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Separation and Its Discontents: Toward an Evolutionary Theory of Anti-Semitism
MacDonald develops a theory of anti-Semitism based on an evolutionary interpretation of social identity theory--a major approach to group conflict in contemporary social psychology. Beginning in the ancient world, anti-Semitism has existed under a variety of religious and political regimes. MacDonald explores several theoretically important common themes of anti-Semitic writings such as Jewish clannishness and cultural separatism, economic and cultural domination of gentiles, and the issue of loyalty to the wider society.
Particular attention is paid to three major manifestations of Western anti-Semitism: the development of institutionalized anti-Semitism in the Roman Empire, the Iberian Inquisitions, and the phenomenon of Nazism. All of these movements exhibited a powerful gentile group cohesion in opposition to Judaism as a group strategy, and MacDonald argues that each may be analyzed as a reaction to the presence of Judaism as a highly successful group evolutionary strategy. Because of the repeated occurrence of anti-Semitism, Jews have developed a highly flexible array of strategies to minimize its effects. These include: crypsis during periods of persecution, controls on Jewish behavior likely to lead to anti-Semitism, and the manipulation of gentile attitudes toward Jews. This controversial work challenges prevailing views. Students and scholars involved with evolutionary approaches to human behavior and Jewish Studies will be interested, as will social scientists and historians in general.
Particular attention is paid to three major manifestations of Western anti-Semitism: the development of institutionalized anti-Semitism in the Roman Empire, the Iberian Inquisitions, and the phenomenon of Nazism. All of these movements exhibited a powerful gentile group cohesion in opposition to Judaism as a group strategy, and MacDonald argues that each may be analyzed as a reaction to the presence of Judaism as a highly successful group evolutionary strategy. Because of the repeated occurrence of anti-Semitism, Jews have developed a highly flexible array of strategies to minimize its effects. These include: crypsis during periods of persecution, controls on Jewish behavior likely to lead to anti-Semitism, and the manipulation of gentile attitudes toward Jews. This controversial work challenges prevailing views. Students and scholars involved with evolutionary approaches to human behavior and Jewish Studies will be interested, as will social scientists and historians in general.
448 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
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370 people want to read
About the author
Kevin B. MacDonald
44 books215 followersKevin MacDonald is an American psychologist. He is a retired professor of psychology at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), best known for his controversial application of evolutionary psychology to characterize Jewish behavior as a "group evolutionary strategy." He is currently the editor of the Occidental Observer, which he says covers "white identity, white interests, and the culture of the West." He is the author of more than 100 scholarly papers and reviews, and he is the author of Social and Personality Development: An Evolutionary Synthesis (1988), A People That Shall Dwell Alone: Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy (1994), Separation and Its Discontents: Toward an Evolutionary Theory of Anti-Semitism (1998), and The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements (1998). He has also edited three books, Sociobiological Perspectives on Human Development (1988), Parent-Child Play: Descriptions and Implications (1994), and Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Development (2004).
In October 2004, MacDonald accepted the Jack London Literary Prize from The Occidental Quarterly, using the award ceremony as an occasion to argue for the need for a "white ethnostate" to maintain high white birthrates.
In 2010, MacDonald accepted a position as one of the eight members of the board of directors of the American Freedom Party, which declares America a white Christian nation and advocates for limiting "non-white" immigration into the United States.
In October 2004, MacDonald accepted the Jack London Literary Prize from The Occidental Quarterly, using the award ceremony as an occasion to argue for the need for a "white ethnostate" to maintain high white birthrates.
In 2010, MacDonald accepted a position as one of the eight members of the board of directors of the American Freedom Party, which declares America a white Christian nation and advocates for limiting "non-white" immigration into the United States.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 23, 2024
In many important ways, this book is actually much better than the Culture of Critique. The in-depth look at particular instances of Jewish-Gentile group conflict shows the ways in which Judaism is un-assimilable and that it necessarily results in Gentile societies becoming more collectivist and authoritarian in order to compete against Judaism.
I particularly enjoyed the section on the Late Roman Empire, and how during that time Christianity was defined in its opposition to Judaism, with the former being a universalistic and supernatural religion whereas the latter is an ethnocentric, materialistic religion.
But there were a few things that I felt Kevin Macdonald should have addressed. He mentions how the stubborn refusal of the Jews to refuse to be assimilated by Europeans by intermarriage. But what is the effect of this intermarriage, precisely? We all know that when a White European and a darker-skinned person like an African or an Arab mate, that the children almost invariably come out being darker skinned and not looking European at all, such that Europeans could theoretically wind up being completely assimilated by them through marriage in this way, that European genetic recessive traits could be wiped out through miscegenation. Dr. Macdonald seems to suggest that if Jews were to marry White Europeans, that their own traits would be wiped out in a similar fashion, that is to say that Jewish-White European marriages have the same effect on Jews that intermarriage with Africans has on Whites. This claim is never scientifically proven, which is immensely frustrating in a book that is otherwise intensely academically rigorous. The only proof offered is the fear of the Jews that this is what would happen. But are there any studies of Jewish genes disappearing over time due to intermarriage with white Europeans or do they "stick" in the way that African genes stick to White Europeans?
I also find it strange that during the sections on Christian Rome and the Inquisition, that the question of Jesus' jewishness was never discussed... surely some saint or theologian must have had to comment on the fact that their deity is a Jew, especially given the ferocity of gentile-Jewish conflict? Did no one ever feel uncomfortable worshipping a Jew one day a week and then hating them every other day of the week?
I have heard it said that Jesus' divinity negates his jewishness, or any kind of racial aspect. This argument should have been brought up in the book. It is a huge thing to not mention.
All in all, if you loved the Culture of Critique, as I did, then it is imperative that you read this book as well. The three chapters that form the core of the book, on Late Rome, the Inquisition, and Nazi Germany, are the best of Dr. Macdonald's writings that I have read so far. But there are some questions that needed to be addressed that I feel Kevin should have brought up.
I particularly enjoyed the section on the Late Roman Empire, and how during that time Christianity was defined in its opposition to Judaism, with the former being a universalistic and supernatural religion whereas the latter is an ethnocentric, materialistic religion.
But there were a few things that I felt Kevin Macdonald should have addressed. He mentions how the stubborn refusal of the Jews to refuse to be assimilated by Europeans by intermarriage. But what is the effect of this intermarriage, precisely? We all know that when a White European and a darker-skinned person like an African or an Arab mate, that the children almost invariably come out being darker skinned and not looking European at all, such that Europeans could theoretically wind up being completely assimilated by them through marriage in this way, that European genetic recessive traits could be wiped out through miscegenation. Dr. Macdonald seems to suggest that if Jews were to marry White Europeans, that their own traits would be wiped out in a similar fashion, that is to say that Jewish-White European marriages have the same effect on Jews that intermarriage with Africans has on Whites. This claim is never scientifically proven, which is immensely frustrating in a book that is otherwise intensely academically rigorous. The only proof offered is the fear of the Jews that this is what would happen. But are there any studies of Jewish genes disappearing over time due to intermarriage with white Europeans or do they "stick" in the way that African genes stick to White Europeans?
I also find it strange that during the sections on Christian Rome and the Inquisition, that the question of Jesus' jewishness was never discussed... surely some saint or theologian must have had to comment on the fact that their deity is a Jew, especially given the ferocity of gentile-Jewish conflict? Did no one ever feel uncomfortable worshipping a Jew one day a week and then hating them every other day of the week?
I have heard it said that Jesus' divinity negates his jewishness, or any kind of racial aspect. This argument should have been brought up in the book. It is a huge thing to not mention.
All in all, if you loved the Culture of Critique, as I did, then it is imperative that you read this book as well. The three chapters that form the core of the book, on Late Rome, the Inquisition, and Nazi Germany, are the best of Dr. Macdonald's writings that I have read so far. But there are some questions that needed to be addressed that I feel Kevin should have brought up.
September 23, 2024
A JUST-SO STORY POSING AS “SCHOLARSHIP”
Informed by warmed-over Social Darwinism, SAID claims that Judaism evolved from biblical times as a strategy to ensure the genetic fitness and survival of Jews. It argues that Judaism is still used today to maximize Jewish advantages at the expense of others. And it seeks to prove this by drawing on works of reputable (predominantly Jewish) scholars. The problem is, it does not “draw on” these sources; it ransacks them. Mountains of contrary evidence are toppled in the search for nuggets of “truth”.
Consider SAID’s view of the Jewish role in the Western economy through history – a vast, and complex subject if ever there was one. To MacDonald, a psychologist, not a historian, Jews depleted Gentile resources in collusion with kings and lords, countered only now and then in the Middle Ages by Christian collectivism. SAID ignores the overwhelming evidence that Jewish participation in the pre-modern economies of Europe was widespread because (and as long as) it was indispensable—not only to the wealthy, but to the overall prosperity of commerce (e.g.16th century Venice, 17th-18th century Bordeaux) and manufacturing (e.g. textiles, metalsmithing, leatherwork). Of 19th century Austria, historian George Berkley notes: “It was largely the Jews who had built the country’s steel mills and railroads, who had developed its textile, sugar-refining, meat-packing, and numerous other industries.” They were the backbone of commerce, administration and science in medieval Spain, where the very word “Jew” was synonymous with “literate”. The point is, Jews contributed to the economy as much as they benefited from it. So, too, did the Christian Lombards and others who followed them into usury and trade. To look at the big picture and suggest, as MacDonald does, that Jews depleted “Gentile resources” is to do violence to the evidence supplied by the very sources he cites. Secondly, to suggest that exploitation between members of different ethnic groups is inherently more meaningful than exploitation by class is to take an uncritical, and scientifically unfounded “genetic” view of human conflict. In fact, a preponderance of enmity throughout history has occurs WITHIN ethnic groups and between classes over the distribution of resources. When the Jews left Western Europe en masse at the close of the Middle Ages, was there any letup in the level of exploitation and conflict there? Any historian worth his salt knows the answer to that one.
What SAID ignores, with its zero-sum mentality, is that ALL ethnic groups in America have prospered by COOPERATING with each other. Thanks to the wisdom of our founding fathers and the good sense of the American people, our political institutions, medicine, science, technology, and economy are the envy of the world. ALL ethnic groups (and multiethnics) would suffer catastrophic harm if America split up into ethnic fiefdoms. That’s why only the tiny minority of people suffering from extreme status anxiety contemplate a return to the Dark Ages. As even a Machiavellian like MacDonald must surely recognize, there’s no future in it.
SAID attests to the slipperiness of evolutionary psychology in uncritical hands. MacDonald cites the relative genetic distance between European Jews and non-Jews as proof that Jews have adopted an evolutionary group strategy. Then he cites European Jewish and non-Jewish genetic CLOSENESS as further proof of the same strategy! That is, Jews seek to be separate enough to maintain their distinctiveness, but not separate enough to trigger Gentile efforts to cast them out (like antibodies casting out foreign viruses.) How’s that for an ironclad case? And all this is being unconsciously coordinated by millions of Jews lacking even the most elementary acquaintance with either genetics-- or MacDonald’s “thesis”! Presumably the only way Jews could invalidate it would be by throwing themselves off cliffs like so many lemmings.
SAID cites the traditional endogamy of the Jews as proof of their evolutionary group strategy. Certainly, Christian Europe has been unusually exogamous over the past 1,000 years. Nevertheless, there have always been many exceptions even there (Goody, 185). Were these exceptions practicing evolutionary group strategy, too, or is endogamy a form of this strategy only when Western Jews practice it? What’s more, over 50% of American Jews marry out. Secularism and social tolerance, not a purported shift in evolutionary group strategy, offers the most parsimonious explanation of this switch to exogamy.
Speculation runs wild throughout. SAID supposes that poor Jews were always more likely to leave Judaism, rendering the remaining Jews more eugenically fit. Actually, there’s no conclusive evidence either way. But upper-class Hellenistic Jews probably were the most assimilationist, while the wealthy Sephardim of medieval Europe and wealthy Jews of modern France, Hungary etc certainly were. Men of the upper and middle classes like Montaigne, Proust, Sir William Hershel and quite possibly even Christopher Columbus, were the products of assimilation.
Forgetting that satire is the chief tool of any underdog, including Christians of varying racial, economic, and ethnic backgrounds, MacDonald argues that Jews are willfully engaged in an all-out assault on Western culture. Jewish radicalism is thus a group strategy though he concedes that most Jews are not involved in or support it. In other words, any political movement, left, right or center, can constitute a Jewish group strategy if its Jewish members are self-consciously Jewish (?!) while engaged in these movements. By this logic, when “New Christians” de las Casas, Cervantes, Vitoria, and Suarez championed the cause of the skeptic, the Indian, the common man, and humanism generally, were they practicing a Jewish group strategy? If so, how odd that they failed to perform the most important eugenic task: producing and raising another generation of Jews. And if we don’t regard these progressive figures as practicing evolutionary group strategy, on what basis would we not assume the same of Jewish progressives today?
It’s a good thing for sociobiologists (er, evolutionary psychologists) that they can’t be sued for malpractice. This book makes hash of an interesting field that often lacks the critical rigor we have the right to expect from science.
Informed by warmed-over Social Darwinism, SAID claims that Judaism evolved from biblical times as a strategy to ensure the genetic fitness and survival of Jews. It argues that Judaism is still used today to maximize Jewish advantages at the expense of others. And it seeks to prove this by drawing on works of reputable (predominantly Jewish) scholars. The problem is, it does not “draw on” these sources; it ransacks them. Mountains of contrary evidence are toppled in the search for nuggets of “truth”.
Consider SAID’s view of the Jewish role in the Western economy through history – a vast, and complex subject if ever there was one. To MacDonald, a psychologist, not a historian, Jews depleted Gentile resources in collusion with kings and lords, countered only now and then in the Middle Ages by Christian collectivism. SAID ignores the overwhelming evidence that Jewish participation in the pre-modern economies of Europe was widespread because (and as long as) it was indispensable—not only to the wealthy, but to the overall prosperity of commerce (e.g.16th century Venice, 17th-18th century Bordeaux) and manufacturing (e.g. textiles, metalsmithing, leatherwork). Of 19th century Austria, historian George Berkley notes: “It was largely the Jews who had built the country’s steel mills and railroads, who had developed its textile, sugar-refining, meat-packing, and numerous other industries.” They were the backbone of commerce, administration and science in medieval Spain, where the very word “Jew” was synonymous with “literate”. The point is, Jews contributed to the economy as much as they benefited from it. So, too, did the Christian Lombards and others who followed them into usury and trade. To look at the big picture and suggest, as MacDonald does, that Jews depleted “Gentile resources” is to do violence to the evidence supplied by the very sources he cites. Secondly, to suggest that exploitation between members of different ethnic groups is inherently more meaningful than exploitation by class is to take an uncritical, and scientifically unfounded “genetic” view of human conflict. In fact, a preponderance of enmity throughout history has occurs WITHIN ethnic groups and between classes over the distribution of resources. When the Jews left Western Europe en masse at the close of the Middle Ages, was there any letup in the level of exploitation and conflict there? Any historian worth his salt knows the answer to that one.
What SAID ignores, with its zero-sum mentality, is that ALL ethnic groups in America have prospered by COOPERATING with each other. Thanks to the wisdom of our founding fathers and the good sense of the American people, our political institutions, medicine, science, technology, and economy are the envy of the world. ALL ethnic groups (and multiethnics) would suffer catastrophic harm if America split up into ethnic fiefdoms. That’s why only the tiny minority of people suffering from extreme status anxiety contemplate a return to the Dark Ages. As even a Machiavellian like MacDonald must surely recognize, there’s no future in it.
SAID attests to the slipperiness of evolutionary psychology in uncritical hands. MacDonald cites the relative genetic distance between European Jews and non-Jews as proof that Jews have adopted an evolutionary group strategy. Then he cites European Jewish and non-Jewish genetic CLOSENESS as further proof of the same strategy! That is, Jews seek to be separate enough to maintain their distinctiveness, but not separate enough to trigger Gentile efforts to cast them out (like antibodies casting out foreign viruses.) How’s that for an ironclad case? And all this is being unconsciously coordinated by millions of Jews lacking even the most elementary acquaintance with either genetics-- or MacDonald’s “thesis”! Presumably the only way Jews could invalidate it would be by throwing themselves off cliffs like so many lemmings.
SAID cites the traditional endogamy of the Jews as proof of their evolutionary group strategy. Certainly, Christian Europe has been unusually exogamous over the past 1,000 years. Nevertheless, there have always been many exceptions even there (Goody, 185). Were these exceptions practicing evolutionary group strategy, too, or is endogamy a form of this strategy only when Western Jews practice it? What’s more, over 50% of American Jews marry out. Secularism and social tolerance, not a purported shift in evolutionary group strategy, offers the most parsimonious explanation of this switch to exogamy.
Speculation runs wild throughout. SAID supposes that poor Jews were always more likely to leave Judaism, rendering the remaining Jews more eugenically fit. Actually, there’s no conclusive evidence either way. But upper-class Hellenistic Jews probably were the most assimilationist, while the wealthy Sephardim of medieval Europe and wealthy Jews of modern France, Hungary etc certainly were. Men of the upper and middle classes like Montaigne, Proust, Sir William Hershel and quite possibly even Christopher Columbus, were the products of assimilation.
Forgetting that satire is the chief tool of any underdog, including Christians of varying racial, economic, and ethnic backgrounds, MacDonald argues that Jews are willfully engaged in an all-out assault on Western culture. Jewish radicalism is thus a group strategy though he concedes that most Jews are not involved in or support it. In other words, any political movement, left, right or center, can constitute a Jewish group strategy if its Jewish members are self-consciously Jewish (?!) while engaged in these movements. By this logic, when “New Christians” de las Casas, Cervantes, Vitoria, and Suarez championed the cause of the skeptic, the Indian, the common man, and humanism generally, were they practicing a Jewish group strategy? If so, how odd that they failed to perform the most important eugenic task: producing and raising another generation of Jews. And if we don’t regard these progressive figures as practicing evolutionary group strategy, on what basis would we not assume the same of Jewish progressives today?
It’s a good thing for sociobiologists (er, evolutionary psychologists) that they can’t be sued for malpractice. This book makes hash of an interesting field that often lacks the critical rigor we have the right to expect from science.
September 23, 2024
My book review in the Finnish language https://sarastuslehti.com/2015/01/05/...
September 23, 2024
I have a weakness for bold multi-disciplinary historical theorizing, and so I will continue to read Kevin MacDonald despite his obvious defects.
In MacDonald's model, the presence of a cohesive, endogamous, commercially and reproductively competitive group (known as the Jews) within individualistic western societies gives rise to anti-Semitic reactions, which often take on characteristics of the Jews (mostly under the heading "more collectivism") to compete.
This is his explanation, anyway, of Christianity's rise in the Roman Empire, the Spanish Inquisition, and the National Socialist party (yes I am over-simplifying).
Jewish responses to these movements usually takes the form of crypsis, the prototypical case perhaps being the "New Christians" of Spain. Other times, they attempt even greater separatism (Zionism, for instance).
To the question (or counter-argument) of assimilation, he (often implicitly, sometimes explicitly) argues that an ethnic core is maintained, while a certain portion intermarries with gentile women to create bridges, increase social networks, and aid in crypsis. As long as a certain core group remains endogamous and culturally apart, such intermarriage will benefit the group at large, and help ensure its future.
The greater ethnocentrism found in Jewish communities is not convincingly proved to be intrinsic, rather than a natural reaction (under social identity theory) to persecution. The arguments about assimilation are ingenious, but a little too Rube Goldbergesque for my tastes. Generally speaking he faces all the difficulties of discussing Group Selection in an evolutionary sense (what are the mechanisms of motivation, etc.), and Social Identity theory doesn't do enough to help him out of those problems.
I wish he would have discussed Palestinian nationalism, which seems to fit into his model much better than the examples he does choose.
In MacDonald's model, the presence of a cohesive, endogamous, commercially and reproductively competitive group (known as the Jews) within individualistic western societies gives rise to anti-Semitic reactions, which often take on characteristics of the Jews (mostly under the heading "more collectivism") to compete.
This is his explanation, anyway, of Christianity's rise in the Roman Empire, the Spanish Inquisition, and the National Socialist party (yes I am over-simplifying).
Jewish responses to these movements usually takes the form of crypsis, the prototypical case perhaps being the "New Christians" of Spain. Other times, they attempt even greater separatism (Zionism, for instance).
To the question (or counter-argument) of assimilation, he (often implicitly, sometimes explicitly) argues that an ethnic core is maintained, while a certain portion intermarries with gentile women to create bridges, increase social networks, and aid in crypsis. As long as a certain core group remains endogamous and culturally apart, such intermarriage will benefit the group at large, and help ensure its future.
The greater ethnocentrism found in Jewish communities is not convincingly proved to be intrinsic, rather than a natural reaction (under social identity theory) to persecution. The arguments about assimilation are ingenious, but a little too Rube Goldbergesque for my tastes. Generally speaking he faces all the difficulties of discussing Group Selection in an evolutionary sense (what are the mechanisms of motivation, etc.), and Social Identity theory doesn't do enough to help him out of those problems.
I wish he would have discussed Palestinian nationalism, which seems to fit into his model much better than the examples he does choose.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews