that Jews were not to be attacked at the same time that he defended the bloody extirpation of heretics in Provence.
[] The religious wars of the 17th century wiped out more than half the German-speaking population of Europe, but left the Jews in peace. [/list]*
Hmm....MacDonald does tend to agree with a lot of Jewish historians who constantluy moan over the horrible tratment they received at trhe had of Christianity over the years. Does this make MacDonald a philosemite too?
I'm not sure how much time I have to read long books on the history of Jews and medieval Christianity. Or comape and contrast MacDonald and Neusner. I can just point to the rather large defects in your overall methodology of the study of history and tendency to jump to ad hocconclusions.
**Rosenzweig is an interesting theologan. I'll be posting more from him presently.
Wintermute**
Should we be start putting "paid B'nai B'rth advertisement" on all your posts? :lol:
2003-03-03 14:20 | User Profile
Originally posted by Frederick William I@Mar 2 2003, 16:46 > Originally posted by NeoNietzsche@Mar 2 2003, 13:13 > Originally posted by Frederick William I@Mar 1 2003, 19:54 **...one can make a good argument that the changes introduced in Christianity throughout the years by Catholicism represented, not something intrinsic to Christianity, but a gradual adoption of themes and categories from Judaism, and one whose consequences represented a heresy foreseen and bitterly fought by the earliest Christians.ÃÂ
...medieval Christianity was a collectivistic culture that universally rejected the legitimacy of Judaism theologically and strongly constrained it politically.**
:huh:**
Uh-huh. I'm not sure what you're specific question is, but your consistent hostility to Christianity as leading invariably to philo-semitism is rebutted rather completely by Chapter 4, "Reactive Anti-Semitism In the Medieval Era" , in Kevin MacDonald's Separation and Its Discontents (SAID).**
1) Wintermute has already given explicit form to the obvious question, "Which is it?".
2) My "consistent hostility to Christianity as leading invariably to philo-Semitism" cries out for an illustrative quotation from my contributions, since I can recall no such thought or word from myself. My position has been one of opposition to the universalism and slavishness of Christianity which immediately lend themselves to a grant of authority to global claims for "justice" from "victims". Much support for foreign policy fatuities has and does now issue from successful appeals to implicit belief in the universal "Brotherhood of Man" and in the explicit priority of those who are owed defense from and compensation for "crimes against humanity". That the "humanists" may be more forward in the promotion of these dispositions merely highlights the unfortunate hypocrisy of the Christian position, wherein the Christian, at best, protests his non-involvement in issues surrounding foreign conflict, but cannot affirmatively resist the measures which the humanists pursue in the name of "morality".
2003-03-03 14:37 | User Profile
Except "ineptitude" is not the right word. "Susceptibility" might work, though.
Perhaps "inherent vulnerability" is the phrase being sought. In which case....then what?
2003-03-03 14:43 | User Profile
**If you were a strategist for world jewry, which do you think would be a better tack: publicly attacking MacDonald and his books and thus arousing a lot of curious interest in what it is that's so awful about them, or pressuring the bigger retailers like Amazon and B&N (and maybe the distributors of the book) into not carrying them? **
A. It worked on David Irving, and beautifully. And Irving's books contain far less-inflammatory ideas in them.
B. Only one way to pressure retailers/distributors/publishers into NOT carrying/distributing/publishing something. And that's a public campaign of demonization. That helps the retailers/distributors/publishers garner public praise for their cowardice,should they cave.
2003-03-03 21:00 | User Profile
A relevant fact that Derbyshire failed to include in this piece is that he is married to a Chinese and has mixed-race children, like TAC editor Scott McConnell (called McCegenator by VNN).
2003-03-03 21:03 | User Profile
Originally posted by il ragno@Mar 3 2003, 08:43 ** B. Only one way to pressure retailers/distributors/publishers into NOT carrying/distributing/publishing something. And that's a public campaign of demonization. **
... Or the threat of a public campaign of demonization. ;)
You may be right, though; the whole suppression angle is starting to look ever more complex.
2003-03-03 22:28 | User Profile
"Awright....which one of you guys is "plainsman"? Cause that guy's an OD'er for sure!"
I confess! I confess!
I am the plainsman.
Was trying my hand at parody and thought maybe would interest someone over there in this site.
I see that my literary efforts won me some acclaim, though the madrussian threw cold water on my effort.
For the record, I think this is the best site around. I am a white nationalist. My experience on the Free Republic (which lasted about 10 minutes) helped-- I just cannot get the hang of kissing a--, though I have on occasion, tried.
BTW, I think it was you or someone here who mentioned Julius Evola. Have been reading "Meditations on the Peaks."
Thanks! This is a very interesting work.
Keep up the good work!.
2003-03-03 22:46 | User Profile
Wasn't I. Actually, Evola's most vocal champion has been Bill White of OVERTHROW.COM...although there are plenty of erudite folks here who might have recommended him to you as well.
2003-03-04 08:03 | User Profile
**Seems to me that Mr. McConnell is the swing vote here, and where future efforts should be directed. Anyone have his email address? **
I've got a better idea. Everyone on this board who subscribes to TAC should be getting a renewal notice soon, since that 16-issue inaugural deal has almost run its course.
Vote with your dollars. Send back the renewal notice with a letter of why you believe TAC is not an authentic voice of dissent and why you're not renewing your subscription. I just did the same with Chronicles. If you're going to renew anyhow, at least tuck a note in and tell the editors that you're putting the mag on probation, and if things don't improve this will be your last renewal.
The fact that they run ads for (neocon) Anne Coulter's book and WorldNetDaily was bad enough. No Sobran and only some book review by Francis was worse. And I don't mean the PC Sobran stuff that LewRockwell.com runs....I mean the raw, uncut articles that need to be seen.
Take the money you saved on a TAC subscription and spend it on a postal copy of Joe Sobran's newsletter or some other America-Firster's work that merits your money.
2003-03-04 10:41 | User Profile
Originally posted by Centinel@Mar 4 2003, 08:03 > Seems to me that Mr. McConnell is the swing vote here, and where future efforts should be directed. Anyone have his email address? **
The fact that they run ads for (neocon) Anne Coulter's book and WorldNetDaily was bad enough. No Sobran and only some book review by Francis was worse. And I don't mean the PC Sobran stuff that LewRockwell.com runs....I mean the raw, uncut articles that need to be seen.
**
I dunno. You're still whining about those Anne Coulter ads.
American Conservative seems to have taken off on a moderate VDARE type course for now. Its writers are VDAREers, with the emphasis on moderate. Scott McConnell has spent his life working with neocons, and is an expert it would seem in going around them rather over them. That was a choice on their part. Maybe they figured the Spotlight/American Free Press niche was already full. (If you complain about TAC I'd think you better subscribe to American Free Press to show you're not just a complainer.)
We can pick on TAC, but let's remember Lew Rockwell doesn't carry Sobran either. That speech at the IHR has really hurt him I'm sure. Plus now he's gone wacky and become anarchist anyway.
TAC is trying to put some ground between itself and Chronicles. I don't know if it will be successful - I'm still fairly happy with Chronicles myself. And I'd advise against not being too picky. How many of us take newspapers and subscribe to TV channels which are utterly worthless? Yet we all whine about relatively trivial paleo matters.
I like the e-mail better. People do read these things, and if you try not to sound to whacky or picky, often take their mail into serious consideration. You have more weight as a subscriber.
2003-03-04 11:57 | User Profile
Where's Joe Sobran? I mean, the new paper is set up to be a 'real' conservative voice, as opposed to outfits like National Review, where a thoughtful, intelligent columnist like Sobran couldn't get a hearing - not after Buckley's bowels had been set aquivering by dictats from the Pod.
Funny you should bring that up. The other day, I'd sent a letter to VNN on much this same topic, which oddly enough they DIDN"T print. Anyway, since I don't believe in throwing anything out...ever!.... here it is:
2/28/03
An aside to VNNers convinced that John Derbyshire secretly sides with us but toes the line out of fear of the 10-5-Ws. I don't doubt the fear may be real....it's the "secretly-agrees" bit that plays as purest jaboney.
Go check out the Derb's gagworthy sonnet to Semitism, "The Jews and I" at
[url=http://www.nationalreview.com/derbyshire/derbyshire041001.shtml]http://www.nationalreview.com/derbyshire/d...ire041001.shtml[/url]
but be sure to read it on an empty stomach. A few choice snippets follow.
Pathological refusal to name the Jew even when naming the Jew!:
I have already outraged devotees of the proposition that anyone who makes the merest remark about the Jews that is not absolutely, irreproachably positive, is secretly plotting to massacre them. I acknowledge this with a resigned sigh. One thing you learn, writing for the public, is that anything whatsoever that you say about the Jews will be seen as virulently antisemitic to somebody, somewhere.
"Somebody"....Jewish perhaps? Nahhh. Here, on suckpoopery as a British pastime:
English philosemitism has continued in a direct line of descent since [Cromwell's time], enlisting such notable figures as Sir Walter Scott, Queen Victoria, Charles Dickens, George Meredith, David Lloyd George, and Margaret Thatcher. Most Americans would consider it a wonderful and striking thing if a Jew were to be elected president of these United States. Pooh: We Brits had Benjamin Disraeli as Prime Minister 133 years ago. (Yes, I know, his father took the whole family to Christianity when Benjamin was 13. But Dizzy was born a Jew.)
Here, a youthful vignette - Derb exhibiting his special gift for felchery at an early age:
**One evening, someone asked (the Jew Kellerman) for an opinion on Proust, he shook his head and gave a firm "No!" Why? we asked. Replied Martin, in his heavy German accent salted with British slang: "Because I do not like poofs. Und I especially do not like Chewish poofs. It is against nature, und against my religion." I have never since felt the slightest urge to read Proust. **
THIS is the guy who knows but won't tell? I direct you to the essay's kiss-off:
**I am proud to call myself a philosemite; at the very least, an anti-antisemite. I recall the numberless kindnesses that I have received at the hands of Jews, friendships I treasure and lessons I have learnt. I cherish those recollections. As a keen reader of history, I also stand in awe of the sheer staying power of the Jews. What an astounding story theirs is!ÃÂ A peaceful, healthy and happy Passover to each and every one of them. L'chaim! **
I'm at a loss to see how anyone could possibly believe for a second that THIS man could harbor any understanding of Who Owns America...or would give a #!@% if he did. This isn't the work of someone in fear of the Jews as much as of someone in thrall to them. Emailing him a Nazigram's a complete waste of time.
The real question is why Buchanan, or Taki, would assign K-Mac's book to a writer they both knew could only render one squishy, soft-shoulders sort-of-a-judgment. Then again it's not much of a puzzle, is it? Half a year into the launch of their "daring, independent" magazine and they've done nothing but hedge their bets from Jump St. Joe Sobran was the writer to assign this review to - an idea unconsciously alluded to in the first paragraph of Tha Derb's tapioca takeout. But then I notice Sobran, the type of writer TAC was supposed to be providing a podium for, has yet to make an appearance in it. Instead we get Derbyshire-by-design, and the distinct impression that K-Mac's life's work is no more than a burnt offering being proffered here to vain, disinterested Semitic gods than Pat 'n' Taki can never ever EVER please, yet can't stop themselves from bowing before anyway. If the Derbyshire review was a gangland 'hit', then it was an inside job - with a squinty mick at the wheel of the getaway car, and a chain-smoking greaseball in a tux waiting for the pay-phone in the restaurant to ring with good news. F**k'm both and the periodical they rode in on.
Il Ragno
2003-03-04 12:12 | User Profile
PS to Wintermute:
No. McConnell is, if anything, an even-more ameliorative voice than Pat or Taki's. I used to read McConnell near-daily when he was an editor at the NY POST with a regular column. PhiloSemitism oozed from his word-processor regularly, including loving paeans to the Orthodox community - more than one, and all of them grovelling in tone. Add in the fact that he has Derbyshire's taste in women (Chinese wife, mixed-race kids) and it's obvious (to me at least) that the paleo pecking order at TAC is Cautious Pat and New Age Scott flanking either side of Taki, restraining his bolder rhetorical flourishes.
The guy you need to reach out to is the Hellenite. Good luck getting a zillionaire plutocrat, who's still chasing "pussy" in his 60s, to return your emails. (Assuming you can get ahold of his private email address in the first place.)
2003-03-04 12:32 | User Profile
Originally posted by wintermute@Mar 4 2003, 01:35 **"White People, Who are They?"
"Weââ¬â¢d Feel Too Guilty."
"Itââ¬â¢s Against My Religion."ÃÂ
"It Means Giving Up on America." **
May we have a show of hands of those who realize that the Nazis are the only ones who don't have these problems?
2003-03-04 19:41 | User Profile
Wintermute
We would need to identify the people around McConnell, do what we can to persuade them, and of course a fair amount of letters to Scott himself. We would have to organize - Carol, antiwar.com, Last Ditch, [color=red]Texas Mercury,[/color]** and a dozen other Paleo/WN outfits - towards this end. **
I submitted something on those who duck American wars to the above noted e-zine and remarks regarded as derogatory to Jews had to be deleted. Responsibility for this censorship belonged to Polichinello. He is the single most dishonorable person I have encountered on any forum ostensibly dedicated to Western values. If you believe he will be of help, I suspect you will be disappointed.
.
2003-03-05 08:49 | User Profile
Originally posted by madrussian@Mar 2 2003, 23:55 ** . . . but the traditional Christianity is a rejection of the Pharisees. **
Quite right.
Nobody could read the Gospel of Matthew and acknowledge that the modern day Jews admit openly to being Pharisees, and then fail to conclude that "Judeo-Christianity" is an oxymoron.
It could not be any plainer: the Pharisees are quite literally "Anti-Christ."
[url=http://www.ddc.net/ygg]Yggdrasil[/url] handles all of this rather well in his vignettes on Christianity.
I agree with FWII that philo-semitism is associated with the Enlightenment (the child of the Reformation). The Catholics kept a lid on the Pharisees and moved against them when necessary. The rise of the Jews is associated with a decline in the power of the Church.
To paraphrase Belloc, the Church is Christendom, and Christendom is the Church. You can't have one without the other. Jews couldn't weaken one without weakening the other.
The Reformation unleashed terrible forces of insurrection against the corporeal power of the Church. The Left wing of that insurrection was lead by kabbalistic Jews and their allies, the right wing by gentile pagans. Both sides are the enemy of our people.
Only the Church Triumphant can save us from the depredations of these two mobs.
Walter
2003-03-05 13:26 | User Profile
Originally posted by Walter Yannis@Mar 5 2003, 02:49 **The Reformation unleashed terrible forces of insurrection against the corporeal power of the Church.ÃÂ The Left wing of that insurrection was lead by kabbalistic Jews and their allies, the right wing by gentile pagans.ÃÂ Both sides are the enemy of our people.
Only the Church Triumphant can save us from the depredations of these two mobs.**
Interesting irony in the terminology.
"Corporeal power of the Church..."
Small wonder that the institutionalized rejection of the organism in its natural reproductive function should suffer insurrection by, among others, men not gelded, inverted, or retarded in mind and body.
We see that the "Church" can be the savior of no one's "people" - for its own constituency is that of Babel, a mob if ever there was one.
2003-03-05 13:37 | User Profile
The "Church Triumphant" reminds me of the good ol' days of Innocent III.
Is this what Walter has in mind?
Otherwise, what does this mean that is other than meaningless?
2003-03-05 13:59 | User Profile
Originally posted by NeoNietzsche@Mar 4 2003, 06:32 > Originally posted by wintermute@Mar 4 2003, 01:35 "White People, Who are They?"
"Weââ¬â¢d Feel Too Guilty."
"Itââ¬â¢s Against My Religion."ÃÂ
"It Means Giving Up on America." **
May we have a show of hands of those who realize that the Nazis are the only ones who don't have these problems?**
I realize that the Nazis are the only ones who don't have these problems, Mr. NeoNietzsche.
[Thank you, NeoNietzsche, for your enthusiastic and self-congratulatory response - you can put your hand down now and sit still for a moment, while the rest of the class think real hard about this one.]
2003-03-05 14:34 | User Profile
Originally posted by Walter Yannis@Mar 5 2003, 08:49 ** Nobody could read the Gospel of Matthew and acknowledge that the modern day Jews admit openly to being Pharisees, and then fail to conclude that "Judeo-Christianity" is an oxymoron.
It could not be any plainer: the Pharisees are quite literally "Anti-Christ."
[url=http://www.ddc.net/ygg]Yggdrasil[/url] handles all of this rather well in his vignettes on Christianity.
**
I should add that David Duke does a good job in his "My Awakening" of summarizing the traditional Christian exegesis in regard to the Jews and their identification with the Pharisees.
Not long ago Duke and his writings would have been recognized for what they truly are: a good Protestant holding forth a traditional Christian teaching that has been accepted since the time of the Apostles. It's a sign of Jewish power that this traditional Christian teaching has been utterly marginalized along with Duke personally.
I will pray tonight for my brother in Christ, David Duke.
Today is Ash Wednesday, by the way.
Walter
2003-03-05 15:45 | User Profile
Originally posted by wintermute@Mar 4 2003, 01:35 ** Getting back to the topic . . .
It hadn't occured to me that TAC had already faced its ultimate test of integrity - and failed miserably. Where's Joe Sobran? I mean, the new paper is set up to be a 'real' conservative voice, as opposed to outfits like National Review, where a thoughtful, intelligent columnist like Sobran couldn't get a hearing - not after Buckley's bowels had been set aquivering by dictats from the Pod.
**
I think Sobran gets plenty of exposure, between his website, his newsletter, his appearances in Chronicles, and his weekly column in The Wanderer. I'd really like to see him on the electronic media more often, especially talk radio. He's been on Medved, though never to my knowledge on radio EWTN.
Many of you may not know it, but his best work is probably The Wanderer column, which appears weekly, not monthly, and usually runs a good 6 or 700 words. Sobran is at his most free, since he is writing to an audience of fellow conservative Catholics. Most non-Catholics have never heard of the paper, though it's well over 100 years old. You can get a free sample issue from their website: thewandererpress.com.
I don't recommend the rest of the paper, which is very conventional. The Remnant (also produced by the Matt family) would be my recommendation.
2003-03-05 23:03 | User Profile
Here is the key passage from White:
Ignoring the Shakespeare reference, which is an appeal to authority designed to make Derbyshire seem much more intelligent than he is, the essence of his argument is: If the Jews have really been able to poison us, to destroy our culture, gain control of our politicians, and turn us against ourselves, then so be it, weââ¬â¢re a bunch of fools and we deserve to die. That is the argument of the servant of the Jews who is afraid to fight them, and thus attempts to find an excuse not to. In reality, the obvious conclusion is that if the Jews have really worked so hard to hurt us, and are hurting us now, then we should organize to expel them from our political, academic and media institutions, in order for the future benefit of our children, our nation, and our people. The essence of Derbyshireââ¬â¢s argument is that if they tricked us once, they must be smarter, and thus all resistance is futile, whereas the true argument is that power relations always change in time, and if a given power relationship is not beneficial for a people, the people should act to alter it.
Essentially Derbyshire is saying that whites should not fight for their interests or even survival but that jews should. Scum like this are not any better than Ted Kennedy nor are they anymore likely to come over to our side. Moreover, the fact that Derbyshire knows so much but chooses to align himself with the enemies of his people for personal gain puts him in an even more detestable position than someone like Kennedy who sincerely believes that what he is doing is right.
2003-03-05 23:40 | User Profile
**I think Sobran gets plenty of exposure, between his website, his newsletter, his appearances in Chronicles, and his weekly column in The Wanderer. **
Sobran hasn't made an appearance in Chronicles since the July 2002 issue.
2003-03-08 08:28 | User Profile
Wow.
You guys are nothing if not fecund. Take a week off to look after business and there's an 80+ message thread (mostly) about an unfavorable review of a book that maybe 5,000 tops have ever heard of let alone read.
Isn't this Much Ado about Nothing? Or more likely a case of mis-set expectations.
On the one hand we have TAC, a rag with with a 12-month half life, printed on second rate toilet paper. fronted by a discredited has-been and funded by a semi-pickled Mediterranean tripe-hound.
On the other we have a self-styled British Israelite who, having found the competition for cub reporter status with the Nottingham Argus Football Pink a little too intense, departs for a more favorable clime where the ability to turn a complete sentence is viewed as a considerable intellectual achievement.
Said B.I., evidently lacking in the wherewithal or otherwise having little appeal for native English Roses, fetches up with an Oriental mail-order bride and concomitant Eurasian sprogs. Now what? Well nothing for it but to go native. Get the green card. Go for citizenship. Fit in. Make a buck. Do anything, anything! Please don't send me back - here I'm a big-shot neo-con pundit, the 21st century Pepys; back home hacks like me are ten a penny, they'll put me on the hatches, matches and dispatches or, God forbid, the gardening section. Please, please I'll do anything to stay....just tell what do I have to do?
Is that all? Really? Money for old rope.
2003-03-08 18:04 | User Profile
Originally posted by Dan Dare@Mar 8 2003, 08:28 **Wow.
You guys are nothing if not fecund. Take a week off to look after business and there's an 80+ message thread (mostly) about an unfavorable review of a book that maybe 5,000 tops have ever heard of let alone read.
Isn't this Much Ado about Nothing? Or more likely a case of mis-set expectations.
On the one hand we have TAC, a rag with with a 12-month half life, printed on second rate toilet paper. fronted by a discredited has-been and funded by a semi-pickled Mediterranean tripe-hound.
On the other we have a self-styled British Israelite who, having found the competition for cub reporter status with the Nottingham Argus Football Pink a little too intense, departs for a more favorable clime where the ability to turn a complete sentence is viewed as a considerable intellectual achievement.
**
Well Dan first you should read the thread. One of the reason threads usually run to 84 threads is they usually get a little off topic.
Your lampooning of Derbyshire is right on target, but this > self-styled British Israelite who, having found the competition for cub reporter status with the Nottingham Argus Football Pink a little too intense,
(Is this true in some sense BTW?) is still a senior editor for NATIONAL REVIEW (as they love to font it), the most powerful conservative magazine in the country, one which Paul Gottfried says single handedly warped the conservative movement merely by the personal eccentricity of its editor in chief. If we had to limit criticism of NR writers and editors to those who seriously merited discussion on their own gravitas a great deal of paleoconservative commentary, say on Jonah Goldberg, would be excised. In fact Derbyshire is Edward Gibbon (the original) compared with paleo's like Goldberg.
And dice Pat if you must, but this "discredited hasbeen" is still far and away the leading political figure in paleoconservatism. Look at his competition.
And let's face it, that's what paleoconservatism is. A discredited has-been of a movement. Trying to hang on to "the old paths" when the political dynamics of mainstream politics has passed us far behind. Look at the numbers.
That's why if there's anything of significance on this forum, it is occasionally documenting how the mainstream tries to characterize and deal with brilliant paleo's like MacDonald. If this doesn't have significance, nothing on this forum does.
2003-03-08 20:35 | User Profile
Originally posted by Dan Dare@Mar 8 2003, 08:28 ** Take a week off to look after business and there's an 80+ message thread (mostly) about an unfavorable review of a book that maybe 5,000 tops have ever heard of let alone read.
Isn't this Much Ado about Nothing? **
No. CofC has been read more widely than any academic book I can remember. Books like this don't compete with Stephen King or Tom Clancy, they influence leaders and act a source material for new movements.
The old Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) was barely known to anyone forty years ago and is barely known today. They are probably responsible for electing Reagan and for the "global economy" -- they manipulated ideas and policy among the elites. They told historian George Thayer in 1967 that they didn't give squat what the average American thinks or knows about anything; they want to influence the movers and shakers and nobody else.
MacDonald and others work the same way now. It don't much matter if CofC sells only 50 copies if it's the right 50.
2003-04-06 02:49 | User Profile
Just received the April 7th issue of TAC in the mail. From the "Forum" section...
MACDONALD DEFENDED
John Derbyshire's article (March 10) is a bad precedent. He's obviously a trimmer. He seems to find Kevin MacDonald's ideas dynamic and interesting but for the sake of his career pretends to find them offensive. Is there a neocon in the woodpile? Is The American Conservative going to make a habit out of sucking up to the status quo? Please, just tell us the truth without cocking an eye at Caligula to see if he's pleased with what you're saying.
HOWARD O'BRIEN New York, N.Y.
WE REFUSE
I have been following AC since it started. Since there is no print publication that is truly conservative, I have been quietly waiting and watching. The John Derbyshire review ensures that I will not ever subscribe.
Derbyshire demonstrates that he has no grasp whatsoever of Culture of Critique or MacDonald's theoretical framework. Your refusal to print a rebuttal calls into serious question your motives for printing the review in the first place. Looks to me like a preemptive strike, otherwise your would be willing to engage in dialogue. You might as well sell out to National Review now and get it over with.
VIRGIL HUSTON via email
The Editors respond:
It is not our practice, nor do we have space, to print authors' replies to our book reviews. Readers curious to see MacDonald's response can visit [url=http://www.csulb.edu/~kmacd/derbyshire.htm]http://www.csulb.edu/~kmacd/derbyshire.htm[/url] . Derbyshire responds to readers' comments at [url=http://olimu.com/Notes/CultureOfCritique.htm]http://olimu.com/Notes/CultureOfCritique.htm[/url]
2003-04-08 06:00 | User Profile
TAC lost many friends with the Derby review of CofC, Pat's "Whose War" article almost makes up for it ...almost
2003-09-08 00:35 | User Profile
Anyone seen an issue of TAC lately? I let my subscription lapse a couple months back because it just wasn't living up to expectations for a paleo mag.
Is it still PC milquetoast under McConnell, or has he opened up and let people like Sobran or Francis write yet?
BTW, check out today's Alexa rankings :lol:
sobran.com: 5,080
amconmag.com: 10,843
2003-09-08 04:05 | User Profile
Originally posted by Centinel@Sep 8 2003, 00:35 * *Anyone seen an issue of TAC lately? I let my subscription lapse a couple months back because it just wasn't living up to expectations for a paleo mag.
Is it still PC milquetoast under McConnell, or has he opened up and let people like Sobran or Francis write yet?
BTW, check out today's Alexa rankings :lol:
sobran.com: 5,080
amconmag.com: 10,843**
I let mine lapse too I guess. It was so uneventful that I really hadn't noticed for a couple of months. Articles like "Honor Thy Fathers -How Reforming Social Security Can Revive the West" just don't get my fancy anymore.
It has the general surface air of Chronicles, without Samuel Francis (the main article I always read in Chronicles) or Chronicles scholastic originality or logical interest.
To my mind they badly need people like Sobran or especially Francis to give it some direction. Articles by people like Derbyshire just don't cut it.
2005-02-27 04:58 | User Profile
bumping this pertinent thread to the top for newer OD posters