The Culture of Critique by Kevin MacDonald

Description

In The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements, MacDonald provides a theoretical analysis and review of data on the widespread tendency among highly influential, Jewish-dominated intellectual movements to develop radical critiques of gentile culture that are compatible with the continuity of Jewish identification. These movements are viewed as the outcome of the fact that Jews and gentiles have different interests in the construction of culture and in various public policy issues (e.g. immigration policy, Israel). Several of these movements attempt to combat anti-Semitism by advocating social categorization processes in which the Jew/gentile distinction is minimized in importance. There is also a tendency to develop theories of anti-Semitism in which ethnic differences and resource competition are of minimal importance. From the perspective of the intellectual structures developed by these movements, anti-Semitism is analyzed as an indication of psychopathology among gentiles. In some cases, these movements appear to be attempts to develop a fundamental restructuring of the intellectual basis of gentile society in ways conducive to the continued existence of Judaism.

Particular attention is paid to Boasian anthropology, psychoanalysis, leftist political ideology and behavior, and the Frankfurt School of Social Research. Each of these movements can be characterized as an authoritarian political movement centered around a charismatic leader who strongly identified as a Jew and who was idolized by his disciples who were also predominantly Jewish. Regarding immigration policy, Jewish political and intellectual activity was motivated less by a desire for higher levels of Jewish immigration than by opposition to the implicit theory that America should be dominated by individuals with northern and western European ancestry. Jewish policy was aimed at developing an America characterized by cultural pluralism and populated by groups of people from all parts of the world rather than by a homogeneous Christian culture and populated largely by people of European descent. This is a controversial analysis of particular interest to those concerned with evolutionary approaches to human behavior, with Judaica, and with an evolutionary perspective on history and psychology.

Hear my first interview with the author here.

Here at the Radical Agenda, we started off as a very libertarian production. Radical even, hence the name. If you had asked me for reading suggestions during the first hundred episodes, I probably would have pointed you toward Murray Rothbard, Ayn Rand, or Ludwig von Mises – all of them Jews. Though I still largely maintain my fetish for liberty, if you asked the same question today, I’d suggest Adolf Hitler, George Lincoln Rockwell, and Kevin MacDonald. I’m fairly confident at least one of those names rings a bell to you, and as you’ve probably guessed, my new favorite authors are most decidedly not Jewish.

When one looks at the group behaviors of Jews, you can start to see why Jews would take issue. Whether in the atomized, hyperindividualistic outlook of the libertarian, or in the hypercollectivized “anti-racist” perspective of the communist, any effort to analyze world events through the racial lense meets horrified outcry, though never any meaningful refutation. The moment one attempts to even understand patterns of ethnic or racial group behavior, they are condemned as a thought criminal, a Nazi, a fascist, an ignorant racist, a deranged and sick individual. Without ever having a fact corrected or argument refuted, they are written out of polite society by groups who see no conflict between their openly ethnocentric nature, and their utter contempt for all other ethnocentric groups.

It should come as no surprise then, that Kevin MacDonald has been called the “neo-Nazi movement’s favorite academic” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, was denounced by many of his colleagues, and had his teaching duties reduced before retiring from his position as a psychology professor at California State University, Long Beach. All without being refuted or corrected in any meaningful way, of course.

Refuting Dr. MacDonald might prove difficult. He has a Masters degree in evolutionary biology, and a Ph. D. in Biobehavioral Sciences, both from the University of Connecticut. His research has focused on developing evolutionary perspectives on culture, developmental psychology and personality theory, the origins and maintenance of monogamous marriage in Western Europe, and ethnic relations (group evolutionary strategies). He is the author of more than 100 scholarly papers and reviews, and he is the author of Social and Personality Development: An Evolutionary Synthesis (1988), A People That Shall Dwell Alone: Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy (1994), Separation and Its Discontents: Toward an Evolutionary Theory of Anti-Semitism (1998), and The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements (1998). He is also the editor of the Occidental Observer. The “backward, ignorant, racist” trope is not going to work on this guy.

While I was in the custody of the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail, I had the time to read some of Kevin’s work. A People That Shall Dwell Alone, Separation and Its Discontents, and Culture of Critique, a trilogy of well sourced, scholarly research on Judaism and anti-Semitism, from an evolutionary perspective. I was impressed with the material in all the ways one can be impressed with a book. His literary talent combined with in depth explanations of the subject matter, serves to thoroughly inform the reader on very a very complex topic without becoming a a tedious read. Indeed I had trouble putting these books down.

Simultaneously, one can understand why, though Dr. MacDonald shows no hostility to anyone in his work, Jewish groups consider the material “hate speech” and thought crime. The gentile reader is almost compelled to see Jews as a threat to his way of life, and the continued survival and well being of his people. Indeed, Dr. MacDonald posits that anti-Semitism, far from being some sort of mental illness as our chosenite moral crusaders would have us believe, is a survival mechanism developed by non-Jews throughout the world and throughout history to ward off the negative consequences that come with Jewish presence in gentile societies.

It is unfortunate in the extreme that Jewish groups see no reason to refute anything Dr. MacDonald has to say. I would far rather not view the world in this fashion, but when the only response to scientific research is cries of heresy and smear campaigns, the honest observer is compelled to see that only one side of this conflict is making any effort to understand the realities of our world, while the other side is interested only in subterfuge. Calling someone an anti-Semite and a Nazi is not an argument, and indeed these perpetual cries of persecution are exactly the type of behavior topping the list of complaints anti-Semites like myself have with the people who are vastly overrepresented in every measure of success our society has to offer.