May 27, 2008

White Guilt, Catholic Guilt, Jewish Guilt

Ron Rosenbaum writes in Slate:

In Praise of Liberal Guilt: It's not wrong to favor Obama because of race.

As I've mentioned before, I don't much believe in the existence of white liberal guilt. I haven't met many white liberals who sincerely feel personally guilty about 19th Century whites' treatment of blacks and Indians. What I do I see all around me, however, is white liberal status-striving. As Rosenbaum boasts:
"Guilt means you have a conscience. You have self-awareness, you have—in the case of America's history of racism—historical awareness."

Well, aren't you special!

He goes on to say that what we really need is more, lots more, "white conservative guilt."

As C. Van Carter summarizes white liberal guilt:
I feel terrible about what those other people did! About what I do, not so much.

C.S. Lewis described this as indulging “in the popular vice of detraction without restraint” while feeling “all the time that you are practicing contrition”.

Ron Rosenbaum wants you to know that if he had any ancestors who were mean to slaves or Indians, he'd feel just awful, and you should too.

One of the unmentionable ironies of this whole topic is that the most fervent proponents of white Americans feeling guilty about their ancestors owning slaves and fighting Indians tend to be white Americans whose ancestors didn't own slaves or fight Indians.

More generally, it's interesting to compare "white guilt" to "Catholic guilt" to "Jewish guilt."

White guilt is, at least nominally, about whites feeling bad about whites in the past being racist.

Catholic guilt is more personal. Typically, Catholics and lapsed Catholics complain about being made to feel guilty by the Church about their urges and behavior, particularly sexual. (Catholic guilt has a certain ethnocentric angle to it in mixed religion America -- stop fooling around, get married and have kids! -- but, in general, The Church, with its universal ambitions, doesn't do ethnocentrism well, for obvious reasons.)

Jewish guilt, on the other hand, is infinitely joked about, but its essence is almost never spelled out in such a way that non-Jews grasp what "Jewish guilt" means.

Clearly, there is a form of Jewish guilt much like Catholic guilt that focuses on personal ethical lapses (for example, my father got a call on Yom Kippur once from a former colleague asking forgiveness for wronging him on the job), but that's not what Americans typically mean by "Jewish guilt."

What is typically meant is something almost exactly the opposite of what is theoretically meant by "white guilt."

Joshua Halberstam wrote in The Forward in 2005 in "The Myth of Jewish Guilt:"

There is no credible empirical evidence — I’ve looked hard and carefully — that Jews feel more unwarranted guilt than others. The hypothesis is of course too amorphous to confirm or disconfirm with reliability; interestingly, however, when it comes to testable mental states such as psychosis, the data suggests that Jews suffer less than average. To be sure, sensitive, reflective individuals are discomforted when they disturb the traditions, the communities and the families to whom they feel attachments. This is true of Jews… and everyone else. ...

How, then, did this bromide about Jewish guilt attain its status as a distinctive Jewish disposition? Unlike jokes about kishke, which Jews actually ate (and eat), and such slurs such as the Jews’ association with money — originally propounded by non-Jews — the Jewish guilt syndrome is a Jewish creation, the invention of the previous generation of assimilated American Jews (see Portnoy, Alexander).

I recently reread Philip Roth's very funny 1969 novel Portnoy's Complaint about a Jewish bachelor lawyer with a high profile do-gooder job in the liberal Lindsay administration in New York City. Despite his being interviewed on Public TV, his parents don't consider him a success. They constantly nag him to stop chasing blonde shiksas, find a nice Jewish girl, get married, and move back to New Jersey and give them some grandkids. After he breaks up with his latest shiksa girlfriend, a semi-literate West Virginia hillbilly lingerie model (because she demands he marry her -- but she's not smart enough to mix her genes with his), he flees to Israel. But he finds he doesn't like Israel or Israeli women and returns to Manhattan At the end, he's on Dr. Spielvogel's couch, in a state of extreme frustration with his life, narrating his 309 page Complaint.

In other words, in the classic example of Jewish guilt, Portnoy's Complaint, Jewish guilt is the opposite of white guilt: Portnoy's feelings of Jewish guilt stem not from his ancestors being too ethnocentric (as in "white guilt") but from himself not being ethnocentric enough to please his ancestors. His parents make him feel guilty because he's individualistically ignoring his racial duty to settle down and propagate the Jewish race.

Halberstam goes on to give similar examples of what Jewish guilt means to modern Jewish Americans (he, himself, seems to side with Portnoy's parents):

A recently published book, “The Modern Jewish Girl’s Guide to Guilt” (Penguin Group USA), exemplifies the breadth of this presumption. Unlike the sophomoric parade of Jewish-mother books that, incredibly, still makes its way to the humor shelves of Barnes & Noble, this anthology features well-written contributions by significant, contemporary Jewish women writers. But while each entry describes some episode of guilt, crucial differences among them should be emphasized. Some are heartfelt accounts of their authors’ struggles, often ongoing, with the demands of Jewish tradition and the pressures of their Jewish subcommunities. The excerpt reprinted in this newspaper by the invariably brazen Daphne Merkin is representative of these conflicts. These are worthy investigations, as are the explorations of Jewish women experiencing guilt about their Christmas trees, non-Jewish romances or trading their expected domestic lives for careers. [In other words, Jewish women with, respectively, gentile husbands, gentile boyfriends, or careers instead of children.] They are of particular interest to us because they are our stories (though, undoubtedly, you could find the same strains among women calibrating their lives as Methodists and Mormons, Shias and Sikhs).

However, other contributions to this book gush with ludicrous and often offensive extrapolations from the authors’ own experiences to a national neurosis. What is striking — and sociologically significant — is not what these authors say, but the ease with which they say it. The tone is set by the editor’s introduction, in which she asserts that Jews are only too delighted and eager to make others feel guilty. Then she reduces her rabbi father’s discomfort with her dating a non-Jew as typical guilt-tripping. ...

Katie Roiphe, writing about the “infinite voraciousness” of Jewish guilt that refuses to allow anyone to be happy, is upset because her mother would like her to have children: “Could it be that lurking inside all the Jewish feminist mothers of the 70’s is a 1950’s housewife who values china patterns and baby carriages above the passions of the mind?”

In other words, "Jewish guilt" in modern America is, more than anything else, about not being racialist enough.

Similarly, an NPR article about this Modern Jewish Girl's Guide to Guilt book sums up Jewish guilt:

"At the center of the book is the battle between obligation to one's community, with its dictates and traditions, and the obligation to one's individual interests and needs. It's that tension that produces guilt."

Thus, Jewish guilt is the opposite of "white guilt," which is (theoretically, at least) about a white person's disobligation toward one's community, with its sins and crimes, and the obligation to boost other communities' interests and needs at the white community's expense.

Of course, in reality, "white guilt" turns out to be all about the individual white person's interests and needs to preen morally in order to demonstrate his superior social status over other white people. After all, when it comes to social-climbing, other white people are the competition.

Thus, it's not surprising that, while there is certainly demand among some American Jews for works that will help them feel guilty about what Israel is doing to the Palestinians (see The Nation magazine), there is zero market in America for the Jewish equivalent of "white guilt" about what some Jews did in the past.

Indeed, the most obvious analog to slavery and taking America from the Indians, the disproportionate role of Jews in inflicting Communism upon humanity (as documented in UC Berkeley historian Yuri Slezkine's book 2004 The Jewish Century), has almost completely been crammed down the global Memory Hole.

For example, the world's most famous living author published almost a decade ago a two volume history of the relationship between Russians and Jews. He called for mutual remembrance, contrition, apology, and forgiveness. Here's an excerpt from the only excerpt yet published in the United States:
Alas, mutual grievances have accumulated in both our people's memories, but if we repress the past, how can we heal them? Until the collective psyche of a people finds its clear outlet in the written word, it can rumble indistinctly or, worse, menacingly...

I have never conceded to anyone the right to conceal that which was. Equally, I cannot call for an understanding based on an unjust portrayal of the past. Instead, I call both sides -- the Russian and the Jewish -- to patient mutual comprehension, to the avowal of their own share of the blame...

I conceived of my ultimate aim as discerning, to the best of my ability, mutually agreeable and fruitful pathways for the future development of Russian-Jewish relations. ...

Indeed, there are many explanations as to why Jews joined the Bolsheviks (and the Civil War produced yet more weighty reasons [e.g., the mass pogroms detailed in Volume II, Chapter 16]. Nevertheless, if Russian Jews' memory of this period continues seeking primarily to justify this involvement, then the level of Jewish self-awareness will be lowered, even lost.

Using this line of reasoning, Germans could just as easily find excuses for the Hitler period: "Those were not real Germans, but scum"; "they never asked us." Yet every people must answer morally for all of its past -- including that past which is shameful. Answer by what means? By attempting to comprehend: How could such a thing have been allowed? Where in all this is our error? And could it happen again?

It is in that spirit, specifically, that it would behoove the Jewish people to answer, both for the revolutionary cutthroats and the ranks willing to serve them. Not to answer before other peoples, but to oneself, to one's consciousness, and before God. Just as we Russians must answer -- for the pogroms, for those merciless arsonist peasants, for those crazed revolutionary soldiers, for those savage sailors. ...

To answer, just as we would answer for members of our family.

For if we release ourselves from any responsibility for the actions of our national kin, the very concept of a people loses any real meaning.

Not surprisingly, the world's most famous living author can't get these two books published in New York City. Don't call us, Alexander, we'll call you.

Moreover, almost nobody in the American media has found it at all worth mentioning that Solzhenitsyn can't get published in New York City.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

99 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, the Jewish religion does focus on the tribe. So you're not too far off.

In that it's not too different from most religions thousands of years ago; every tribe had their local cult. (Of course, most of those tribes aren't around anymore.) From what I understand, you can't actually become a Hindu, you have to wait and be reincarnated as one. I think Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism are relatively unique in allowing anyone to join and having principles that are true for everyone; of course, it is these traits that let them spread around the world.

Keep in mind that there are particularistic churches: the Russian Orthodox, the Greek Orthodox, the Anglican... The Greek Orthodox church recognizes the last Byzantine emperor as an 'ethnomartyr'; what would a Turkish convert think of that? (Of course no Turk would ever convert to Orthodoxy, but I think you see the point.)

Technically you can become a Jew, but you're effectively adopted into the tribe then. (And are still Jewish even if you convert out. I always thought that was funny.)

Ron Guhname said...

Great post.

Are there others out there like me who suffer from "white envy"? What I mean by this is, for example, looking at two black guys call each other brother and wishing I could do that. Or seeing blacks take pride in Obama getting the nomination, and wishing I could feel something similar.

I mean, what the hell do I bring to an international dinner party? Yorkshire pudding? I never even ate the stuff.

Of course, Jewish folks have a long history of unjust treatment, and nobody would want that to happen to them, but wouldn't it be great to feel a connection to such a heritage?

As a guy who's moved around in his life a lot, I'm not very close to family and friends, and this alternative source of family would be nice, but I don't really have that kind of feeling, and like most whites, sense it's not a good way to go.

Anonymous said...

It's pretty hypocritical for Solzhenitsyn to demand that Jews feel guilty about the Soviet Union (or whatever). If there's one people that is completely unable to take responsibility for its crimes, it's the Russians. Russians will never acknowledge that they were, just like the Germans, aggressors in the WW2, or that their "liberation" of Eastern and Central Europe consisted of rapine, mass murder and deportation of local elites, installation of oppressive governments, and flooding of the occupied nations with Russian colonists. For them, the "Great Patriotic War" was a demonstration of the moral superiority of the Russians.

Similarly, Russians do not blame themselves for Stalinist crimes, even though it was Russians who carried them out and tolerated them without resistance.

The only nation as bad as Russia in this respect is Serbia. Serbs seem to think that they're some great saintly people, all of whose actions are above reproach. Both are Orthodox Christian nations, which may have something to do with this. I think it was Nabokov who said that Eastern Orthodoxy is a great religion because it gives immense consolation without making any moral demands on the believer.

Ron Guhname said...

"Keep in mind that there are particularistic churches: the Russian Orthodox, the Greek Orthodox, the Anglican..."

A person wouldn't find the slightest barrier to being baptised and welcomed into any of these Orthodox churches if he wanted to. They're national/cultural, but still universalistic.

Anonymous said...

As a guy who's moved around in his life a lot, I'm not very close to family and friends, and this alternative source of family would be nice, but I don't really have that kind of feeling, and like most whites, sense it's not a good way to go.
I feel your pain. Are you an ethnic mutt? If you were Italian in descent, say, you could see if there were any local Italian groups. Certainly the Irish seem to have no problems keeping their culture alive (and while nobody ever tried to exterminate the Irish, they've had a pretty sad history up until about 80 years ago). That failing you could try a church. It is hard being an irreligious, intellectual conservative, I have to admit.

A person wouldn't find the slightest barrier to being baptised and welcomed into any of these Orthodox churches if he wanted to. They're national/cultural, but still universalistic.
Really? I honestly didn't know; I figured all the Greeks in the Greek Orthodox church would give you funny looks. Not that I blame Rod Dreher, of course; for a truly religious person, finding out your church has been penetrated by a pedophile conspiracy has got to be incredibly painful. I imagine the Anglicans would take you. Russian Orthodox...I wonder. You figure there must have been Jews trying to get in to escape Russian anti-semitism, so I'd imagine they'd be relatively suspicious of outsiders.

The Rooskies: yeah, they are pretty bad. Supposedly all of Eastern Europe hates their guts and is the only part of the world that still likes America. To be honest with you, though, I think Germany's the exception in turning its national crimes into a giant guilt party. (It's almost comical--they arrested a bunch of students for waving flags and singing the national anthem!) The Japanese don't talk about all the Chinese they killed, and the Turks deny the Armenian genocide. I think genocide's actually pretty common (we did it to lots of Native American tribes) and the idea of human rights is the exception; a Western European innovation. Basically, we get mad at Germans and Serbs when they engage in genocide but not at Africans when the tribes kill each other, because we don't expect Europeans to behave that way. And there may be in fact be something in the German national character about self-flagellation; remember, Masoch was German, Sade was French. The Sorrows of Young Werther? It's not incompatible with them being militaristic either; remember, both cowboys and hippies started in America.

Anonymous said...

"TH said...

It's pretty hypocritical for Solzhenitsyn to demand that Jews feel guilty about the Soviet Union (or whatever). If there's one people that is completely unable to take responsibility for its crimes, it's the Russians."

Your criticism is fairly directed at the Russians, though not I believe at Solzhenitsyn, who has spent a lot of time and words condeming his fellow russians for the cruelties they carried out on one another and on the peoples of Eastern Europe. "The Gulag Archipeligo" was a pretty lengthy indictment of the russian people.

That the russians have never quite come to terms with their own culpability for the monstrosity of communism - on this I would agree with you. And this is perhaps one of the reasons they have faired so poorly as a nation since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Poles, the Hungarians, the Czechs - they had their quislings, but ultimately those nations were only communist because they were under the heel of the Red Army. Their oppressors were external. But the Russians - they did it to themselves. And perhaps that is hard to face up to.

Anonymous said...

It's really simple isn't it? Jews, Blacks, just name your favorite minority, are all recognized one way or another as victims by white liberals of those bad ol' whites of the (relatively recent) past. Whites haven't been victims of late. Hence, from the perspective of the victims of the Holocaust or American slavery, on a macro level what's to feel guilty about? Whites, on the other hand, as those in power, must feel guilty about everything vis-a-vis the victims.

Anonymous said...

hm, isn't Ron Rosenbaum the guy who wrote a long article in the New York Observer about why he wasn't a liberal anymore? Oh, yes he was. http://www.observer.com/node/46583 I guess the feeling passed.

Anonymous said...

I do remember hearing Joan Rivers, who happens to be Jewish, stating once that "all races should intermarry, and then we'd have no problems" or something to that effect. An old link describing something like that is here,
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4159/is_20051023/ai_n15720216

.........but I remember seeing Rivers say that on one red carpet or another. I immediately wondered if Rivers would not mind if her daughter then brought home someone not Jewish, but a devotee of some religion we have never heard of as a native of, um.....New Guineau or something. How would Rivers --feel---about that.

Whites, despite their declining numbers, declining power, declining social status, and declining electoral power are told by a largely Jewish-opinion-making-media how racist they are over and over and over again, and recieve the implicit message of how much better the world is when "diversity" reigns supreme and how lousy things were are recently as..............say 1975, when whites were still a pretty hefty majority of this nation. It makes some whites very wary of the percieved motives of others towards them. I mean hell, are we ALWAYS the bad guy in every movie, newscast, NT Times article, environmental disaster, etc.? Did we really steal ALL that we have invented from everyone else. Thats about the message one recieves via the MSM-entertainment-behemoth.

Anonymous said...

First you say that Jews are too ethnocentric (translation: feeling 'guilty' for marrying outside their faith).

Then you blame the least ethnocentric Jews, like Marx (who's parents converted out and who married a Gentile aristocrat without any 'guilt'), Engels (who lived with a Gentile woman without any 'guilt')and Trotsky (and look what being a Bolshevik got him) for being among the creators of Communism (the Gentile Molotov married a Jewess who apparently also had no 'guilt' so I guess she was okay, too).

Rough translation: Jews shouldn't be ethnocentric (feeling bad about marrying out. They also shouldn't not be ethnocentric (not feeling bad about marrying out).

Interestingly this is a good argument for the existence of Israel, or communiites like Postville. In Israel and Postville virtually all Jews marry other Jews without it being a major issue. So all is well, no guilt or communism at all.

Of course when it comes to Lenin (Russian), Stalin (Georgian), Dzherzinsky (Pole), Mao-Ho-Pol Pot-Kim, etc (probably not Jewish, but you never know since they probably had high IQ's), you can be ethnocentric or not, doesn't really matter.

Anonymous said...

th - I think the point of what Solzhenitsyn is talking about has almost, if not totally, passed you by.

Anonymous said...

Jews in Russia who were oppressed horrifically and could not EVER escape being Jews chose to back the side that promised to uproot and destroy all the old religious and racial traditions and offer them a place? End the progroms and allow them to be boring bureaucrats?

Wow. That's news. In other groundbreaking affairs, kids like sweets.

It would be shocking if the one group that were perpetually oppressed (real oppression, like your parents/siblings getting shot because the Czar had a tantrum) did NOT in fact back the side that promised to end that game forever. Even if more thoughtful people could see it was a cheat and the game would continue under a different form of Czar.

Solzenhitsyn's an idiot, he forgot to mention all those Jewish Bolsheviks were shot by Stalin at the first opportunity. A predictable betrayal they never saw coming because they desperately, frantically wanted to escape history of pogroms.

Perhaps Solzenhitsyn can't get published because his current work is not very good? Or profitable? Publishers are not charities, publishing the maunderings of "great men" because they once wrote something great, if there isn't a market for it. Yes, romance novels that are utter derivative trash, along with whatever Oprah hypes or fad diet books sell. Moralizing books by "great men" from the Cold War (gone and forgotten) don't. Again color me shocked, shocked!

Guilt about not continuing a Jewish identity is not unique either. One can look at one Barack Hussein Obama, who chose not to date or romance white women any more so HE would have children who are Black. With no more white in-laws. Much of Black behavior is aimed at keeping a separate racial/cultural identity. The Irish and Italians and Germans willingly surrendered that in America for an "American" one. Probably because their old identity was shot through with nasty feuds that bland Americanism looked like a better deal. You don't have to kill someone because 100 years ago great-great-great cousin Flaherty or Silvio was killed by some other clan.

SFG -- Jews advocate for more immigration because they have a historical memory, unlike Italians and Irish, of the US not letting in extended family members in during the Holocaust. One of Hitler's nastier public relations stunts was to send a German liner filled with Jews to various nations which refused them, including the US. They ended up in places like Auschwitz. [Dominican Republic took some of them, however, because Trujillo found them useful.]

Given the current climate in Europe and the ME, it would be very, very foolish from a family perspective for any Jew with relatives in either place to want restrictions in immigration. Because it would likely end up just like the Voyage of the Damned.

It comes down to this: would you want your Grandma in Israel shot by a Muhajideen because the US would not take her in?

Anonymous said...

Rough translation: Jews shouldn't be ethnocentric (feeling bad about marrying out. They also shouldn't not be ethnocentric (not feeling bad about marrying out).

Squid Ink!

He doesn't say that Jews should or should not be ethnocentric. He just says that the guilt they feel is related to ethnocentrism while the guilt they inflict on other is against their ethnocentric ism or past sins related thereto.

Basically, he is saying they are hypocritical.

It is basically this dual standard, more than anything else, that drives people nuts.

If you are going to be ethnocentric, fine, but you then need to afford others the same opportunity.

Similalry, if you are going to demand that some groups "apoligize" or have "guilt" for past actions, then you must also demand that Jews apoligize or have guilt for their past actions (and present ones as are taking place in Israel.)

Your purposefully confusing attempt to mix the two distinct examples of hypocrisy in some bizarre connection is another example of blowing smoke at an issue you do not want discussed intellegently.

Glaivester said...

First you say that Jews are too ethnocentric (translation: feeling 'guilty' for marrying outside their faith).

No, Steve said that Jewish guilt is directed at encouraging ethnocentrism whereas white guilt is directed at discouraging ethnocentrism. He never said that Jewish ethnocentrism was bad or that Jews were "too ethnocentric," just that their guilt patterns pushed more toward ethnocentrism than those of white Gentiles.

Then you blame the least ethnocentric Jews, like Marx (who's parents converted out and who married a Gentile aristocrat without any 'guilt'), Engels (who lived with a Gentile woman without any 'guilt')and Trotsky (and look what being a Bolshevik got him) for being among the creators of Communism (the Gentile Molotov married a Jewess who apparently also had no 'guilt' so I guess she was okay, too).

Trotsky was a Menshevik, then non-aligned. He was not a Bolshevik. Steve's point was not to criticize the ethnocentrism/non-ethnocentrism of Marx or Trotsky, but to point out that Jews are not told to feel guilty about them in the same way that whites are told to feel guilty about things that other white people did.

Rough translation: Jews shouldn't be ethnocentric (feeling bad about marrying out. They also shouldn't not be ethnocentric (not feeling bad about marrying out).

Not what Steve said. Not what he meant. Rough translation of Steve: Jews tend to feel a moral obligation toward ethnocentrism, unlike whhite Gentiles, therefore it is unsurprising that they do not have the same feelings of "racial guilt" that white Gentiles do.

Unknown said...

As someone very familiar with shame but 99% mystified by guilt, I found this Stuart Schneiderman book about shame cultures and guilt cultures awfully helpful. It has a fun Larger Thesis too, which is that what happened in the '60s was that America's traditional shame culture was replaced by a guilt culture, and that we've been paying the price ever since. Schneiderman (Jewish and a shrink, if I remember right) advocates more shame and less guilt.

Anonymous said...

"It is basically this dual standard, more than anything else, that drives people nuts."

Jews simply don't define hypocrisy the same way that Christians do.

Modern Christian universal morality is not the same as Jewish or Islamic dual-morality. The Jewish universe remains starkly divided between Jews and gentiles (outmarriage is acutely perceived by Jews as crossing over a boundary). The Islamic universe remains divided between Muslims and infidels. But the archaic Christian divide between believers and heretics has been mostly replaced by universal liberalism or fundamentalist accommodation.

So it is mostly Christian whites who sense hypocrisy in the behaviors of Jews. Because Christian whites ostensibly embrace universal morality, and don't participate in a dual morality ingroup culture, they will naturally see other non-universal morality cultures as hypocritical.

Muslims, for instance, are not honestly bothered by Jewish hypocrisy to the same extent, because Muslims themselves participate in dual-morality ingroup culture just like the Jews.

There is a good reason the vast majority of diaspora Jews live amongst Christians. The Jewish ingroup culture can best coexist within the Christian universal morality culture. When the Jewish ingroup mentality bumps up against another equally ingroup-focused culture, such as Arab identity, Islamic identity, Japanese or Korean identity, or German identity, the results are not so promising for the Jews as a group. This is demonstrated by the low numbers of Jews willing to coexist with these cultures.

The highly ethnocentric diaspora Han Chinese face the same challenges in the Far East as the Jews face in the Middle East - they must coexist with essentially mirror reflection cultures of themselves (non-universal ingroup moralities).

Both Jews and Chinese find the modern white Christian cultures an excellent place to live as diaspora groups. The key is "modern culture" because obviously the archaic Christian culture was much less tolerant of outgroups.

The point is Jews feel no hypocrisy when promoting their own ethnocentrism while simultaneously demonizing other ethnocentrisms because their dual-morality ingroup culture sanctions the behavior at the highest level of authority, God.

Anonymous said...

Jews in Russia who were oppressed horrifically and could not EVER escape being Jews chose to back the side that promised to uproot and destroy all the old religious and racial traditions and offer them a place?

And this justifies killing 20 million?

Sever Plocker
Stalin's Jews

We mustn't forget that some of greatest murderers of modern times were Jewish

Anonymous said...

divercity sed: "Whites haven't been victims of late."

Yea, tell that to the 200 000 white Rhodesians who had to move or get mowed down. Tell it to the 3000 the farmers in SA who were murdered, the 70000 white chicks in SA who got raped, the 35000 whites in SA who got whacked, the 1.0 mio. whites who have moved out because they see no future in SA.

Anonymous said...

"It has a fun Larger Thesis too, which is that what happened in the '60s was that America's traditional shame culture was replaced by a guilt culture, and that we've been paying the price ever since. "

I think you must be very young to buy into this thesis so wholeheartedly. There is nothing inferior about feeling guilty over having done something wrong. Shame , however, is the fear of what others will think of you. This fear can lead people to override the inhibitions of guilt and commit a wrong or wrongs in order to avoid public humiliation.

And to paraphrase the old adage about popularity - what is shameful isn't always wrong, what is wrong isn't always shameful...

Beyond that, we have so many different cultures coexisting in the US that it would be impossible to come to any sort of agreement on what should be considered shameful behavior.

"The highly ethnocentric diaspora Han Chinese face the same challenges in the Far East as the Jews face in the Middle East - they must coexist with essentially mirror reflection cultures of themselves (non-universal ingroup moralities)."

This is a fascinating perspective.

Anonymous said...

daveg sed:
"It is basically this dual standard, more than anything else, that drives people nuts.

If you are going to be ethnocentric, fine, but you then need to afford others the same opportunity."


Maybe the solution to this is to not take Jews seriously. Perhaps it really is just a strategy they employ to give them the edge. That would be understandable and the mistake we make is to take them at face value and not see the strategy. Jews are known to be grand strategists so this should not be a surprise. Why not see this as a chess game instead of being offended by the hypocrisy. In the ME such hypocrisy is considered standard in deal making. Remember all the feigning and theatrics in any ME bazaar?

Anonymous said...

I think your categories of White guilt and Catholic guilt are wrong. Catholic guilt appears to be an intense version of the general Christian principle that we are all born guilty. As a child in Church of England services when the celebrant confessed to "grievous sins" on behalf of the whole congregation, I used to think "speak for yourself, Vicar, I haven't done anything yet". Christian children are told that Christ's suffering on the cross is somehow their fault. Thank God I'm an atheist.
The elusive "White guilt" about slavery and the genocide of the Native Americans seems, if it exists at all, to be confined to Anglo Protestants. I have been told by hyphenated White Americans that these crimes were "nothing to do with us". The same peple maintain that "Immigrants [meaning hyphenates like themselves] built America". Since a fairly essential part of building America was getting rid of the indigenous people and forcing slaves to cultivate the land, there seems to be some inconsistency here. I understand that some Northern Protestants saw the Civil War as God's punishment for the sin of slavery. No Southern Christians seem to have taken this view, in spite of the 1 in 10 Southern White men killed being about God's usual tariff.
I'm rather surprised that Steve has never written about White Catholic (both Roman and Orthodox) self-pity in America. Invented by Irish-Americans, this means that people whose families have been comfortable in America for generations portray themselves as personal victims of the ancestral wrongs in the Old Country and of a pretty-well completely false history of discrimination by "Protestants" in America. This also absolves them of "White guilt".

Anonymous said...

I think "Jewish guilt" is connected to many things besides ethnocentrism. For instance, Jews are generally expected by their parents to be high achievers and to be successful, and feel guilty if they do not live up their parents' standards in this regard. Of course, this dynamic is not limited to Jews, but it seems especially pronounced among them.

Anonymous said...

Of course Jewish guilt has to do with Jewishness -- the Jews outside of Israel are disappearing through intermarriage. Every Jewish individual who marries out and ceases to perpetuate Jewishness bears a huge burden for the cessation of an ancient birthrate. There are, after all, very few Jews in the world. When there are but thirteen million Christian Europeans left in the world, I am sure they will be forgiven for feeling guilty about marrying Hindus or whatever. The fact is that the comparison between Jews and other whites is simply not apt in this regard.

Sailer writes: 'Indeed, the most obvious analog to slavery and taking America from the Indians, the disproportionate role of Jews in inflicting Communism upon humanity (as documented in UC Berkeley historian Yuri Slezkine's book 2004 The Jewish Century), has almost completely been crammed down the global Memory Hole.'

This is nonsense. Almost all good histories of the Jews discuss their involvement with the left, including communism. Slezkine was just asserting his supposed courageous originality by claiming otherwise in order to sell copy. I'm shocked that Sailer is not able to recognize such opportunism. It certainly indicates his lack of knowledge of Jewish historical literature.

What is surprising about Russian Jewish history is not that so many Jews were communists, but that so few Jews were communists. Most Russian and Polish Jews were religious or some form of Zionist (as indicated by the parties they supported in various elections). See Ezra Mendelsohn on this. Their support for the Reds in the Revolution -- whose precipitation had nothing to do with Jews per se and everything to do with Russia's collapse in WWI -- was only natural given what the Whites were doing to Jews in the Pale and what the Whites represented -- a return to the status quo ante in which Jews were second-class citizens.

Slezkine and Sailer confuse the preeminence of Jewish individuals in communism to a general correlation of Jews with communism, as if individual Jews' involvement with communism somehow makes all Jews 'guilty' of communism. The fact is that Jews are preeminent in everything in which they take an interest, and Sailer of all people should know why -- they're intellectually superior. Jews were, in fact, even more over-represented in the elite of early Italian fascism (especially in relation to the miniscule size of the Italian Jewish community) than in the elite of early Bolshevism. I haven't heard anyone equate fascism with Jewishness or Jewish interests. Indeed, it could very well be argued that individuals of partial Jewish descent were disproportionately represented in the Nazi party! See Bryan Mark Rigg on this. Anyone who would, though, equate Nazism with some sort of collective Jewish conspiracy would have to have their heads examined.

My advice to Sailer: read some Jewish history by good Jewish historians instead of getting your views on Jews from nitwits like Pat Buchanan or Kevin MacDonald.

Anonymous said...

I find Israel and Jewish culture a useful touchstone for me when I start to feel the pangs of white ethnic guilt. I remind myself of the Israeli laws against miscegenation, the lack of secular marriage and how it serves to police the racial boundaries. How can US miscegenation laws be bad (and why should Americans feel guilty about them) if the Jews maintain them for reasons of race purity and race survival to this very day?

And before anyone cautions me that it isn't a matter of "race", it surely isn't "religion" because the Israeli laws against miscegenation are equally binding upon atheists.

Anonymous said...

"My advice to Sailer: read some Jewish history by good Jewish historians instead of getting your views on Jews from nitwits like Pat Buchanan or Kevin MacDonald."

MacDonald's work is sort of a Cliff's Notes for "Jewish history by good Jewish historians".

Anonymous said...

sfg - Most practicing Anglicasns are black Africans. Anglicanism is explicitly 'Catholic', ie universalist.

Anonymous said...

anon:
"Jews were, in fact, even more over-represented in the elite of early Italian fascism..."

According to a History Channel show, some 2/3 of Italian Jews were Fascist party members. I guess that changed once Mussolini came under Hitler's influence.

Contra evil neocon/testing99, Stalin didn't kill all the Jewish Bolsheviks, but they did tend to lose power under him.

Anonymous said...

I have to say, most Jewish people I've met think they're white. The issue for you guys, I think, is less that Jewish people aren't white (the contortions the Stormfront crowd ties themselves into in order to accept everyone but the Jews as white are amusing), but that they don't vote (and otherwise act politically) white. I.E., you don't see Italians and Irish advocating constantly for more immigration.

As a former member of the Stormfront crowd (I stopped posting there more than a year ago), I used the logic you elucidate above to argue that Jews aren't white.

The distinction is ethnic, not genetic. Mike Wallace agrees with me.

Jews don't do "white guilt," because it doesn't apply to them, because they aren't white. Jews don't vote white because they aren't white.

When you're only something when there's an upside, then you're only pretending to be that something (usually not a matter of "fooling the goyim," but of fooling oneself - much easier to fool everyone else that way).

Anonymous said...

Great conversation. Too bad Section 319 of the Criminal Code of Canada and the Canadian Human Rights Commission completely prevent me from expressing my thoughts on the matter.

In addition to white envy that others have elucidated, I'm damned envious of the free speech of Americans.

I'm not talking hypotheticals here; if I were to say some of the things said in this thread, under my own name, I'd go straight to jail, with no bail until my show trial 10 months later, at which I would be found guilty and sentenced to 6-12 months (See Winnicki, Thomas). More disturbingly, not one of my 33 million citizens would speak up on my behalf. Yeah, it's that bad.

Anonymous said...

When there are but thirteen million Christian Europeans left in the world, I am sure they will be forgiven for feeling guilty about marrying Hindus or whatever.

But this is written into the definition of Jewishness, by Jews. Jewishness is meant to be difficult, to weed out the less able. Jewry is the core of a genetic strategy of one-way gene flow; all those defectors don't just evaporate, you know.

More to the point: you don't get to decide who's justified in their ethnocentrism.

Seamus said...

Jews in Russia who were oppressed horrifically and could not EVER escape being Jews chose to back the side that promised to uproot and destroy all the old religious and racial traditions and offer them a place? End the progroms and allow them to be boring bureaucrats?

Wow. That's news. In other groundbreaking affairs, kids like sweets.


But in Czarist Russian, Jews *could* "escape being Jews," simply by converting to Orthodoxy. The czars didn't practice racial anti-semitism, the way Nazis did.

Anonymous said...

"You figure there must have been Jews trying to get in to escape Russian anti-semitism, so I'd imagine they'd be relatively suspicious of outsiders."

I wish people would do basic research before "figuring" things that are totally retarded. As a convert to Orthodoxy (there is no such thing as a distinct Russian or Greek Orthodoxy,) I can assure you that the process is simple:

1) Meet with a priest
2) Receive religious instruction
3) Demonstrate a sincere desire to live an Orthodox Christian life
4) Receive baptism or, if you have already had a valid baptism, chrismation

Anyone can do this, even Jews. In fact, many Oriental Orthodox are all kinds of funny colors: Ethiopians, Copts, Indians (St. Thomas Christians,) etc., although Oriental Orthodoxy isn't quite the same thing as Orthodoxy.

While Russians might "look at you funny," it's not because they're Orthodoxy, it's because you're an ethnic interloper in a 100% Russian church, just as you would be in a Korean Presbyterian congregation or a Messianic Jewish synagogue. There are plenty of non-ethnic Orthodox churches in America; not so many in Russia, of course, because Russia is full of Russians.

- canty

Anonymous said...

What I mean by this is, for example, looking at two black guys call each other brother and wishing I could do that."
To judge from the bl-on-bl crime rates, all this "brotha" doesn't amount to much, but I'm sure it does make them feel at least momentarily, a solidarity. It certainly is pretty meaningless in Africa where the term would be restricted to those of the same tribe.
Whites do have these signifiers, but they have to be discrete. The police, firemen, masons, etc. Why do you think they prefer to remain white? Sometimes within a particular ethnicity? So they can call each other brother, and mean it. But the pc cops, usally envious whiter-people with degrees and no sense of Euro-ethnicity, won't let them
Whites who think like this have been "Tim Wised"--I believe he's the one who likes to say that whites don't have a culture. That is as bizarre as saying the forest does not have any trees of its own.
The food you could bring would include practically anything because you share a European heritage. Where does one begin?
Soul food is mostly adapted from European styles--French creole, Spanish, British. They brought no cuisine from Africa, only a few vegetables.
Your "heritage" is practically everything that uses electricity, writing, mathematics, or construction; the English language or any other European language; virtually any sport even the bastardized ones. I could go on, but I think you get my point.
Those flashy flourishes and special jargon are all sound and fury signifying nothing (Shakespeare); or very little on consequence.

Anonymous said...

"Evil Neocon wrote:

Perhaps Solzenhitsyn can't get published because his current work is not very good? Or profitable? Publishers are not charities, publishing the maunderings of "great men" because they once wrote something great, if there isn't a market for it."

And yet they'll publish whatever recent dreck has been written by Mailer, or Vidal. How many people read them anymore?

"Given the current climate in Europe and the ME, it would be very, very foolish from a family perspective for any Jew with relatives in either place to want restrictions in immigration."

And given that opinion, it would be very, very foolish for us to ever accept any more immigrants - jewish or otherwise - who might then hijack our immigration policy, and presume to define for us what our nation should be.

"Anonymous said...

My advice to Sailer: read some Jewish history by good Jewish historians instead of getting your views on Jews from nitwits like Pat Buchanan or Kevin MacDonald."

My advice to anonymous: read some Scientologist history by good Scientologist historians. You will then undoubtedly come to see the danger of Xenu and the wisdom of LRH.

I think this analogy is fairly apt. You are in effect saying, just read what we say about ourselves, not what your own people say about us. Why? Perhaps you have a different agenda then us. Can't we form our own opinion? Jews certainly have opinions about gentiles. Why then can't gentiles have opinions about jews?

As it ever occurred to you that by promoting such opinions you are fomenting anti-semitism where it didn't even previously exist.

Anonymous said...

"inkblot said...

"It has a fun Larger Thesis too, which is that what happened in the '60s was that America's traditional shame culture was replaced by a guilt culture, and that we've been paying the price ever since. "

I think you must be very young to buy into this thesis so wholeheartedly. There is nothing inferior about feeling guilty over having done something wrong. Shame , however, is the fear of what others will think of you. This fear can lead people to override the inhibitions of guilt and commit a wrong or wrongs in order to avoid public humiliation.

And to paraphrase the old adage about popularity - what is shameful isn't always wrong, what is wrong isn't always shameful..."

You must be very blind to reject it. What Michael said regarding shame/guilt seems quite right to me. What is shameful may not always be wrong. But what is shameful is very often wrong.

This society could use a little shame. No, strike that, a lot of it. Shame keeps people from festooning themselves with tattoos, (which are now so prevalent, that I sometimes feel like I live amongst south-seas pirates). Shame keeps people from dressing and eating like slobs. Shame keeps people from begetting bastards. Shame keeps people from proudly proclaiming to all the world whatever wierd sexual fetish they may be into. Shame keeps people from parading their imbecility on venues like the Jerry Springer show.

Unknown said...

"What I mean by this is, for example, looking at two black guys call each other brother and wishing I could do that."

Yeah. Sure. I feel that.

But there's a lot of other parts of black culture that really suck, Ron.

Anonymous said...

What, exactly, is the point of this post?

It may seem interesting while you're reading it, but by the end it appears to be nothing more than a thinly-veiled attack on Jews for being liberal.

Is that your point?

Honestly, the implication that Jews are uniquely responsible for communism and liberalism and all the other leftisms in the world is ridiculous. Do you have a "Jewish Problem" of your own?

Plainly, you believe that AS's work is not being published "in New York City" because Jews control the publishing houses. Really? There isn't a single publishing house that is not under the thumb of truth-denying Jews? Preposterous. If AS's book isn't getting published in the US, it's because either it is not good or there is no market for it.

While you may believe that Jews run the world, we still have a free economy in this country (at least in the publishing industry). It looks like AS has failed the test of the marketplace, not been the victim of some Jewish conspiracy to prevent his book from being published.

What an ultimately stupid post.

Dutch Boy said...

Shame is for when you get caught; guilt is for when you don't. Both have their uses.

Anonymous said...

In the last 60 years, the smart Jews chose the U.S. option over the Israel option, but they feel guilty about it. A larger percentage of the dumber communitarian types ended up in Israel, hence it's low per capita income. Israel is always presented as, well, Zion, a positive option for Jews, but there is also a kind of ghettoization benefit, for lack of a better term, to the white populations of the U.S. and Europe of divorce from the less capable, strong ethnocentrics. This had to be one factor motivating the Brits in the direction of establishing a Jewish homeland.

On Obama, is it possible that Barrack just doesn't have many ideas, that he isn't an ideas person? Aside from the greater genuiness/reasonableness of the younger generation, there really isn't much unique in Obama's liberal self-image; on the policy front (even given the handicap to development of interesting ideas of a lack of understanding of, say, how the economy works) there seems very little new in his prescriptions.

Anonymous said...

bhyIt shouldn't matter that New York won't publish his book. Publishing is easier than ever today, and Solzhenitsyn's name and reputation would guarantee sales regardless of who publishes his work.

When I was a kid and compulsive reader, I really never cared who published books. I suspect most readers are similar in this regard. Who publishes what, or where things are published, seems to be more about prestige and vanity amongst a fairly small elite of authors, editors and publishers. This elite is increasingly irrelevant.

With Aleksander Isaevich's permission and a good, well-edited translation, his book could be published and made available immediately through Lightning Source or Booksurge.

Anonymous said...

also on Obama (a bit off the subject), it occurs to me that liberal types prefer stronger gun control measures because they personally don't have the natural sense of responsibility and self confidence one needs to possess and own a deadly weapon, and actually go down to the shooting range and fire it occasionally. More comfortable in Beatnick poetry mode than firing a .357 revolver, is Barrack really the natural point man for the national defense?

Anonymous said...

My advice to Sailer: read some Jewish history by good Jewish historians instead of getting your views on Jews from nitwits like Pat Buchanan or Kevin MacDonald.

What does that mean? That Jewish history is off-limits to Gentiles?

Anonymous said...

As several commenters above have said, Steve is off on Jews here. First, Jews are an intense intellectual achievement culture, this creates a lot of opportunities for guilt completely apart from who you marry. Your education, your career, on and on it goes.

Second, the Jewish/Communist connection is just part of a larger Jewish/ideological movement connection -- over the past 150 years, whereever they were permitted to rise, Jews have attained leadership positions in intellectual and ideological settings. Communism is not unusual in this regard.

One can add that Jews qua Jews were not influential in Communist movements -- it was precisely the least religious and most deracinated Jews who sought a religion substitute in Communism.

jbday said...

Is Jewish guilt over immigration policy actually counterproductive for Jewish issues? There was polling done a couple months ago about Hispanic attitudes toward the State of Israel that got a some play in the blogosphere but I thought was underreported. A larger Hispanic population could cause a shift away from America's pro-Israel foreign policy.

I wonder if the Stormfront crowd would accept a 40% Hispanic America if it meant no more economic or military support of Israel?

Anonymous said...

"divercity sed: "Whites haven't been victims of late."

Well over 3 million White christians were made slaves by north african muslims as late as the 18th century, so, what, the cut off was 1861 or something?

Anonymous said...

Great article as usual Steve.

I think there should be another item on the "Stuff White People Like" list.

And that would be "Feeling Morally Superior To Other White People".

Especially with blacks and to a lesser degree other non-White people as the litmus test of that relative morality.

I can understand the sociobiology of Jewish guilt and it's relation to Jewish ethnocentrism (racism) and Kevin MacDonald has done fascinating work in this area.

But what is the sociobiological logic behind White and more particularly NW European descended "auto-racism".

There seems to be some kind of ethno-racial suicide gene in these populations.

I have the same question about why highly intelligent whales sometimes beach themselves collectively.

Anonymous said...

Engels (who lived with a Gentile woman without any 'guilt')

Engels was a Gentile, wasn't he?

Anonymous said...

Very smart & funny post, Mr. Sailer - you surpass yourself.

And interesting comments thread - but might it be possible to eliminate *anonymous* posting?

When there are half a dozen different commenters posting as "anonymous," it can get really tough to follow the thread of the discussion.

Anonymous said...

Desmond -- Stalin was the one who killed 20 million or so, AFTER he'd killed the Jews who had helped him get power.

The greatest murderers in human history were mostly German, with the Hutus running a close second or perhaps first, when you go to pure body count per person by direct killing. Maybe Pol Pot's minions would place third. Stalin killed more people, but his executioners were mostly Ethnic Russians bound to him by advantage, and worked over a far longer period of time. Stalin had two generations of executioners at work.

Perhaps you missed the purges of the 1930's? Stalin's whole point was to kill anyone who might threaten his power. Particularly Jewish leaders. Stalin himself (Doctor's Plot) was a notorious anti-Semite.

Given the attitudes in Europe before WWII, indeed in the 19th Century, it's not surprising that some Jews in the Communist Party wanted "An End To History" and acceptance, and willingly blinded themselves to anything that suggested it was merely a fantasy.

Yes Martin, Solzenhitsyn is not very good or interesting. He's a foreigner who writes about stuff no one is interested in. Gulag Archipelgo in the version I read was perhaps one of the most boring books ever written. Filled with obscure stuff that is not interesting. Who cares about 12th Century boyars?

If there was a market, for his stuff, he'd be published. There just isn't. There is no "Jewish Conspiracy" as Steve implies, just a complete failure of an old man obsessed with settling old ideological scores in Russia to connect the fashionable set in NYC. Wow. Color me shocked. Vidal and Mailer, at least the fashionable set are interested in them, because well they write all about the fashionable set.

What is most interesting here is that the tone of Steve's post, and many/most of the posters here, is EXACTLY like Ron Rosenbaum's ... moralist posturing.

The whole point of the post and the comments is to say "Us WASPS are unlike Jews, patriotic and morally pure Americans who always put America first and therefore are BETTER than everyone else." Consider the poster who decries Jews wanting more immigration as an emergency escape hatch for family in Europe or Israel.

His point is moralizing, how much superior he is as an American to the Jews who support more immigration, legal or otherwise. He's not interested in policy (reducing/closing immigration) by offering a split for influential Jews (explicit by Law exception to Jews fleeing persecution, perhaps Jackson-Vanik II) to get policy objectives accomplished.

No, his whole point is Status-Mongering and moralizing, JUST LIKE ROSENBAUM voting for Obama. Most of the other posters here follow the same route. Moralizing and status-posturing.

Ironic.

Anonymous said...

Someone wrote:

"Plainly, you believe that AS's work is not being published "in New York City" because Jews control the publishing houses. Really? There isn't a single publishing house that is not under the thumb of truth-denying Jews? Preposterous. If AS's book isn't getting published in the US, it's because either it is not good or there is no market for it. "

But in a prior post by Mr. Sailer about Postville is a link to this interview:

http://lukeford.net/profiles/profiles/stephen_bloom.htm

Where Steve Bloom is talking to Luke Ford about getting his book "Postville" published (Brackets are in the original):

"This was not an easy book to sell [because it made a group of Jews look bad]. I have an agent in New York City. We had a literary auction. There was someone interested from the Free Press. He'd read the proposal and he wanted to interview me. He said, 'First off, I'm uncomfortable with your conclusions. The Jews come out the bad guys.' I said, 'This book is not for you,' and hung up.

"There were 18 publishers who had the chance to bid on this book and only two bid on it. I ended up with Harcourt, who were terrific.

"When I handed in the manuscript, the editor said two things to me: 'One - this is terrific. Two - I'm really glad you're Jewish, because I don't think we would be able to publish this if you weren't.'

Anonymous said...

Orthodox Anarchist (http://orthodoxanarchist.com/) has excerpts from speeches at a recent Jewish conference in Newton, MA called "Righteous Indignation". The keynote address by Charles Sieradski is quite eye-opening. He addresses the lack of appeal of Jewish racialism/ethnocentrism to young Jews nowadays and suggests crafting a new Jewish ideology that is based on Jews being "holy vessels" (i.e. they must not mongrelize with us gentiles) through which God works to enlighten us gentiles and make us gentiles more just and righteous. Aka "healing the world". Aka "tikkun olam".

Scroll down to "Righteous Indignation Keynote" just above the words "Charles Lenchner" and click the play arrow. It is a Jewish audience, so he doesn't wallow in apologetics and excuses.

My guess is that young Jews have drunk a bit too deeply at the fountain of Reform leftism and anti-racism and have started to apply the same principles (Kant-fashion) to their own behavior and thoughts and are a bit embarrassed.

Sieradski wants to give them a way to continue to stay race pure and apart, while simultaneously insisting that white Americans ("the World") give up the same attitudes and "go quietly into that dark night".

I don't think it is going to happen. Young Jews are too secular. For them, special racial pleading just feels nasty. I don't think this new "holy vessel" ideology is going to work with atheists.

As the Good Rabbi Kahane (zk"l) put it, the Zionism of atheist Jews is nothing more than racism.

Anonymous said...

One can add that Jews qua Jews were not influential in Communist movements -- it was precisely the least religious and most deracinated Jews who sought a religion substitute in Communism.

Plocker's not buying it.

"The Jews active in official communist terror apparatuses (In the Soviet Union and abroad) and who at times led them, did not do this, obviously, as Jews, but rather, as Stalinists, communists, and "Soviet people." Therefore, we find it easy to ignore their origin and "play dumb": What do we have to do with them? But let's not forget them. My own view is different. I find it unacceptable that a person will be considered a member of the Jewish people when he does great things, but not considered part of our people when he does amazingly despicable things."

Anonymous said...

For all those people who think that getting the US publishing rights to the Sozhenitsyn tome would be a money-spinning bonanza, here's what you do:

1/ Find out where in Russia he lives.

2/ Contact him (you'll probably need a Russian translator, which shouldn't be too hard to find).

3/ Ask him for the rights (shouldn't be too hard, apparently you'll be the only one asking)

4/ Have the book translated (sure it'll cost a lot of money, but hey there's a big market for the book, isn't there?)

5/ Get an ISBN number for the book.

6/ Get the book laid out professionally

7/ Contact a book printer. arrange for 5000 copies for a first English edition.

8/ Contact Amazon.com, etc

9/ Contact Steve and friends and tell them the book is ready (for publicity)

10/ You're on your way! (Henry Regnery had to start somehow.)

What? You're not going to do this? You're instead going to complain that others won't?

Better to curse the darkness than to light a single match? Or is it the other way around.

No, here I've got the order right.

Anonymous said...

As several commenters above have said, Steve is off on Jews here. First, Jews are an intense intellectual achievement culture, this creates a lot of opportunities for guilt completely apart from who you marry. Your education, your career, on and on it goes.

Jews don't seem to feel much guilt over Communism. They just don't like non-Jews discussing it. I've often noticed that Jews are happy to tell each other about how a father or grandfather was a Communist during the 1940s, but woe to the goy who dares mention any Jewish affinity for Communism.

It all reminds me of a museum in the Midwest a few years ago that wanted to do an exhibit on the history of Jewish gangsters in America. Jewish organizations cried bloody murder. The claimed the idea that Jews played any significant role in American organized crime was preposterous. Jewish activists argued the exhibit was a classic antisemitic portrayal of Jews as greedy and unethical. Among themselves, however, Jews often seem proud of their Meyer Lanskys, Bugsy Siegels, Dutch Schultzes, Moe Dalitzes, and Longy Zwillmans.

Second, the Jewish/Communist connection is just part of a larger Jewish/ideological movement connection -- over the past 150 years, whereever they were permitted to rise, Jews have attained leadership positions in intellectual and ideological settings. Communism is not unusual in this regard.

Yeah, and three hundred years from now, when the remnant white population of America asks the remnant Jewish population about their role in the downfall of this country, Jews will trot out the names Bill Kristol, Jonah Goldberg, Michael Medved, David Horowitz, and JPod as evidence that American Jews were no more liberal than other whites, but were instead well-placed in any movement they took part in.

Anonymous said...

"A larger percentage of the dumber communitarian types ended up in Israel, hence it's low per capita income."

Israel's per-capita GDP is about $30k, which is lower than ours but is still relatively high by global standards. It's also growing at a healthy 5% annual clip. Old welfare policies did attract economically unproductive immigrants -- ultra-orthodox Jews who had lots of kids and spent their time studying the Talmud instead of working -- but a few years ago those subsidies were slashed and some state-owned industries were privatized. The result has been the recent economic boom.

Anonymous said...

"For all those people who think that getting the US publishing rights to the Sozhenitsyn tome would be a money-spinning bonanza, here's what you do:"

While I'm sure there were some deviations from the plan you lay out here, this is what Mel Gibson did to get "The Passion of the Christ" made. The reaction of organized Jewry was self-parodic in a SPLC/ADL two minutes hate style, orgy of hyperbole and paranoia. And yet in spite of this, the film was a great artistic and commercial success. Obviously, this is the road every project, no matter its truth or merit, that Jews disprove of will have to travel.

Anonymous said...

People are aware, aren't they, that Judaism is far from the only religion to opposed marriage outside the faith? Catholicism traditionally placed great barriers in the way of interfaith marriage (many of which still exist officially, even though often ignored in practice). Quakers automatically disfellowed those who married non-Quakers. (Betsy Ross and Dolly Madison were among those so penalized; Pat Ryan had to convert to Quakerism before she could marry Richard Nixon.)

Even mainline Protestants, while they might not object to intermarriages between members of the different Protestant denominations, would traditionally be displeased if their child married a Catholic or a Jew.

I doubt if interfaith marriage is particularly common in the Muslim world today (although there are exceptions, such as Arafat himself).

Anonymous said...

Some Jews feel guilty about leaving Judaism, some do not. I am mystified by the hysterical claims that Jews are ethnocentric. They are intermarrying at an extraodinary rate. This is surely upsetting to some Jews. So what? It's only natural that some Jews express nostaglia for a world that once was yet is dying in front of their eyes.

You might want to take those blinders off, because there's nothing mystifying about it.

1) Jews marry out far less than Euros. Ergo, by your own metric, they are significantly more ethnocentric.
http://tinyurl.com/6yhmsq

2) Only (generally activist) Jews are allowed to count Jews, practically guaranteeing bias in favor of Jewish interest (Chicken Little routine).

3) Past performance may not guarantee future success, but it's the best indicator; we're talking 3,000 years here. I'm from Missouri on this one.

4) High defection rates are an historical feature of Jewry; the numbers today (dubious as they are) are not a difference of kind.

5) See any mainstream Euro groups hobknobbing with the bigwigs, decrying intermarriage? Think hard on what the response would be like, from Jews and Euros alike. Compare and contrast these hypothetical (i.e., nonexistent reactions to nonexistent behavior) reactions with the reactions of both to actual Jewish behavior.

Does that help demystify the "hysterical" claims?

Anonymous said...

In all the tangle I forgot an important point/question vis-a-vis the Israel vs. Diaspora thing: doesn't the reluctance of Jewry to emigrate from Euro host societies to Israel lend credence to the suggestion by Jewry's critics that IQ is accompanied by ingroup morality as an explanation for Jewish success?

Anonymous said...

Tommy, I'm Jewish and I feel very guilty about Communism.

No one in my family is Communist; in fact, they're mostly pretty staunchly anti-Communist. The most liberal member of my family is my gentile stepmother, of German Protestant extraction. And the Communists I've known in my life have all been European gentiles.

Still, I feel very guilty because Communism was invented by a German Jew and a lot of Jews were involved in its promulgation.

By the way, since you're of German origins, I expect you to feel guilty about Nazism. No excuses - you're German, own up to it.

While you're at it, I believe "Hefner" is a Germanic name. And Larry Flynt And Bob Guccione were also gentile Euro-Americans. So I expect you to feel guilty about the spread of pornography. Hey, don't start talking about Jewish involvement in porn, you're just dodging the issue. The fact is that white gentiles have played a key role in the spread of porn.

Jews don't seem to feel much guilt over Communism. They just don't like non-Jews discussing it.

With the charming way you refer to Jews, I can't see why they would mind!

Anonymous said...

People are aware, aren't they, that Judaism is far from the only religion to opposed marriage outside the faith? Catholicism traditionally placed great barriers in the way of interfaith marriage (many of which still exist officially, even though often ignored in practice). Quakers automatically disfellowed those who married non-Quakers. (Betsy Ross and Dolly Madison were among those so penalized; Pat Ryan had to convert to Quakerism before she could marry Richard Nixon.)

As aware as we are that Catholicism aims to convert (rather than exclude) the whole world without cutting their foreskins off (my way of saying there are barriers, and then there are barriers), yes. I don't know anything about Quakers, but it's likely I'd have heard by now if they erected the kind of barriers to genetic inflow that Jews have, historically. I'm also positive they aren't waging a "for thee but not for me" miscegenation kulturkampf against anyone, much less my race, either.

Even mainline Protestants, while they might not object to intermarriages between members of the different Protestant denominations, would traditionally be displeased if their child married a Catholic or a Jew.

Again, the difference is one of degree, and who's doing the talking. Protestants don't evangelize Jews with miscegenation propaganda. They've always been less resistant to intermarriage than Jews. They've always been infinitely more amenable to conversion.

I doubt if interfaith marriage is particularly common in the Muslim world today (although there are exceptions, such as Arafat himself).

Okay, here I agree with you; there are probably parallels between Judaism and Islam in this regard.

Anonymous said...

anony-mouse said...
For all those people who think that getting the US publishing rights to the Sozhenitsyn tome would be a money-spinning bonanza, here's what you do: [...]


OK, I'm in. All I need from you is a round-trip plane ticket to Moscow, a guaranteed introduction to Alex Solzhenitsyn, and his legal consent to publish the book here. I can handle the rest.

Anonymous said...

Jews tend to be interested in ideas, at least the higher iq ones. Isn't the first word of the Torah "read?" I used to know two v. nice elderly guys, both gentile. One looked like Vincent Price and the other like Alistair Cook...they had owned a jewelry store or something like that, but were not wealthy. They used to like to go a certain cafeteria because a lot of the older people who patronized it were Jewish and jewish people, the two gentlemen said, were so "alive." I knew what they meant though I was pretty young then. They were referring to that sense of hunger for information and discussion.

Anonymous said...

Many of the sixties radicals were Jewish (e.g. Hoffman and Rubin) but many were not(e.g. Hayden and Ayers).
There is too much political correctness about Jews in the mainstream; there is too much weird obsession/hostility toward them on this site.

Anonymous said...

Re Canson:
Would someone publishing Solzhenitsyn's book get a huge amount of negativity pouring down on them?

1/ Only if the book was at all successful, which as I say I doubt.

2/ And so what if it did get negativity or hate? No guts...

(remember that you're commenting on the website of someone who believes there are inherent racial difference in IQ)

Re Bill:
Sorry Bill, I don't have the fare nor Solzhenitsyn's address even. Can't give you an introduction to Solzhenitzen either (is he in good health? He must be very old-better hurry up)

And if you can wait 50 years after his death, it enters the public domain.

Anonymous said...

testing99: Jews in Russia who were oppressed horrifically and could not EVER escape being Jews chose to back the side that promised to uproot and destroy all the old religious and racial traditions and offer them a place? End the progroms and allow them to be boring bureaucrats?

According to Chang and Halliday, the first emissary sent by the [Russian] Comintern to China, in April of 1920, was Grigori Voitinsky, who founded the CCP, and in August of 1923, Moscow sent Mikhail Borodin [aka Mikhail Gruzenberg] to steer Sun Yat-sen's Nationalist Party into communism.

BTW, Chang & Halliday credit numerous CCP moles in the Nationalist Party, planted in the 1920's [when the CCP, under Moscow's orders, existed as a suborganization of the Nationalist Party], for the betrayals a quarter of a century later which would lead to Mao's victory over Chiang Kai-shek.

Anyway, I suppose that you could argue from now until the cows come home about whether the Tsar ever did anything to the Jews which could have possibly justified their complicity in the imposition of communism upon "Russia" [to include Ukraine, Georgia, etc], but I don't see how you can argue that the 100,000,000 or more Chinese who were murdered by the communists could have deserved a fate whose seeds had been planted by the likes of Voitinsky & Gruzenberg.

[I could go on and on and on in this vein for hours: Tell me what the Tsar ever did to Rosa Luxembourg which demanded that Germany be subjugated by communism? Or what the Tsar ever did to Emma Goldman which demanded that William McKinley be assassinated? Or what the Tsar ever did to 21st century Jews living in America to cause them to vote 85% to 90% (or more) in favor of socialism? Etc etc etc.]

PS - Here is a question which I have often asked, but to which I have never received a reply [of any kind, either satisfactory or unsatisfactory]: Can anyone point to any opposition, on the part of the Jewish community, to the philosophy of Karl Marx, in, say, the crucial period from 1848 to 1917 [i.e. from the publication of the Communist Manifesto through the Bolshevik takeover in October of 1917]?

For instance, did Disraeli [who lived until 1881] ever speak out against communism [or "socialism", as he might have called it]?

Or was there any organized [or even un-organized] opposition to communism on the part of any particular school of Rabbinical thought?

For that matter, did any rabbis ever speak out against the philosophy of Karl Marx?

There is some speculation that Friedrich Hayek may have had some Jewish blood in him, but The Road to Serfdom was not published until 1944, long after it could have been of any use in preventing the imposition of communism on Russia, Eastern Europe, or China.

Anonymous said...

"testing99 said...

Yes Martin, Solzenhitsyn is not very good or interesting. He's a foreigner who writes about stuff no one is interested in. Gulag Archipelgo in the version I read was perhaps one of the most boring books ever written. Filled with obscure stuff that is not interesting. Who cares about 12th Century boyars?"

You are either a youngster with no memory of the recent past, or just a damned idiot and liar.

What did Solzhenitsyn ever do? Right. A hack. He did win the Nobel prize in literature - much more than you've ever accomplished. And he was lionized by most conservatives in this country. You are ostensibly a conservative, aren't you? William F. Buckley wrote of him in 1978: "The only great eloquence in the world today is that of Solzhenitsyn and his fellows." You've heard of W.F. Buckley, haven't you? He was the old fart who ran National Review before Rich Lowry did. To say that Solzhenitsyn is/was of no consequence just shows you'll say anything to further an argument.

So he occasionally writes about 12th century Boyars. I realize that you don't give a damn about history, and that for you the world is made anew everyday. But it does matter.

Anonymous said...

General comment: Many posters are confusing the Jewish ethnicity with the Jewish reigion, sliding back and forth between the two meanings of "jewish" when convenient to their arguments.


Anon: I am mystified by the hysterical claims that Jews are ethnocentric. They are intermarrying at an extraodinary rate.

Not compared to German-Americans or British-Americans, or Polish-Americans, all of whom have pretty much blended into each other.



Another Anon: Israel's per-capita GDP is about $30k, which is lower than ours but is still relatively high by global standards.

But undoubtedly far lower than the per-capital GDP of American Jews.

Anonymous said...

Anony-mouse should know that Steve Sailer is in good company.

Even the great Thomas Sowell acknowledges differences between the races when it comes to IQ, but he attributes it to nurture and not to nature.

Ditto for George Bush. Former Secretary of Education Rod Paige was busted for faking the results of standardized tests in the Houston Independent School District.

Better proof is offered by looking at the Hopwood decision here in Texas. Once it was implemented the number of blacks and browns at UT Austin and Texas A&M declined. Then Governor Bush signed the Top Ten Percent law into effect. This circumvented Hopwood, and allowed UT and A&M to consider such soft factors as family background and bilingual abilities - yep, a sop to Hispanics - in lieu of high test scores and academic performance. Result: black and brown admissions magically rose.

And since university admissions is a zero-sum game, someone got shoved aside. The someone included grossly overqualified whites, South Asians and Asians. Many of the overqualified were National Merit Scholars or its equivalent. The Austin-American Statesman profiled one of the South Asian victims a few weeks ago.

I suggest anony-mouse contact one of these two universities, and try to get the results of standardized tests of incoming freshmen, but broken down by race, ethnicity and national origin.

Best of luck to you. :')

Anonymous said...

FYI all: The number one google hit for Solzhenitsyn's memory-holed book is a post on some obscure blog, though one that some of you may be familiar with.

http://www.google.com/search?q=Two+Hundred+Years+Together

Go ahead and click the link.

Anonymous said...

testing99 sed:

"The greatest murderers in human history were mostly German..."

"Stalin killed more people,.."

Great logic at display there!!

I guess it depends on the "worth" of those people. Stalins subjects were mostly peasants, whereas the Germans killed really important humans, who are perhaps worth 10 or 20 times as much as Russian peasants. This must be the assumption underlying testing99's logic. Sounds very ethical and Christian to me.

Anonymous said...

Some people on this board are claiming that the fact that 50% of American Jews is not signficant because Euro-Americans intermarry more often.

Really? What is the rate of intermarriage for Boston Italians or Irishmen? Further, why is it presumed that Jews must intermarry -- i.e. disappear? This is an absurd and antisemitic standard, not that antisemites would care.

In any event, the comparison is spurious. Judaism is a religion-folk. Jewishness has an ethnic dimension no doubt, but is ultimately defined by religion. Most Jews believe this, even the ultra-orthodox. I know an orthodox Jew who married a Korean woman who went through the strict conversion process. She is considered Jewish by orthodox rabbis because she keeps the commandments very well.

German Americans used to be quite endogamous. Two World Wars undid their aloofness. Further, the difference between a Catholic Polish American and a Catholic German American is not significant. After 100 years, they're both white, English-speaking and Catholic. The common culture and identity is kept alive. But less than 10% of the offspring of Jewish-Christian marriage are raised Jewish, so this is a question of culture and religion and not one of race for almost all Jews.

Not a single Jew anywhere would protest if a Christian said, 'I want to marry a Christian, because I believe in the faith and it's important to me.' It is quite different, though, to say, 'I will not marry a Jew, because I think they are Satan-spawn. I will not marry a black person, because I think they are animals.' Most Jews, as far as I know, express a desire to marry other Jews in positive, not negative, terms.

If Jewish rates of intermarriage are going to be compared to the rates of white Christians, then the real comparison is not the rates between different white Christian groups, but between different races.

People on this board claim that Jews are not white. If that is so, and if the IQ relation, as Sailer claims, between Jews to whites is the same as that between whites to blacks (one standard deviation), then the intermarriage rate between Jews and white Christians is many, many times greater than the intermarriage rate between white Christians and black Christians. By this measure, Jews look positively anti-ethnocentric. Further, the hollering that Jews should intermarry is the 'evolutionary strategy' of an inferior group to subvert and undo the existence of a superior group. Why the superior group should comply is not, needless to say, self-evident.

Of course, it is futile to write sensibly about Jews, because most people on this board, and I suspect Sailer as well (but only in his weaker moments, I imagine), are antisemites. Reading comments on this board, it is clear that antisemitism truly is irrational.

Anonymous said...

Not compared to German-Americans or British-Americans, or Polish-Americans, all of whom have pretty much blended into each other.

This is a spurious comparison, given there is a country called Germany with about 80 million ethnic Germans. If German-Americans gradually lose their German identities, there is still a large, secure homeland where the German identity is secure. If Jews around the world stop identifying as Jews and blend in with the surrounding population, there won't be anything left of Jewish identity except a tiny, beleaguered state in the Middle East which has only been around for 60 years and may not survive much longer.

Anonymous said...

Proofreader said. What does that mean? That Jewish history is off-limits to Gentiles?

Of course. The "gentiles" (absurd term for ALL OF HUMANITY except 12 million and written absurdly in small case) are not supposed to discuss the Jews. They are to be discussed BY the Jews.

The Jewish panic, evasion and denial expressed by some, or is it only one, of the posters here is another predictably expression of Jewish sociobiology.

The technique is to avoid the subject as much as possible and then when the subject comes up pretend not to understand the clearly stated and historically confirmed observations.

Then call your opponents anti semites and scamper off the play ground back home to mommy.

Anonymous said...

Still, I feel very guilty because Communism was invented by a German Jew and a lot of Jews were involved in its promulgation.

I don't expect you to feel personal guilt over Communism and I don't think many Jews do feel guilt over Communism. My point wasn't that Jews should feel guilty so much as I dislike charges of antisemitism being hurled at anyone who dares discuss the matter.

By the way, since you're of German origins, I expect you to feel guilty about Nazism. No excuses - you're German, own up to it.

I have a book on shelf called The Good Old Days: the Holocaust as Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders. As the subtitle indicates, the book is a compilation of documentary descriptions of the Holocaust from the perspectives of those were involved in its execution and bystanders who saw and did nothing. It's not only the book's portrayal of Nazi brutalities that I find chilling, but the frequent callousness of these men, these relatives of mine, who killed defenseless men, women, and children with so little mercy.

These killings took place long before I was born and were committed by men who are not my countrymen. As an American of mostly German descent, whose paternal grandfather was a decorated Army officer who fought the Germans in the Second World War, do I feel guilt for what these men did? At times, unavoidably, yes.

Strange as it may sound, I do feel bad about the Nazis. It's still difficult at times to comprehend how people who are my ethnic relatives could have done what they did.

Having said that, Holocaust historians have analyzed the Germans to death. Why should a few questions about Jews and Communism be verboten?

Anonymous said...

Solzhenitsyn argues for collective guilt, he believes that (any) people should take responsibility for the wrongs/rights their "kin" or ancestors committed. Even if that was way, way in the past.

So, as a person of West European descent I should be ashamed for, I guess, slavery, colonialism, Holocaust, apartheid et al. I don't buy it and I don't feel guilty about that at all. I think it's wrong and criminal and I condemn it, but guilt, I cannot feel. Feeling guilt for things I did not do, is stupid.

But Solzhenitsyn goes even further, he believes that the expression of collective guilt is the essence of a people.

Think about that.

I've never heard anyone defining a people for their past crimes, I believe it's common shared ancestry tied to some historical region, not collective shared heritable guilt.

So, I don't see why Jews should take their share of the blame. Why should post-Gulag Jews born in other continents feel guilty about crimes done by their kin/ancestry way, way back. That just doesn't make sense.

However, the story he has to tell sounds very interesting.

@Testing99

Solzhenitsyn is a great and interesting writer. Let's get real here. It's not that his material is bad, it's the topic.

I don't think there are any strings pulled here. Publishers are just too fond of their good names -- why should they risk it for some medium book seller? They're not missing out on Harry Potter like mass sales. They may sell some copies to those truly interested, like Steve (and me). But mostly, it will be net negative on balance, because of all the bad press they will generate. From a business perspective, I'd say (and advice): pass the buck.

Anonymous said...

Again, more smoke.

The 50% figure include a lot of reform Jews, who by definition reject the more racist and offensive tenets of the religion.

Then you cite some one of the certainly very few examples of a othadox conversion involving an asian woman.

However, we have seen from discussions of the Syrian jews that conversion is not held in high regard.

Additionally, the priestly caste can't intermarry.

There is also the topic of how many males convert to Judaism, particularly in the orthodox group.

I could also discuss all extensive steps taken to limit and prevent conversion except in the more extreme cases, and those who advocate against conversion such as Elliot Abrams.

Also, we can talk about Israel and the policies it implements to remain a "Jewish state."

But the fact is, you are probably going to be able to carve out some super precise set of exceptions to what is moral and what is not moral that will exactly mirror the Jewish experience, and if someone else tries to create a moral structure that is slightly different but essentially achieves the same result you are going to claim that these small difference transfer what you accept as entirely good (judiasm) to something entirely bad just because it does not advantage your particular ethnic or religious group.

That is what it really comes down to.

Anonymous said...

Some people on this board are claiming that the fact that 50% of American Jews is not signficant because Euro-Americans intermarry more often.

I cast doubt on the cited figure. It's not peer-reviewed or subjected to scrutiny.

That aside, one need not dismiss Jewish intermarriage to make the point that Jewish intermarriage doesn't prove what some claim it proves (i.e., lack of ethnocentrism relative to whites, etc.).

Really? What is the rate of intermarriage for Boston Italians or Irishmen? Further, why is it presumed that Jews must intermarry -- i.e. disappear? This is an absurd and antisemitic standard, not that antisemites would care.

It took Steve a while to post it, so you may have missed it:
http://tinyurl.com/6yhmsq

It is not so presumed, at least not in my quarter. Jews can stay as ethnocentric as they wish. I'd actually prefer a 0% (or 100%) intermarriage rate to a 50% rate, though. But I don't see how reciprocating an insistence on intermarriage (especially in a rhetorical sense) is "anti-Semitic," either.

Is it racist for whites to refuse intermarriage, a priori?

In any event, the comparison is spurious. Judaism is a religion-folk. Jewishness has an ethnic dimension no doubt, but is ultimately defined by religion.

Nah. Plenty of atheistic and secular Jews out there. Even most of the orthodox consider them Jews for life. Jews don't reject Einstein.

German Americans used to be quite endogamous.

As endogamous as Jews? I doubt it. Did they show anywhere near the double-standard ("for thee, but not for me") that Jews have (and do)?

Further, the difference between a Catholic Polish American and a Catholic German American is not significant.

Lol! You're the arbiter of ethnic identity (and Ethnic Genetic Interests) now? You don't get to decide who's justified in pursuing his own rights (EGI), or what cultural differences can be used to justify same.

After 100 years, they're both white, English-speaking and Catholic. The common culture and identity is kept alive. But less than 10% of the offspring of Jewish-Christian marriage are raised Jewish, so this is a question of culture and religion and not one of race for almost all Jews.

Yes, I doubt very much that the Jewish intermarriage figures (the real or the ostensible) include much interracial marriage - it's probably much lower than the white interracial marriage rate. But it's still a bit of a smokescreen to point to Jewish religion when a) much of the point of the Jewish religion in the first place is ethnocentrism and b) the rate of interracial marriage (and simple intermarriage) for secular Jews is significantly lower than that of whites

Not a single Jew anywhere would protest if a Christian said, 'I want to marry a Christian, because I believe in the faith and it's important to me.'

Nope. They'd save the howling for when Christians had the temerity to set up a Christian sect that behaved analogously to Judaism.

It is quite different, though, to say, 'I will not marry a Jew, because I think they are Satan-spawn. I will not marry a black person, because I think they are animals.' Most Jews, as far as I know, express a desire to marry other Jews in positive, not negative, terms.

Now you're splitting hairs. And you're being unfair (to put it mildly); Jews have had 3000 years to hone their game, while whites are babes in swaddling by comparison. It's expected Jews will fit Jewish criteria of moral nuance better than whites will.

Fortunately, the Jewish standard needn't be our standard.

Once again, Jews don't get to dictate whether things are framed positively, or negatively, or anything else. They certainly don't get to erect straw men about "Satan-spawn" and "animals." It's absurd to demand that people play your legalistic games before they get your stamp of approval on how they pursue their Ethnic Genetic Interests. It's like demanding people feel soft and fuzzy about black criminals before they're allowed to buy a gun.

If Jewish rates of intermarriage are going to be compared to the rates of white Christians, then the real comparison is not the rates between different white Christian groups, but between different races.

No, I think the more finely tuned criteria suggested above is more apt. But again, I doubt the interracial marriage rate for Jews is higher than that for whites.

People on this board claim that Jews are not white.

They do? I have highlighted a cultural, not genetic, distinction to this effect (there is a genetic distinction, but it's pretty slim).

If that is so, and if the IQ relation, as Sailer claims, between Jews to whites is the same as that between whites to blacks (one standard deviation), then the intermarriage rate between Jews and white Christians is many, many times greater than the intermarriage rate between white Christians and black Christians. By this measure, Jews look positively anti-ethnocentric.

Those are some impressive mental gymnastics you've got going. But you've thrown IQ in there, in a way that others have not. When Jews proselytize miscegenation for whites, there's no IQ clause. Besides, as I've pointed out already, black-white intermarriage is not comparable to white-Jewish intermarriage. The latter involves far less loss of EGI than the former. Black-Jewish intermarriage is far more analogous to black-white intermarriage than white-jewish intermarriage is.

EGI is the point, not IQ or any other single trait.

Further, the hollering that Jews should intermarry is the 'evolutionary strategy' of an inferior group to subvert and undo the existence of a superior group. Why the superior group should comply is not, needless to say, self-evident.

I'll let someone making the argument answer that. If it's a straw man as I suspect (or can you quote the actual (and not simply rhetorical) demand?), then it doesn't need answering.

Of course, it is futile to write sensibly about Jews, because most people on this board, and I suspect Sailer as well (but only in his weaker moments, I imagine), are antisemites. Reading comments on this board, it is clear that antisemitism truly is irrational.

How is it irrational to point out the behavior of other groups? Seems perfectly rational to me. It seems perfectly rational for the groups in question to obfuscate in response, too, but the resulting arguments themselves (in my experience) are usually irrational. The claim of irrationality strikes me as projection.

bigboy said...

big bill said... "I find Israel and Jewish culture a useful touchstone for me when I start to feel the pangs of white ethnic guilt. I remind myself of the Israeli laws against miscegenation, the lack of secular marriage and how it serves to police the racial boundaries. How can US miscegenation laws be bad (and why should Americans feel guilty about them) if the Jews maintain them for reasons of race purity and race survival to this very day?

And before anyone cautions me that it isn't a matter of 'race', it surely isn't 'religion' because the Israeli laws against miscegenation are equally binding upon atheists."

It isn't a matter of race....Jews in Israel come from Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, India and Ethiopia. A Yemenite Jew in Israel is probably racially similar to an Arab from Yemen, but very different in appearance from a Jew of Eastern European heritage from Brooklyn in the same country. Both are Jews and both can and probably do intermarry in Israel. So it's not about race as we understand the term. It is about "Jewishness," however.

In fact, I could convert to Judaism tomorrow, be granted Israeli citizenship, and have access to all those Jewish women out there. Is that fair? Not really. Are these marriage laws to which you refer racist or similar to U.S. anti-miscegenation laws? Not really, though some would like to think so.

Anonymous said...

Re Canson:
"Would someone publishing Solzhenitsyn's book get a huge amount of negativity pouring down on them?

1/ Only if the book was at all successful, which as I say I doubt.

2/ And so what if it did get negativity or hate? No guts..."

First Position: No market.

Second Position: Silence.

Third Position: Hysterics.

This pattern is pretty much 1:1 with the patterns noted time and again by those you smear as crude anti-semites. Hardly the conduct I would expect from a superior people with clean hands. If you have a problem with the truth you might want to examine your relationship to truth. Certainly there is much to admire about the Jewish people but "works and plays well with others" isn't one of those things.

Anonymous said...

anon. said

Reading comments on this board, it is clear that antisemitism truly is irrational.

Why? Can you walk us through the thought process that led you to emit this put-down, or were you simply making an emotional ejaculation?

Person x: "Facts."

Person y: "Canards."

Person x: "Facts again."

Person y: "Outrage."

I have no problem with any publishing company being reluctant to make their dominant ethnicity look bad. As another commenter here said, let critics start their own publishing company.

What bothers me is when those ethnics would deny that right to others. If I were to start a gentile white publishing company whose unwritten policy is never or rarely to publish criticisms of gentile whites, never to consider publishing anyone unless it helps gentile whites specifically in some fashion, and rarely to publish non-gentile-whites at all, and then only as a very reluctant exception - what could I expect from the ADL and interested Jews generally? Don't kid yourself. While there is nothing wrong in principle with my doing such a thing, both feet of Jews everywhere would descend upon the neck of my company. The needle of the national Jewish network outrage meter would break (it is constantly breaking), and we would hear imprecations and words like "Nazi" until the cows came home.

In short, what bothers me is hypocrisy.

That's a shortcoming of my taking universalism seriously. Who are the biggest promoters of universalism again (for other peoples, that is)?

Oh, there I go, being "irrational" again... Or is that "extreme" "racist" "right-wing" ... (etc. etc. etc.)? Whatever it is, I'm sure it "ought to be looked into by the authorities" because it "turns your stomach."

Polistra said...

I know of one book that explores the subject. "Iron Curtain Over America" by John Beaty, pub 1951, available from Alibris. Part of the book is typical HUAC anti-communism, but it also details why Ashkenazy Jews seem to be uniquely drawn to Marxism.

Anonymous said...

If Jewish rates of intermarriage are going to be compared to the rates of white Christians, then the real comparison is not the rates between different white Christian groups, but between different races.

I'd agree with much of your analysis but not your conclusion. I don't know that there is a fair comparison to any other group when it comes to studying intermarriage between Jews and others. Jews are white, so comparing to the rates between races wouldn't be fair, because intermarriage between races is far less common than religious intermarriage. Religion can be ignored. Skin color never disappears.

On the other hand, it's also not fair to compare intermarriage rates between Jews and Christians to the rates between, say, Methodists and Catholics. Judaism and Christianity are very different religions, while the differences between the various sects of Christianity are more subtle.

OTOH, you could also say that intermarriage rates aren't closer to 100% because Jews have higher IQs, and assortative mating and all that. So that is a factor, but there are still, in absolute terms, more smart non-Jews than smart Jews.

Given all the various factors, 50% seems pretty close to what the "natural rate" of intermarriage would be: the rate that would exist absent outright bigotry, bu factoring in IQ, education, religious adherence, location, etc.

That said, Jewish bigotry clearly does exist. Outside the people who want to preserve Jews as a people for religious or mere sentimental reasons there are clearly groups and individuals for which pure hatred of "goys" is a motivating factor. The Syrian Jews mentioned a few months ago, with their in-depth anyalsis of the bloodlines of potential converts and their desire to keep out people with "gentile traits" - anyone who says that's not bigotry is just in pure denial.

Terms like goy, goyische kopf (thinking like a goy), schwartzes, etc. - these aren't the terms used by people who love their fellow men. I have a hunch that if a reasonably large Christian denomination - oh, say, Mormons - or a Christian university - like - just to throw a random school out there - Bob Jones University - embraced such distinctions, that the full weight of the government and the media would be brought to bear to force them into compliance with the hivemind.

BJU had its tax-exempt status revoked because of its views on miscegenation and interracial marrying/dating. The Mormon Church had a variety of assaults made on its practice of excluding blacks from the priesthood.

During his presidential campaign, Mitt Romney was questioned about the practice that ended 30 years ago. Was Joe Lieberman ever questioned about Orthodaox Jewish marriage practices? Not to my recollection. Any reporter who asked such a question probably would've been fired.

Anonymous said...

Of course, it is futile to write sensibly about Jews, because most people on this board, and I suspect Sailer as well (but only in his weaker moments, I imagine), are antisemites.

Then you haven't been paying attention, or else you're a really sensitive Jew, or dumber than the average Jew, anyway.

I've been reading Mr. Sailer for over a year, and while he does have the standard anti-semites lurking about, most of us just appear to be genuinely interested in an honest discussion of lots of things surrounding genes and race - and that includes Jews, who, as an outlier group, will tend to get more attention, than, say, Swedes.

If you don't like what is sometimes said then tough noogies. An honest discussion means raising facts you might sometimes find offensive. If you happen to be black then you might very well be offended when discussion of blacks brings up their lower avg IQ, their higher crime rate, etc. Those facts may be offensive, but they're still true.

Anonymous said...

I suggest anony-mouse contact one of these two universities, and try to get the results of standardized tests of incoming freshmen, but broken down by race, ethnicity and national origin.

Funny that Steve never mentioned it, but one of the top universities in the country just completely dropped standardized tests as an admissions criteria.

It's odd when you think about it: the whole business world is moving towards blind measures in order to eliminate bias in decision-making, while colleges are moving towards more bias.

These tests were originally created as a way to eliminate bias towards non-whites. Now they're being eliminated so that bias against whites can be increased.

Anyone here ever heard of the story of the Trojan Horse?

Anonymous said...

In any event, the comparison is spurious. Judaism is a religion-folk. Jewishness has an ethnic dimension no doubt, but is ultimately defined by religion.

Except the Syrian Jews...

“Never accept a convert or a child born of a convert,” Kassin told me by phone, summarizing the message. “Push them away with strong hands from our community. Why? Because we don’t want gentile characteristics.” ...

Anonymous said...

As aware as we are that Catholicism aims to convert (rather than exclude) the whole world without cutting their foreskins off

Circumcision is not a barrier for white Americans, who are mostly circumcised anyway.

The reason that "Jews" (and a whole helluvalota non-Jews) can make Christians feel guilty about not accepting blacks as sons-in-law and duaghters-in-law is that Christianity specifically purports to be a universal religion and encourages proselyting, while Judaism from the beginning has been about the "chosen people."

It's not Judaisms fault that it happens to be that way.

Once Jews went from being a settled group in Judea to being a minoriy group in Europe it could have gone two ways - either a low IQ in-group (like gypsies) or a high IQ in-group. They took the latter path, of course.

Anonymous said...

patrick said...

There is too much political correctness about Jews in the mainstream; there is too much weird obsession/hostility toward them on this site.


There is plenty of resentment toward Jews out there in other places, it's just that people on this site tend to be a bit more expressive than average. This blog is a good place, IMO, for American Jews and gentiles to get a better understanding of each other's gripes. I hope Jews, rather than being scared off, rise to the challenge and engage gentiles openly here.

In the spirit of openness, here's my biggest gripe with Jews:

I can't stand it when they offensively suggest that any hint of European American self-awareness equates to Hitlerism.

anony-mouse said...
Re Bill:
Sorry Bill, I don't have the fare nor Solzhenitsyn's address even. Can't give you an introduction to Solzhenitzen either (is he in good health? He must be very old-better hurry up)

And if you can wait 50 years after his death, it enters the public domain.


Dang, I thought you were serious.

Anonymous said...

Outside the people who want to preserve Jews as a people for religious or mere sentimental reasons

Of course I failed to note: to the poltiically correct/multiculti hivemind, even the preservation of a group for "sentimental reasons" is considered racist - if that particular group consists of non-jewish whites.

Anonymous said...

"Who cares if they (meaning blacks and browns) have SATs of 956, as long as they are trying hard?"

The admissions director of my alma mater - a public university - said this to me directly a few years ago.

He had a furious look on his face when he said it, then he stormed out of the room.

Whites need to tell their offspring to try hard.

It won't get them into Harvard.

But the feeling of futility will be sublime.

Anonymous said...

British GQ FEB 2002
The Last Mobster: The Oldest Living Mafiso Tells All
By Richard Stratton

95 year old Joe Stassi, the man who set up Dutch Schultz, tells all...

excerpt:

"The Jews made the Mafia," he states resolutely..."With out the Jews,
the Italians wouldn't have gotten anywhere. The Jews were the ones that done the work." "...Joe says he means the series of hits carried out in the 30's by the mostly Jewish killers of the infamous Murders, Inc. gang that opened the way for the modern mob to take control of the rackets under the planning and leadership of the affiliated East Coast bosses known as the Big Six: Meyer Lansky, Abe Zwillman, Ben Siegel, Frank Costello, Joe Adonis, and Charles Luciano. Stassi knew them all...Though Sicilian, Joe forged a series of close bonds with top Jewish gangsters who trusted him and served as his criminal mentors."

"...By the early 20's Zwillman was established as the smartest, if not wealthiest and toughest, of the brash Jersey bootleggers...Stassi
learned early on to follow Lansky's first law: Retreat to the background and turn over the high visibility street activities to others..."

Stassi owned a place in Lake Tahoe with Lou Walters (Barbara's father). He also claims that Bugsy Siegel was killed by Virginia Hill's brother
and was not killed by other mobsters.

Anonymous said...

Some people on this board are claiming that the fact that 50% of American Jews is not signficant because Euro-Americans intermarry more often.

No, the claim is that the 50% figure is totally bogus. The real figure is about 20%.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous:

So, I don't see why Jews should take their share of the blame. Why should post-Gulag Jews born in other continents feel guilty about crimes done by their kin/ancestry way, way back. That just doesn't make sense.

The Yale University Press’s description of Salo Wittmaier Baron:

...Salo Wittmayer Baron (1895–1989), a preeminent scholar who revolutionized the study of Jewish history during his lengthy tenure at Columbia University.

Baron:

To this day orthodox Jewish ethics has remained in its essence national rather than individual, and this accounts, incidentally, for the otherwise incomprehensible legal theorem of the common responsibility of all Jews for the deeds of each.

DK said...

William asked,

"Was Joe Lieberman ever questioned about Orthodaox Jewish marriage practices? Not to my recollection."

He was. He gave an answer that it wasn't a problem, which upset the right-wing Orthodox.

But then, Lieberman isn't 100% Orthodox anyway.

http://www.interfaithfamily.com/news_and_opinion/outreach_debate/Sen_Lieberman_Intermarriage_is_Kosher.shtml?rd=1

Anonymous said...

DK,

Interesting. The bigger point was that no matter what his response was, it never would've been made a big deal of in the press. 30 years dead Mormon Church doctrine got more attention than living Orthodox practice. For Romney, the fact that he personally opposed it wasn't considered a legitimate excuse.

Anonymous said...

Sailer has been hitting the ball out of the park beginning with and since this post.

The sources he relies on don't prove definitively that Jewish guilt is the inverse of white guilt, but they suggest that. This double standard (if it exists) is so stark it's satisfying. Like self-righteous Spitzer going down for whoring.

Anonymous said...

Sailer has been hitting the ball out of the park beginning with and since this post.

No, its since he Manzi article. Those comments were pure gold. It was like watching Calzaghe/Lacy. Sailer hit him with everything but the kitchen sink.

Sweet.

Anonymous said...

The memory-hole on Soviet-Jewish history hasn't even been opened. From a review by SJ Zipperstein:

'In his retelling of post-1917 Russian Jewry, Slezkine is, he insists, providing a corrective to the failings of Soviet Jewish historiography, a claim he makes despite the simple fact that there is, as yet, very little Soviet Jewish scholarly literature with which to debate. To date—and because mostly of restrictions on archival research lifted only with the implosion of communism—no critical, scholarly book exists on any of the following themes: Jews and the Russian Revolution, Jews in Soviet cities (except Leningrad), or Jews in small towns, or in the Soviet professions, or the military, or the Communist Party, or the KGB and its institutional analogues. Slezkine complains that the Jews of twentieth-century Russia have remained obscure—"forgotten or patronized by the emigrants and their historians" and beyond "the canonical Jewish history of the twentieth century" (p. 205)—because of bias, but this chapter of modern Jewish history remains mostly unwritten because the Soviet authorities made it impossible, in effect, to write about and scholars are just now beginning to sort through unfiltered mountains of archival material suddenly available.'

Anonymous said...

Using "shiksa" and "gentile" tells us a lot about you, Steve. And its not good.