Evolutionary Psychology's Anti-Semite
By: Judith Shulevitz
What scares people about the trial going on in London over whether Jewish
historian Deborah Lipstadt libeled Holocaust denier David Irving by calling
him a liar is that British law requires Lipstadt to show that her statement
was true. If she can't prove beyond a doubt that the Holocaust took place,
Irving might win. That would be a devastating blow to historical accuracy
if it happens, but Culturebox thinks it won't. There's a lot of truth on
Lipstadt's side, and very little on Irving's. Plus Lipstadt has one of the
best lawyers in London and is planning to call several heavyweight scholars
to testify. Irving, on the other hand, is acting as his own lawyer and so
far has named very few witnesses and experts, none of whom anyone has ever
heard of.
If Irving doesn't appear to be taking the necessary steps to win, why else
might he have brought the lawsuit? For publicity, is the obvious answer--to
air his own views, as well as those of his witnesses. And that's what
scares Culturebox. Irving's claim that there were no gas chambers at
Auschwitz is bad enough, but since it bears directly on the question of his
truthfulness, it will be refuted on the spot. Irving's experts, on the
other hand, are being called to testify on issues tangential to the case,
and their twisted theories could well go unanswered. One expert, John Fox,
the former editor of a British Holocaust journal, will probably argue that
Lipstadt and the Jews are trying to shut down free discussion of the
Holocaust. Irving's other expert is an American professor named Kevin
MacDonald, whose ideas about Jews have almost no relevance to the case but
represent the broadest, ugliest, and most vicious anti-Semitism passing for
scholarship in this country today.
We know more or less what McDonald will say on the stand, because he
recently put a copy of his written statement to the British court on the
Internet. (Click here to go to the discussion group where he posted it. At
the drop-down dialogue box, select postings for January 2000, then click on
a posting titled "MacDonald's statement in the Irving/Lipstadt trial,"
dated Jan. 17.) The bulk of MacDonald's testimony will be a summary of his
three books about Jews: A People That Shall Dwell Alone: Judaism as a Group
Evolutionary Strategy (Praeger, 1994); Separation and Discontents: Toward
an Evolutionary Theory of Anti-Semitism (Praeger, 1998); and The Culture of
Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in
Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements (Praeger, 1998).
Here is what he says in them--in Culturebox's words, not his. (If you want
to read MacDonald's own summary, clink on the link above. To read a fuller
account of his books, go to his Web page.)
MacDonald's central thesis is that Judaism is best understood not as a
religion but as a blueprint for an experiment in eugenics--a "group
evolutionary strategy," he calls it--designed to maximize a single trait:
intelligence. For thousands of years, he says, Jews have separated
themselves from their neighbors, choosing to confine themselves to a closed
society with strict rules against marrying outside the group. They have
lived by policies of extreme group loyalty and obedience to rabbinical
authority, which served to maintain their racial purity; and they practiced
low-birth-rate, high-investment parenting, which is the royal road to a
high group I.Q. They conferred social status (which brings along with it
the most desirable women) on men according to their brilliance--indeed,
says MacDonald, study of the Talmud was nothing more than a casuistic
exercise meant to weed out the dim. Eventually, their highly developed
genes for mental and verbal acuity, as well as their social aggression
(also carefully bred-in), gave the Jews powerful tools that enable them to
dominate neighboring ethnic groups in the endless war of all against all
for food and resources...
Full article at: http://slate.msn.com
Louis Proyect
(The Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org)
