The Power of Punim: Further Thoughts on the Nasty Nazi Nathan Cofnas

“Point and splutter.” I think it was Steve Sailer who devised that term to describe a common tactic of the left. When leftists want to expose an academic or writer as a bad person who should lose his job and be driven out of respectable society, they don’t use facts, logic and reasoned argument. No, they simply quote something that is self-evidently wicked in the eyes of all right-thinking — that is, left-thinking — people. In other words, they point at wickedness and splutter in outrage. They don’t attempt to address the arguments of the anathematized.

“Racist, pseudoscientific phrenology”

For example, when leftists wanted to expose the Jewish philosopher Nathan Cofnas as a nasty Nazi, they quoted self-evident thought-crime in his writing. But they didn’t address his arguments or evidence. Cofnas has described their point-and-splutter like this:

[The leftist journalist Elizabeth] Haigh declares that my “paper was widely debunked by various scientists” and makes the assertion (of dubious grammaticality) that “He argued against the idea of racism and structural racism for difference between peoples’ achievements, saying some groups of people are ‘unfairly blamed’”. She doesn’t give any details about the alleged debunking of my article. The fact that some unnamed “various scientists” criticised me for saying something politically unpopular is enough to try to start a campaign to threaten my employment. Haigh revealed her intentions more explicitly later when she retweeted a thread about me by a linguistics PhD student which said, “we have to stop letting ‘intelligence researchers’ dress up their racist, pseudoscientific phrenology and pretend it’s anything other than nonsense. these people should not have jobs. they shouldn’t be tolerated in polite society.” (“My ‘debunked’ views,” The Critic, 2nd November 2022)

To leftists, ideas like those are self-evidently wicked and unacceptable. If someone espouses them in public, what more need be said? Cofnas is a crimethinker. Vaporize him! That’s point-and-splutter. Obviously, Cofnas thinks that this is a highly unfair tactic. But he also has to admit that it’s highly effective. Presumably that’s why he decided to employ it against the Occidental Observer and me. He pointed-and-spluttered in one of his critiques of Kevin MacDonald:

Here is a passage from a recent, representative article published in The Occidental Observer:

He’s Jugly, as you might say: that is, he’s ugly in a characteristically Jewish way. I agree with a fascinating article at [the neo-Nazi magazine] National Vanguard arguing that “Jews themselves are an unattractive and, on average, ugly people” and that “Jews, as a group, oppose beauty.”…And why are Jews and leftists “on average, ugly people”?…And ugly Jewish brains have consistently created ugly ideologies that war on the “indissoluble Trinity of Truth, Beauty and Goodness.” (Langdon, 2021)

So MacDonald thinks that “there are no good Jews, nor can they be good” is a “good rule of thumb.” […] As editor of The Occidental Observer and The Occidental Quarterly [MacDonald] regularly publishes nasty, scientifically baseless screeds against Jews. (“Still No Evidence for a Jewish Group Evolutionary Strategy,” Evolutionary Psychological Science, Volume 9, pages 236—259, 6th January 2023)

First of all, this article is hardly representative. TOO has posted very few articles on the topic of facial appearance. Cofnas is clearly cherry-picking an article he thinks will be effective in appealing to his audience. How about this series of articles by Szilard Csonthegyi on Bela Kun and Jewish-Hungarian conflict?  Or pick anything by Andrew Joyce, Brenton Sanderson, Horus, or  Marshall Yeats—not to mention MacDonald’s refutations of Cofnas—just to name a few.

And it’s ridiculous to claim that MacDonald thinks “there are no good Jews, nor can they be good.” Ron Unz has established perhaps the premier website for the dissident right, with many articles critical of Jews, including articles from TOO. Amy Wax, who invited Jared Taylor to her class at UPenn is another one that comes to mind. And Stephen Miller, Trump-administration stalwart on immigration (disowned by his synagogue). There are many more. But they don’t represent the power and influence of the mainstream Jewish community which is the main topic of TOO.

But more importantly, Cofnas is pointing-and-spluttering at my article “The Cult of Ugly: Leftist Lies, Jewish Junk, and the Malign Martyrdom of George Floyd.” He regards it as an example of the “nasty, scientifically baseless screeds against Jews” regularly published by Kevin MacDonald. Leftists have, of course, dismissed Cofnas’ own work as “nasty, scientifically baseless screeds against” Blacks and other non-Whites. They would also be happy to “debunk” Cofnas by noting that “the neo-Nazi magazine” National Vanguard shares his views on racial differences in intelligence. Well, I think that leftists are wrong about Cofnas’ ideas just as I think Cofnas is wrong about mine. In his ironically titled article “My ‘debunked’ views,” Cofnas reached this conclusion: “The reason we’re not allowed — on pain of (at least attempted) cancellation — to have frank discussions about the hereditarian hypothesis isn’t because it’s been ‘debunked’, but because it hasn’t been debunked.”

A short guide to debunking nasty Nazis like Nathan

I agree with that conclusion. But I also think that it applies to my pernicious punim hypothesis (punim is Yiddish for “face”). The reason decent people do not have frank discussions about Jewish ugliness isn’t because it’s been “debunked,” but because the reality upsets Jews like Nathan Cofnas. That’s why the topic is covered only in “nasty” publications like the Occidental Observer and “the neo-Nazi magazine” National Vanguard. Oh, and at TakiMag, where the Jewish writer David Cole once issued this “nasty, scientifically baseless screed”:

Christmas is supposed to be a holiday for Christians, but this year Santa’s bringing a very special present for America’s Jews: the gift of seeing Ruth Bader Ginsburg the way we wish she looked. Opening in theaters December 25th, On the Basis of Sex tells the story of a plucky young RBG as she risks everything in a quest to become a nationally known feminist hero. …

The actress portraying the young Ginsburg is Birmingham-born Felicity Jones, a Brit who is most definitely not Jewish, unlike the brittle SCOTUS [Supreme Court of the United States] scarecrow she’s portraying. In fact, Jones could not look less Jewish if she tried. This girl is so Aryan, she could give Himmler’s corpse a boner. And yet she’s portraying a woman who — hmm, how to put this gently? — is the reason Jewish men often date outside the flock. Not since Warren Beatty decided to portray Dick Tracy without facial prosthetics has there been a greater physical disconnect between actor and subject. […]

So we [Jews] don’t mind the idealized images, because in a way they give us comfort. We don’t see what we can never become, but what we can [with the help of plastic surgery]. … She [Ginsburg]’s probably as pumped as everyone else to see her ethnically cleansed onscreen depiction.

Well, actually, not everyone’s pumped. It took some searching, but I finally found a roaring dissent in the sea of silence regarding the Ginsburg/Jones ethnic switcheroo. Marissa Korbel is a self-described “bleeding heart lawyer” and “award-winning essayist” who writes for Harper’s Bazaar, Guernica, and Bitch magazine. Last week, she penned a piece for the online literary journal The Rumpus that I’d wager is the single most honest piece of writing on the ’net regarding Jews and the Aryanization of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. … But don’t expect Korbel’s essay to be picked up by national Jewish news and opinion sites. Even its concluding and comforting descent into leftist banality can’t make up for the disquieting honesty of the rest of it. We Jews are generally an introspective lot, but every now and then we encounter an abyss into which even we prefer not to gaze, lest we find Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Semitic mug gazing back at us. (“Ruth Bader Ginsburg… Shiksa?”, Taki Mag, 25th December 2018)

Yucky yenta becomes yummy shiksa: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Felicity Jones

Like the neo-Nazis at National Vanguard and the anti-Semites at the Occidental Observer, David Cole at TakiMag is what might be called an ideological outlaw. Like them and us, he isn’t scared of “cancellation” and exile from respectable society because he’s already been cancelled and exiled. I’ve already said that I admire the moral courage of Nathan Cofnas and his willingness to address the dangerous topic of racial difference. But his moral courage will only take him so far. He doesn’t share Cole’s honesty and willingness to address the dangerous topic of Jewish ugliness and Jewish envy of White beauty. That’s perfectly understandable. What would happen if Cofnas addressed that topic, even without Cole’s bluntness and brutality? He’d anger and upset his fellow Jews, of course. Literally or metaphorically, he’d make his yiddishe momme cry. And he doesn’t want to do that.

Ashkenazi inbreeding

I think that’s why Cofnas pointed-and-spluttered about my article “The Cult of Ugly.” But I don’t think he was fair to the article. First of all, it argues that ugliness is characteristic of leftists, not just of Jews. Does Cofnas agree with that description of leftists or at least accept it as legitimate? Does he accept the scientific work finding that the right tend to be more attractive and healthier in various ways than the left? I linked in the article to the scientific ideas of Edward Dutton, who argues that leftism in general, and antifa in particular, is the ideology of “spiteful mutants.” Modern life and vastly reduced rates of infant mortality have relaxed selection against deleterious mutations, which are now affecting the brains and psychology of far more people. Leftists would, of course, reject Dutton’s ideas as “nasty” and “scientifically baseless.” Does Cofnas agree with the left?

I also said this in the article: “As for Jews and the ugliness of both their punims [faces] and their brains, note the studies that have identified marked inbreeding and higher rates of mental illness among Jews.” Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending have famously argued that selection among Jews for higher intelligence has also produced higher rates of neurological disease. Emil Kirkegaard has argued that raw intelligence and mental illness both contribute to Jewish genius. These studies are perfectly scientific. Does Cofnas accept that Ashkenazi Jews like himself are highly inbred and subject to higher rates of mental illness? If so, does he agree that this might influence the appearance, art and ideologies of Jews for the worse? Or is that completely impossible?

Distinctive personalities (and punims)

Let’s examine an interesting statement made by Cofnas in his anti-KMac paper at Evolutionary Psychological Science: “The fact that stereotypes tend to have a basis in reality (Jussim et al., 2015, 2016) and that Jews have been consistently stereotyped as having distinctive personalities — for example, as being ‘shrewd’ (Brigham, 1971) — provides preliminary support for the hypothesis of personality differences.” As Cofnas is presumably well aware, Jews have also been consistently stereotyped as having distinctive punims. To be blunt, there is a stereotype of Jewish ugliness. Does Cofnas accept that this stereotype could have “a basis in reality”? And is Cofnas himself distressed or disturbed by references to Jewish ugliness? He characterizes my article as “nasty,” which is an emotive rather than a scientific term. I can assure him that, to the best of my conscious knowledge, I was not seeking to distress Jews or leftists in any way. Instead, I was seeking to explore what I regard as a real and important phenomenon: the relationship between harmful leftist ideologies and the disproportionate ugliness of the people who espouse them.

Stereotype and reality #1: drawing of Jew by David Cole’s friend Nick Bougas, aka “A. Wyatt Mann;” photograph of Alan Ginsberg

Stereotype and reality #2: Jews have been consistently stereotyped as having distinctive punims (I can’t identify the couple in the photograph)

Cofnas himself undoubtedly recognizes that many Blacks and other non-Whites are distressed and disturbed by his claims about racial differences in intelligence. His work is “nasty” for them. It does not follow that it is also “scientifically baseless.” Now, I can perfectly understand and sympathize with non-Whites who are distressed by any claim that their particular racial group is of lower average intelligence. I can also see that their distress will be greater, not lesser, if the claim is scientifically strong and realistic. As the saying goes: The truth hurts. That’s why a crude statement like “Blacks are stupid” is hurtful to Blacks. It conforms to what Blacks reluctantly recognize as reality. The truth hurts.

The power of punim: some examples of characteristically Jewish ugliness

However, “Jews are stupid” isn’t at all hurtful to Jews. They know it doesn’t conform to reality. What’s hurtful to many or even most Jews is the crude statement “Jews are ugly.” And I think it’s hurtful to Jews because the it conforms to what Jews reluctantly recognize as reality. I also think that Nathan Cofnas is among the Jews who are emotionally hurt by claims about Jewish ugliness. Whether or not Cofnas will admit this is up to him. My evidence would include this selfie posted by Cofnas at his Substack site:

Jewish punim, gentile architecture: Nathan Cofnas poses at Emmanuel College, Cambridge

I don’t think that Nathan Cofnas is (hmm, how to put this gently?) a facially attractive individual. I also wonder about his full motives for choosing to pose in that particular location. The architectural background is beautiful. The facial foreground is less so. Now, I’m sure that Cofnas recognizes and appreciates the beauty of Cambridge University. And it would be perfectly understandable and acceptable that he felt pride at being a high-flier there. But I wonder whether the selfie was also expressing triumph over those surroundings in some way. The handsome goy Robert Taylor once starred in a movie called A Yank at Oxford (1938). Is Cofnas’ selfie intended to proclaim “A Kike at Cambridge”? (Please note that I’m using the term “kike” as an ironic Jew like Cofnas might use it, not to insult Cofnas.) After all, it contains an obvious contrast between beautiful gentile architecture and an unattractive Jewish punim.

That Jews can have hostile feelings about beautiful gentile architecture is proved by the Jewish writer Sabrina Rubin Erdely, who promoted the not-so-infamous hate-hoax about a female student being raped on broken glass by a fraternity at the University of Virginia (UVA). Erdely set the scene for the non-existent crime by describing “throngs of toned, tanned and overwhelmingly blond students [who] fanned across a landscape of neoclassical brick buildings” at UVA.

Why would Jewish Sabrina Rubin Erdely resent “toned, tanned and overwhelmingly blond” gentiles? (image from Wikipedia)

As Steve Sailer pointed out, dark-haired Erdely’s hate-hoax was clearly powered by anti-gentile malice. That’s why she wrote of “overwhelmingly blond students” and “neoclassical brick buildings.” I’d hypothesize that unattractive Nathan Cofnas shares some of unattractive Sabrina Erdely’s resentment about the beauty of White gentiles and their architecture. That isn’t a scientific hypothesis, of course. But that doesn’t make it impossible to verify. If Cofnas confirmed such feelings in himself, that would be a good proof. But if Cofnas denied them, I don’t think that would be a good disproof, just as I don’t think leftist denials are a good disproof of Cofnas’ claims about racial difference. Leftists think that Cofnas’ ideas are “nasty” and “scientifically baseless.” Cofnas thinks they’re wrong. So do I. But I also think that Cofnas is wrong to describe “The Cult of Ugly” as “nasty” and “scientifically baseless.” There is science to support the idea of a connexion between physical ugliness and pernicious ideologies.

But let’s suppose that no such science exists or ever could exist. That would still not enable Cofnas to dismiss “The Cult of Ugly” out of hand as worthless. It may indeed contain worthless ideas and conjectures, but more work would be needed to establish this. As a philosopher, Cofnas is no doubt aware that there is a large and ancient branch of philosophy known as aesthetics, which studies topics like beauty and ugliness, and their relation to politics and morality. Due to its antiquity, aesthetics was “scientifically baseless” for many centuries. Much or even most of aesthetics is still “scientifically baseless” today. Does Cofnas regard that as a good reason to dismiss this field and reject all of its political and moral conclusions? I hope he doesn’t.

Resentment and distress

I also hope that Cofnas doesn’t reject Steve Sailer’s writing on ethno-aesthetics as “nasty” and “scientifically baseless.” Just as Sailer has devised the term “point and splutter” to satirize leftist dishonesty, so he’s devised the term “World War Hair” to satirize Black women’s resentment about the greater sexual attractiveness of White women. The ability to grow long, straight, glossy hair in various natural colors is one of several strong advantages White women possess over Black women in the sexual marketplace. And over other non-White women. Naturally enough, non-White women resent this trichological toxicity, which is part of why non-White women in the media so often announce “Let’s Talk About My Hair” (as Sailer again puts it). We already know that Cofnas regards my article about leftist and Jewish ugliness as a “nasty, scientifically baseless screed.” Does Cofnas regard Sailer’s writing on Black women’s resentment as “nasty” and “scientifically baseless” too? I very much doubt it.

If I’m right, then Cofnas’ double standard would be understandable, but also ethnocentric. Indeed, it would be understandable because it was ethnocentric. It would be perfectly natural that, as a Jew, Cofnas could accept discussion of Black imperfections in a way he couldn’t accept discussion of Jewish imperfections. But there are some imperfections that Blacks and Jews have in common. For example, both of them are groups that, in my opinion, don’t belong in White societies partly because of the resentment they feel about superior White beauty. I don’t think that Nathan Cofnas is the “nasty Nazi” that, because of his racial views, many leftists would describe him as. But I do think that he is one of the many Jews who feel resentment about White gentile beauty and concomitant distress at any discussion of Jewish ugliness. It’s up to him whether he confirms, denies or ignores this allegation.