My work has been embraced by Kevin MacDonald, a UC-Long Beach prof of psychology who has become controversial for his views of Jews. On his blog, MacDonald writes of my recent post on the Jewish presence in the establishment:
Jews won the culture war without a shot being fired and without the losing side seeming to realize that it was a war with real winners and real losers — where the losers have not only given up their cultural preeminence, but have failed to stand up to the ultimate denouement: demographic displacement from lands they had controlled for centuries. The new elite retains its outsider feelings toward their new subjects — a hostile elite in the United States as it was in the Soviet Union.
…Weiss seems to feel a twinge of guilt about the role of Jews as victors in the culture war — guilt stemming from his understanding that the new elite has some very glaring moral failings of its own, including its own brand of ethnocentrism that seems far deeper than anything imagined by the WASPs.
The danger for Jews is that non-Jews will come to realize the deep wellsprings of Jewish ethnocentrism and see Jewish involvement in the displacement of European-descended peoples as resulting from ethnic conflict over the construction of culture. Ultimately, Europeans may come to realize that the conflict is really about the ethnic displacement of themselves as a people.
Speaking for myself, it would be difficult for me not to have developed something of a sense of my peoplehood after delving into the 2000-year history of Jews who were intensely concerned about preserving their people and their culture. As I’ve come to realize, preserving one’s people and culture is a virtual human universal.
I find a lot of what MacDonald has said elsewhere bracing and bold. He is alive to important sociological trends that few people are talking about out loud. When he speaks, feelingly, of the displacement of WASPs, he is giving voice to a declension and hurt that I’ve seen even in gentile friends of mine, and that is rarely expressed. He understands how important Jewish history is to this moment in world and U.S. history. He is concerned about Palestinian human rights and the Israel lobby’s astonishing ability to remove Palestinian suffering from the American discourse. Still, in the end I reject the embrace.
What’s troubling about MacDonald is that he’s a racialist. Everything he says always goes back to immutable racial categories. Thus the existence of the Jewish state doesn’t provoke him to look for a more idealistic social model, no it rationalizes for him a WASP ethnocentrism. Everyone in their own ethnic corner. Stay there. All that talk of European-descended peoples in the above passage. The very ethnocentrism I found stifling in my own Jewish cultural milieu and stifling too when I encountered the WASP version at my college. He’s a racialist too in that he seems always to reduce Jewish personality to certain traits. I even agree somewhat about some of these traits. For instance, I read in one of his essays that Jews are "psychologically intense." Well I’m psychologically intense, my brother is psychologically intense. But my sister isn’t. Maybe it’s a real tendency but it feels vague and a little vicious. Then there’s his rap on Jewish ethnocentrism. I agree that Jews tend to be ethnocentric. As an assimilationist Jew, I am intensely aware of this trait. The Jewish law against intermarriage smacks of racism in today’s America (even Jews agree, in opinion surveys; and mad Joe Lieberman lied about these laws when he ran for president 8 years ago). As Norman Mailer observed to the American Conservative, post-Holocaust Jews are fixated on the question, "Is it good for the Jews?" Pure ethnocentrism, and grotesque– when you consider the cultural and political power Jews have achieved in the U.S.
The problem with MacDonald’s formulations, though, is that he seems to hoot (I say "seems" because I’ve just skimmed a few of his statements) at the idea of Jewish suffering, seems to overlook the tremendous impact of the Holocaust on Jewish life. Seamus Heaney, the Irish poet, once said that it took seven generations to overcome great historical grievances. I’m sure I’m misremembering his lines. But the trauma of having nearly half your people wiped out–is there any empathy for the effects of that in MacDonald?
MacDonald and I agree that the reality of America today is one where Jews are incredibly empowered. And yes I feel Jewish guilt over this, especially after what the neocons did to Iraq. I am nauseated by a lot of the ways of the meritocratic establishment– as I was nauseated by the gentile one before it. I am nauseated by the materialism that has taken over Jewish American culture, and its dehumanization of Arabs. But why does MacDonald describe America’s as a Jewish establishment? This is crude and likely wrong. It’s a mixed establishment, with Jews in many prominent roles. There’s no precision in his statements.
More important, MacDonald’s racialism removes the possibility that people can change their team, or that teams can change their character. I’m much more hopeful on this score. Cultures and tribes are changing all the time. The WASPs are a lot more attractive now, for instance, than when they were on top. They seem less materialistic, they run environmental groups, etc. I think my people are changing too. If we’re so ethnocentric, then how come 62 percent of Jews under 35 are intermarrying? There’s a universalist strain among young Jews that is getting deeper and wider all the time. Real events shaped the outlook and emotions of my parents’ and grandparents’ generation–including Russian shtetl and Holocaust. And real events–privilege and influence–will shape the outlook of the best of the next generation.
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Great post. Kevin Macdonald is an individual I am unsure how to talk about. I think that Philip Weiss's response in this blog posting and his general synthesis/cross cultural approach is a good one.
BTW did anyone catch Pat Robertson blaming recent bad weather on the Bush Administration's failure to please Israel?
http://wonkette.com/335474/just-dont-look-him-in-the-eye
Too important a post for a quick response, so I'll just mention a coincidence that caught my eye–
"Ultimately, Europeans may come to realize that the conflict is really about the ethnic displacement of themselves as a people."
It's interesting that this is exactly the way the necons (from Bernard Lewis up to and including Thomas Friedman) think of Islam.
So in this way MacDonald shares the same core assumption as his subjects — that the human journey is a zero sum game (as a very wise monkey once said).
"Jews won the culture war"???
Can you start a valid argument with a statement like that?
Well, I suppose we can have different definitions of culture, Richard. But can you name a Hollywood movie studio which is not Jewish-run? Or a TV news network? Or a book publishing house? Or a national newspaper? Magazine? An ivy-league college without a Jewish president?
There might be one or two of each, but not more.
Philip is to be commended for bringing the name of Prof. MacDonald into his discussion.
All of the participants in this discussion can be accused of 'having a fixation' with the topic of "The Jewing of America". [Not a book title you will see at Borders.]
And with good and proper reason: if the Jews succeed in provoking an immoral attack on Iran, everyone in the world will suffer for it.
On the other hand, the Iranians could stoop to the level of our moral turpitude and decide to make preemptive war on Israel. It would be a comensurate response to paranoid Jewish war-mongering and Jewish exceptionalism.
The culture war is over and the gentiles have lost. All we're doing now is burying the dead.
Why don't you read the trilogy? That way, you would know what you are talking about. I suspect you will end up thinking that MacDonald is a very important, even if very unsettling, thinker.
By the way, when you say that "The Jewish law against intermarriage smacks of racism in today's America", you betray your continuing ethnocentrism. It doesn't "smack" of racism; it IS racism.
anon said:
"But can you name … (an) ivy-league college without a Jewish president? There might be one or two of each, but not more."
Wrong. There are eight Ivy League schools. At the most there are likely three Jewish Ivy League presidents.
Brown = gentile
Columbia = gentile
Cornell = ?
Dartmouth = gentile
Harvard = gentile
Princeton = gentile
Penn = Jewish
Yale = Jewish
I too got a post booted.
What difference does it make how many Jewish Ivy League presidents there are.
"Winning" the culture war implies that there was some collective "intent" to win something, a ludicrous idea.
Individuals strive to succeed, personally, individually.
From his briefs, it seems that he is asking the question:
"If cultural evolution occurs not through individual natural selection, but through the characteristics of the group that survives, how does that happen in fact?"
I first heard that discussion in relation to the Social Darwinists, in which anarchist Peter Kropotkin asserted that "MUTUAL AID", the ability to cooperate as a group, was more critical to evolutionary survival than individual strength, etc.
That it is NOT a dog eat dog world, but a dog cooperate with dog world.
Nationalism can be "community of dogs eats community of dogs" world, or it can "community of dogs cooperates with community of dogs" world.
Be sure to also read Kevin MacDonald's 'Thinking about Neoconservatism' article and his 'Neoconservatism as a Jewish Movement' monograph which are both linked at the top of the following URL:
http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=32606
Philip Weiss,
I have been trying to post a comment on these fascinating and admirable reflections of yours, but am blocked by Typepad's antispam filter.
Is there anything that can be done about this?
Thanks,
David Habakkuk
Tony Lawless says: "By the way, when you say that "The Jewish law against intermarriage smacks of racism in today's America", you betray your continuing ethnocentrism. It doesn't "smack" of racism; it IS racism."
According to the National Jewish Population Survey 2000-01, 47% of marriages involving Jews in the United States between 1996 and 2001 were intermarriages with non-Jewish partners. Rates of intermarriage have increased in other countries in the diaspora as well. Jewish leaders in different branches generally agree that possible assimilation is a crisis, but they differ on the proper response to intermarriage.
All branches of Orthodox Judaism refuse to accept any validity or legitimacy of intermarriages.
Conservative Judaism, does not sanction intermarriage, but encourages acceptance of the non-Jewish spouse within the family, hoping that such acceptance will lead to conversion.
Reform Judaism and Reconstructionist Judaism do not accept the Jewish Law as binding, so technically they do not have firm rules against intermarriage. Reform and Reconstructionist rabbis are free to take their own approach to performing marriages between a Jewish and Non-Jewish partner. Many seek agreement from the couple that the children will be raised as Jewish.
Link can be found at wikipedia – search for
Jewish_intermarriage
(link removed to address spam filter)
All this teeth-gnashing and remonstration, and Asian-Americans quietly go about their lives, succeeding academically and professionally, seemingly unaffected by the great storm playing out around them.
Is ours a clash of racialist ethnicity, or, rather, a clash of culture? I would argue that there is no "WASP" culture (Richard Brookhiser notwithstanding) without Christianity. For convenience, I'll lump Catholics in that category, although it's more interesting in the context of this argument not to.
(to be cont'd, per Typepad)
Part 2:
As Belloc argued, typepad sucks.
I'm sure Tony Lawless is as concerned about the 'racism' inherent in Islam
MUSLIM WOMAN AND NON-MUSLIM MAN:
….. And give not (your daughters) in marriage to Al-Mushrikun** till they
believe in Allah alone and verily a believing slave is better than a (free) Mushrik, even though he pleases you….[2:221] ** Al-Mushrikun=>Pagans, idolators, polytheist and disbelievers in the Oneness of Allah and in His messanger Prophet Muhammad SAW)
- [[6]]
Islam considers the husband head-of-the-family and therefore requires that a Muslima cannot marry a non-Muslim because she will be under the authority of a non-muslim husband. He may prevent her from carrying out her religious obligations by
either pressuring her or physically abusing her. But it is not the sole reason for imposing the restriction. The situation is
considered very damaging for the woman to practise Islam afterwards and even worse for the kids in such marriages. There
are NO conditions mentioned under which a Muslim woman IS allowed to get married or remain married to a non-Muslim husband
after she has accepted Islam. Therefore, even if she has freedom to practise Islam after marriage, she is NOT allowed to enter
into an inter-faith marriage.
from http://www.jannah.org/sisters/intermarriage
"If we're so ethnocentric, then how come 62 percent of Jews under 35 are intermarrying?"
Indeed this is one of the criticisms of Macdonald's perspective. I imagine he would say something like, "Google 'Silent Holocaust' and get back to me."
During WW1 in Germany, up to fifty percent of big city German Jews intermarried, and then came the real Holocaust. I agree with Phil there's a need for a more optomistic model. But even Soros couldn't dent AIPAC.
Charles – You are married to a jew. Tell us about it.
I'll try again, one graf at a time.
As Belloc argued, Europe IS the Faith; by extension, our culture was that thing called 'Christendom.' Without the Faith, culture is a vacuum, to be filled with any ephemera, any Gilligan and Britney. Neil Postman was laser-precise with his formulation, "Amusing ourselves to death." Spengler saw it coming before any of us were born. To the extent we are "failing" in the contest for "power" (quotes indicating derision) it is because we have embraced not a culture of vibrancy and hope, of community and life, but a culture of death, of despairing solipsism. Not to mention a bizarre distorting-mirror idea of what constitutes Christ's message.
(To finish)
Is it the fault of Jewish people that Christendom lost the faith (which had been handed it by a band of renegade Jews in the first place)? That notion, which I think MacDonald promulgates, is absurd on the face of it, and is exactly what Phil calls it: politics (posturings, really) of resentment.
Asian culture remains strong, although the identification with "religion" is elusive to the Western mind.
MondoWeiss–
I noticed that a “David Habakkuk” is attempting to comment at this website.
If this David Habakkuk is the same person who contributes frequently to Col. Lang‘s website “Sic Semper Tyrannis“, then I strongly encourage you to make whatever technical adjustments necessary to allow his comments clear and free passage to this venue.
As a British journalist, David Habakkuk — as much as anyone in the world — has dissected one of the more dangerous manifestos to appear in the history of US strategic intelligence — “Leo Strauss and the World of Intelligence (By which we do not mean Nous)”. You and others can read one of his initial works here:
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/files/sspaper.pdf
An anthology of his contributions to Col. Lang’s website can be found here:
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/habakkuk/index.html
Again — assuming this is the same Habakkuk — he will make valuable contributions to this most important debate that you (Weiss) have started. Much is at stake, perhaps more than people realize.
If this is not the same Habakkuk, then please ignore this post!
Sid
Well O.K.
Let's just all accept that are cycles to ethnic dominance in nations.
So who is next up to bat..hispanics?
I see an upcoming slugfest in the US…who will win? The Jews, the European gentiles, or the new hispanics. Maybe it is time the mostly European descendants of the original Americans got their dander up a bit just to restore some balance to the melting pot.
Cal wrote: "Let's just all accept that are cycles to ethnic dominance in nations. So who is next up to bat..hispanics?"
You are right there are cycles. In Europe, the fear is of Muslims. In America, Hispanics are likely to gain more political clout. Hispanics though are way underrepresented in the Upper Middle and Elite classes though, thus they are likely not to be anything near dominant in influence as their raw numbers suggest. There is likely to be a lot more pandering at election time to Hispanic hot button issues, but the nature of the influence is likely to be qualitatively difference because of the non-participation of Hispanics in the primary national discourse. Hispanics are less assimilative than Jews because of the language differences allows them to develop a parallel cultural sphere. Or at least that is my rough opinion.
Sidney Smith
Good to see you here. I am glad to see you share my great admiration for Philip Weiss's blog. As well as, of course, basking in the compliments!
It puts me in mind of a song my Calvinist ancestors sang: 'He who would valiant be, let him come hither'!
What is most important for America is that its inclusive Christian ethos prevails and rules over the various tribalists (Jewish Zionists, Evangelical Christian Zionists, Mormons, LaRaza Hispanics, money-worshipping monopolists etc.). Looking back to the Christian-raised Founders, they instilled the country with the inclusive spirit of Christianity by preventing any one faction from assembling too much power through strictly limited, divided government, and in doing so undermined humanity's tribalistic instincts to the benefit of us all. [contd]
[condt] The problem with the Jewish elite, quite frankly, is that it doesn't subscribe to the inclusive Christian ethos because it is, well, Jewish. It has no problem with seizing as much power and money as it can for itself. Democracy may well be the heir to Christianity, but it still needs the Christian-ethos glue to hold it together. Otherwise, we are merely a nation of tribes living in proximity to one another. And what do tribes do? They go to war.
WASP robber-barons (Frick, Morgan, Vanderbilt, Harriman, Dupont, Rockefeller) were just as avaricious as, say, Marc Rich.
We need a level playing field, where special interests don't, can't, rule. Pop the bloated Fed beast, return the eternal Hobbesian struggle to the state and local level. Defang the totalist central government before it devours us all. Resentments fester when Big Money rigs the game.
We are Balkanized: deal with it. Ward Cleaver has left the building.
Seriously disturbing, and disturbed.
From wikipedia:
"John Hartung, the associate editor of the Journal of Neurosurgical Anesthesiology and an associate professor of anesthesiology at the State University of New York said that MacDonald's The Culture of Critique was "quite disturbing, seriously misinformed about evolutionary genetics, and suffering from a huge blind spot about the nature of Christianity."[18]"
Case closed!
=====================================
You all are welcome to read the books of Geza Vermes, to learn more views on history of Christianity, and partially on Judaism, and to acquire civilized views on Jewish and Christian people.
I know far too many Jews and Christians who have no compunction with seizing as much power and money as they can for themselves. Neither seems to be doing it for Jews or Christians. They are doing it for themselves and their loved ones.
You can blame Jews all you want for the problems in Captialism, Communism, etc., but even if you kill off all these Jews (again) you are still going to have to deal with the human condition. Good luck with that Ed.
The Wasps have realized, with Iraq, that the Jews have eaten their lunch.
MacDonald is just a very articulate exponent of the "new" antisemitism or perhaps that is not the real word for it in the USA. Maybe the Marxist term "contradiction" would be better.
The "contradiction" with the Jews expresses it better. This is not the old cossacks shit, this is going to be a reasonably clean fight… I hope
"What's troubling about MacDonald is that he's a racialist."
You call MacDonald a 'racialist', but fellow Jews 'ethnocentric'. Whatever word you use, you should be using the same for both.
__________
NONSENSE: "preserving one's people and culture is a virtual human universal" Kevin MacD.
_______________________________________________
First off: there is no such gene.
Second: Statistically speaking – looking back over 3000 years – assimilation and the dissolution of peoples and cultures is the universal norm, NOT the preservation of 'one's people and culture' as MacDonald says.
Look at the Old Testament or the history as recorded by the ancient Greek, there are countless peoples mentioned that no longer exist.
That the Jews and for instance the Basque people in Spain/France still exist (both claim to be older than 3000 years) is statistically speaking an anomaly, not the norm.
The norm over thousands of years has been:
1. A people gets defeated in battle and conquered.
2. By the ancient logic the Gods of the victors must have been the right ones otherwise they would not have been victorious.
3. The loosing people adopts the Gods/and the culture of the victors.
As everyone knows the Jews – when loosing a battle – were particularly stubborn to admit that their God must have been the wrong one.
__________
NONSENSE: "preserving one's people and culture is a virtual human universal" Kevin MacD.
_______________________________________________
First off: there is no such gene.
Second: Statistically speaking – looking back over 3000 years – assimilation and the dissolution of peoples and cultures is the universal norm, NOT the preservation of 'one's people and culture' as MacDonald says.
Look at the Old Testament or the history as recorded by the ancient Greek, there are countless peoples mentioned that no longer exist.
That the Jews and for instance the Basque people in Spain/France still exist (both claim to be older than 3000 years) is statistically speaking an anomaly, not the norm.
The norm over thousands of years has been:
1. A people gets defeated in battle and conquered.
2. By the ancient logic the Gods of the victors must have been the right ones otherwise they would not have been victorious.
3. The loosing people adopts the Gods/and the culture of the victors.
As everyone knows the Jews – when loosing a battle – were particularly stubborn to admit that their God must have been the wrong one.
"What's troubling about MacDonald is that he's a racialist."
You call MacDonald a 'racialist', but fellow Jews 'ethnocentric'. Whatever word you use, you should be using the same for both.
Posted by: Sitting Bull | December 19, 2007 at 01:19 PM
Jews come in all races.
Ugh I had my typical gigantic post but typepad thinks it is spam and so no joy.
And it was a good one too…
Mr. Weiss
Again, thank you for being brave enough to make a post about MacDonald and being smart enough to write about the issues intelligently.
I read the web site of Kevin MacDonald and some of his statements and viewpoints are…difficult for me to swallow. I am not sure that I am either for or against saying that certain races are better or worse than others.
That is being a racist.
On the other hand, I am not sure if there ISN'T a kernel of truth in such. After all, evolution tells us that organisms adapt, and humans certainly progressed in various stages to homo sapiens. I am not qualified to say that certain races are not also, speaking evolutionary lingo, better than others at different things. Perhaps a kernel of truth.
So, on some levels I tend to agree with some of MacDonald's viewpoints, on the other, I find his racial viewpoints akin to Nazi pseudo science.
However, re: the Jews being cleverer, better organized than us (dumb) goyim. Now, it seems to me certainly the case, at least in the country of the United States. But that is not due to the superior racial characteristics, in my opinion.
My view is that historically, the Jews were always an alien element in different countries and different times (whether they lived under Moslem or Christian rulers).
What helped them was the fact that both Islam and Christianity deplored usury (and lending in general), and so Jews found a niche in banking and finance sectors, from the Middle Ages on.
Now, being an idiot goy, even I realize that in modern times, cash rules everything around me (sorry for the rap quote, I am trying to be cool again). Those who have the money, make the rules – the old golden rule again. And so the Jews as a minority became extremely powerful, especially in Poland from the Middle Ages to pre 1939.
RE: "Charles – You are married to a jew. Tell us about it.
Posted by: Halfie"
Halfie, so what do you want to know?
Ahmad Jabril on the Death of Arafat
Sorry to back track to a previous thread, but I got a response from a Palestinian friend.
Ahmad Jabril explicitly says that Abu Mazen told him that the Israelis killed Arafat.
When Jabril says one of Abu Mazen's group (min jamatu) told him that Arafat died of AIDS, Jabril is being cagey because the phrase does not refer to the official team but to anyone that was there with Abu Mazen, and Jabril could have been referring to a driver, a guard, or someone of that order.
It is a level of nuance that I do not catch in Arabic, but if I had a government back translation institute and did nothing but translate texts and broadcasts all day, I would certainly have noted this shade of meaning directly in the subtitles or in an accompanying text.
Is this to somehow produce bricks without getting any straw? I heard Kennedy was killed by Mossad to prevent transparency in Israel getting the bomb. If nothing else, the timing is not far-fetched.
Charles – Are your kids half-breeds like me? Do they feel comfortable with jews and non-jews like I do?
Halfie: Yes
For American Goy, the claim that Jews became involved in usury or banking because of exclusion from other trades is a misleading half-truth. From late antiquity and through until the Reformation, Jews were heavily involved in the Slavic slave trade and associated businesses with included finance, medicine, tax farming and estate management.
Please take a look at either
http://tinyurl.com/ypxuvm
or
http://tinyurl.com/yocyqd (If you understand French. This version has more documentation.)
Kevin MacDonald 'a racialist'? – No, an ignorant.
_________
He writes: "preserving one's people and culture is a virtual human universal"
There is neither a gene nor a sociological axioms that says: 'preserve your people and culture'.
To the contrary: Looking back some 3000 years, assimilation is – statistically speaking – the norm. Preserving a particular people and its culture is a statistical exception/anomaly as in the case of the Jews and for instance the Basque people in Spain/France and a few others.
Look at the Old Testament or the Greek historical records: They mention countless peoples that are all gone for good.
Kevin MacDonald's "human universal" is nonsense.
Oarwell wrote: "We are Balkanized: deal with it."
Oliver Frank wrote: "You can blame Jews all you want for the problems in Captialism, Communism, etc., but even if you kill off all these Jews (again) you are still going to have to deal with the human condition. Good luck with that Ed."
I guess you guys would rather refight the wars of the 20th Century and watch America go to ruin than concede that there's redemptive value in the Christian ethos (something very different than convert-or-die or even liberal Kumbaya-Christianity). In fact, Christianity as philosphy may be the one last thing that a majority of Americans can agree upon. But hey, you guys know better. Just hold your whining when the Gestapo, Statsi or KGB (or whatever Homeland Security calls itself in the future) shows up at your door and says "It's time." Obtaining mercy from a merciless world you helped construct? Good luck with THAT.
10:1 odds Ed is one of the jack botted thugs at the door gleefully dragging Halfie and Charles Keating's kids out for their killing.
Are a paleo-conservative jew?
I am relieved to finally be reading those who are grappling with the issue of the astonishing intellectual dishonestly of the neocons and, I hate to say this, the so-called 'liberal hawks' and zionists. The links to Habakkuk's articles for Pat Laing were very helpful
Phil, c'mon. He wasn't "embracing" you, and you don't have to "embrace" him – let alone do the comic "distancing" from MacDonald that you do in this post. If you find some of what he says "bracing," as you say you do in your hemming and hawing "yes but" prelude to your rejection-of-MacDonald-and-all-he-stands-for punchline, "embrace" that, OK? No one's gonna mistake you for an evolutionary psychologist, let alone a Gentile one. Really, this post reveals a pusillanimity that I didn't think you had.
As befits a gentleman The One David tries to cheer me up after my comment asking for a "shut up day" was received with a magnanimous chorus of "we surrender!" spanning from right to left.
So my surrender monkey cousins have swam the Atlantic ocean after all. Probably the alluring flavour of freedom fries was too much for them to offer… resistance…
A year and a half and no comments. You were righter than you knew when you mentioned "important sociological trends that few people are talking about out loud." Maybe word gets around. I have no portfolio in the chattering class – I'm an unpublished, overage MA student in rhetoric, but I have wide interests in cultural studies, so I can probably air a few thoughts at no risk to my (nonexistent) reputation. Mr. Weiss, I agree with you that the old tribes are, by and large, loosening and changing. Maybe it's the snags that trip us up – the ways Jews (for example) stay the same, such as the ethnocentrism and intensity you acknowledge. The things we hold true and dear give us identity, and they're important in a diverse society. I think we realize that, but realizing why they're important – and what changing meanings they have in a diverse society – is going to take time. Maybe not McDonald's seven generations, but at least one or two. As a psychologically intense gentile myself – and one well immersed in "Jewish" pursuits like jazz, humor, and pop and material culture – I, like you, wish such things were no longer quite so coded and typed. To this day, people not only assume A, B, and C about (say) a white jazz musician, but often, they assume correctly. A lot of apples don't fall far from the tree – but whether that's proof of some essential racialist truth or just because no one is shaking the tree is something nice smart people don't talk about. I think they'd better get talking, if only because there are a lot of folks out there with racialist assumptions they don't know they have.
* Most of us are mentally trapped to think Jewish Actually, it is safe to say that virtually every mainstream publication or or other type of media organ is "nothing more than a screen to present chosen views." The great battle over the last century has been a battle for the mind of the Western peoples, i.e., non-Jewish Euros. The chosen won it by acquiring control over essentially the complete mainstream news, information, education and entertainment media of every type, and using that control to infuse and disseminate their message, agenda and worldview, their way of thinking, or rather the way they want us to think. Since at least the 1960s this campaign has been effectively complete. Since then they have shaped and controlled the minds of all but a seeming few of us in varying degree with almost no opposition or competition from any alternative worldview. So now most of us are mentally trapped in the box the chosen have made for us, which we have lived in all our lives. Only a few have managed to avoid it or escape it, or to even sometimes see outside of it, and so actually "think outside of the (Jewish) box."
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