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Review of Thomas Wheatland’s The Frankfurt School in Exile, Part I: Authoritarianism and the Family
Thomas Wheatland’s book, The Frankfurt School in Exile, provides a useful historical account of the travels, connections, and ideas of an important Jewish intellectual movement. The Institute for Social Research began as an orthodox Marxist organization during the Weimar period. During this period, they were dedicated to studying the class struggle and were often in close contact with members of the German Communist Party. Like several other members of the Institute, Max Horkheimer, who became head of the Institute, came from a wealthy background, but like so many Jewish radicals, had a “moral and emotional” opposition to bourgeois society (p. 15).
Wheatland agrees with other scholars that a persistent motivation of the Frankfurt School was to understand why a working class revolution failed to occur in Germany. Two main theoretical thrusts emerged from this realization: a critique that located ethnic prejudice, backward religious attitudes and lack of revolutionary fervor in the family, and a critique of mass culture seen as promoting passivity and escapism rather than revolutionary consciousness. Part I of this review deals with the first of these issues. Part II will discuss the theory of mass culture and interactions between the Frankfurt School and the New York Intellectuals.
The Frankfurt School Finds Authoritarianism in the Family
Since Marxist revolution was so obviously desirable to the Frankfurt Intellectuals, they developed a theory in which the failure of revolution could be attributed to psychopathology in the family. As reviewed here, the epitome of psychological health was the “genuine liberal” — a radical individualist who is completely detached from all ingroups, including race and family. White people who rejected their family as role models were analyzed as psychologically healthy, while those who had positive views of their parents were analyzed as psychologically inadequate.
Such a view is obviously subversive of traditional values, since competent parents transmit their religious and cultural values to their children, and at the time of the study, many of these competent White parents had a sense of White racial identity which they were transmitting to their children. The Frankfurt School was essentially claiming that White families who successfully transmitted their ethnocentric attitudes to their children were pathological — a view for which there isn’t a shred of evidence. (Needless to say, the successful transmission of Jewish identity to Jewish children was not considered a pathology.)
A major part of the intellectual ammunition for this assault on the people and culture of the West derived originally from Erich Fromm whose association with the Frankfurt School dates from 1930. Fromm pioneered the idea of combining Marx with Freud and was responsible for the early development of the authoritarian personality concept. Fromm’s ideas are an excellent illustration of the ludicrous but deadly theories that resulted from this marriage of these two influential Jewish philosophers. For example, in Studien über Authorität und Familie (1936), Fromm wrote,
With regard to authoritarianism, masochism manifested itself in the surrender to authority, and sadism was evident in the acceptance of social hierarchy. In the developmental and sexual sense, the authoritarian character had suffered a regression from genital sexuality to infantile sexuality. Accompanying this regression of libidinal energy, Fromm also expected a shift from heterosexual to homosexual behavior among authoritarian personalities. (quoted in Wheatland, p. 68)
As a psychologist, I really can’t imagine a more ridiculous theory — unless perhaps one counts Freud’s politically useful Oedipal complex. None of these ideas ever had even a glimmer of empirical support. Freud’s theorizing — one hesitates to call it a theory — combines outrageousness with infinite plasticity. In the hands of Freudian revisionist like Fromm, it could be used as a weapon against those who resist a communist revolution. Eventually, Fromm’s ideas would be the basis for The Authoritarian Personality and its assault on White racial identity and traditional Western family values.
Wheatland, however, is utterly credulous in discussing these preposterous ideas: “Fromm had carefully examined the empirical findings. Exercising caution to make use of his data, Fromm utilized every response to each question to provide confirmation for his character models” (p. 69).
Ah yes, Erich Fromm — ever the dedicated, impartial empirical scientist. Since such findings have never been confirmed by the research of actual psychologists — indeed, they would be laughed at as the height of ridiculousness, one would think that Wheatland would at least suggest that perhaps Fromm was reading hisa priori theories into the interview results — a common enough practice among psychoanalysts.
Indeed, a strikingly similar passage to Fromm’s monstrosity can be found inDialectic of Enlightenment (1944), by the two leading lights of the Frankfurt School, Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno:
The forbidden action [of killing one’s father out of Oedipal jealousy] which is converted into aggression is generally homosexual in nature. Through fear of castration, obedience to the father is taken to the extreme of an anticipation of castration in conscious emotional approximation to the nature of a small girl, and actual hatred to the father is suppressed” (p. 192).
You can’t make this stuff up. Nevertheless, despite such passages and a generally fanciful theory of anti-Semitism (see Chap. 5 of The Culture of Critique), Wheatland refers to Dialectic of Enlightenment as the Institute’s “theoretical masterpiece” (p. 242).
Wheatland is typical of so many American intellectuals who become caught up in the well-honed mystique of the Frankfurt School, completely losing their critical sense. Even a casual reading of Dialectic of Enlightenment indicates the importance of Jewish ethnic interests in developing a theory of anti-Semitism in which the behavior of Jews is completely irrelevant. As Jacob Katz notes, the Frankfurt School has “not been notable for the accuracy of its evaluation of the Jewish situation either before the advent of Nazism or afterward” (p. 40).
Wheatland presents evidence that the Institute separated themselves from Fromm because of his revisionist views on psychoanalysis. Nevertheless, the separation was more tactical than real. Both Fromm and his former Frankfurt colleagues developed a similar intellectual rationale for radical individualism among Whites — mainly because they viewed it as effective in combating anti-Semitism. Prototypical individualists such as libertarians are much less prone to enmeshing themselves in cohesive groups — especially mass movements of ethnic defense They have no allegiance to their race, their culture, or even their family. The following is a famous passage from Fromm’s Escape from Freedom(1941):
There is only one possible, productive solution for the relationship of individualized man with the world: his active solidarity with all men and his spontaneous activity, love and work, which unite him again with the world, not by primary ties [e.g., family, religion, ethnic group, and race] but as a free and independent individual…. However, if the economic, social and political conditions… do not offer a basis for the realization of individuality in the sense just mentioned, while at the same time people have lost those ties which gave them security, this lag makes freedom an unbearable burden. It then becomes identical with doubt, with a kind of life which lacks meaning and direction. Powerful tendencies arise to escape from this kind of freedom into submission or some kind of relationship to man and the world which promises relief from uncertainty, even if it deprives the individual of his freedom. (Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom)
In other words, psychologically healthy people have no psychological ties to anything except their “active solidarity” with all of humanity. This lack of ethnic commitment is what defines freedom.
Fromm never saw any contradictions between this philosophy and his own strong Jewish identification. Fromm derived from an Orthodox Jewish religious background and was actively involved in promoting Jewish religion and culture in his 20s. Like many secular Jews on the left, Fromm’s view of Judaism was that it was a set of ethical, humanistic beliefs — indeed, it is common to assert that his view of Judaism had a strong influence on his humanistic psychology.
Obviously, such a view of Judaism ignores the strong Jewish emphasis on identifying with an ethnically-based ingroup (and all that that entails in terms of between-group conflict) rather than with humanity as a whole. It also ignores the notorious moral particularism (Is it good for the Jews?) that is so characteristic of Judaism. In any case, “although he later distanced himself from Judaism, it is reportedthat Fromm never tired of singing Hasidic songs or studying scripture.” One suspects that whatever Fromm’s public pronouncements, his identification with Judaism was quite a bit stronger than his identification with humanity.
While Fromm remained a psychoanalytic revisionist, the Frankfurt School retained an orthodox views of psychoanalysis. This had a major payoff for the Frankfurt School because it was able to ally itself with the Ernst Simmel’s Psychoanalytic Institute. Simmel, a powerful and well-connected psychoanalyst had direct ties to Freud — the gold standard of psychoanalytic royalty. (Those with direct ties to the master enjoyed a privileged position within psychoanalysis— a sure sign [among many others] that we are dealing with a cult rather than a scientific movement.) He then promoted the Frankfurt School’s work and called for research on anti-Semitism within the American Psychiatric Association (p. 325) at a time when psychoanalysis used its political muscle to dominate the APA. Simmel also sought funding for the Frankfurt School from wealthy, presumably Jewish, benefactors of psychoanalysis.
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The entire episode is a wonderful example of Jewish ethnic networking that had the effect of subverting scientific psychiatry. Psychoanalysis is clearly a Jewish intellectual movement, as indicated not only by the ethnic background of the leading lights of the field, but also by the support it received from the wider Jewish community — the subject of Chapter 4 of The Culture of Critique.Fortunately, the rise of scientific psychiatry has resulted in the more or less complete eradication of psychoanalysis within mainstream psychiatry. Ultimately this was due mainly to the rise of biological psychiatry as well as the usefulness of cognitive and learning perspectives derived from mainstream psychology. During its heyday, however, psychoanalysts like Simmel used their position of power within the APA to promote psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic theories of anti-Semitism — an effort that had the effect of retarding scientific research in psychiatry.
In the event, the Institute received funding for its Studies in Prejudice project (including The Authoritarian Personality) from the American Jewish Committee (AJC). Wheatland also shows that the ADL was enthusiastic about the project. The Institute’s successful funding proposal argued that modern anti-Semitism
aims not only at exterminating the Jews, but also at annihilating liberty and democracy. It has become the spearhead of the totalitarian order. … The attacks on the Jews are not primarily aimed at the Jews but at large sections of modern society, especially the free middle classes, which appear as an obstacle to the establishment of totalitarianism. (p. 236)
In other words, the war on anti-Semitism was really a war against those who would destroy democracy, freedom, and the middle classes — clearly an attempt to appeal to mainstream America.
Particularly interesting is that prior to the publication of the Studies in Prejudiceseries, Commentary developed a public relations campaign to promote the books. (Commentary is an important intellectual magazine published by the AJC.) “From the very first issue [in 1945], the magazine began to publish a series of [uniformly uncritical] articles that brought the work of the Horkheimer Circle to the attention of American readers” (p. 253).
After the Frankfurt School received funding from the AJC, Horkheimer’s office and Commentary were housed in the same building. Nathan Glazer, a prominent New York Intellectual, got his job at Commentary because he was already working for Horkheimer. There was an obvious congruence between the views of the AJC and the Frankfurt School:
Rather than simply fulfilling Jewish aims that had been dramatically highlighted by the Holocaust, The Studies in Prejudice series was envisioned to be a broader contribution to American society and culture — efforts consistent with the AJC’s desire to promote pluralism and Jewish cultural interests within the United States. Unlike Partisan Review which self-consciously promoted an ideal of cosmopolitan universalism that was framed by the influences of Marxism and modernism, Commentary … was envisioned to be a distinctly Jewish magazine (p. 154).
Indeed, despite a carefully crafted public image of Commentary as completely independent of the AJC, in fact its “autonomy may have been more of an illusion than a reality” (p. 155). Wheatland cites evidence that Elliot Cohen (the editor of Commentary from 1945–1959) was occasionally reprimanded by the AJC executive board and at other times was pressured to promote projects advocated by the AJC. Significantly, Cohen encouraged members of the Frankfurt School to write for Commentary, and the AJC had become the main financial support for the Frankfurt School. Wheatland shows that Commentaryplayed a major role in promoting the Frankfurt School’s Studies in Prejudiceseries, including the disastrously influential The Authoritarian Personality. The Institute also appealed to the wider Jewish community, publicizing their work “through public lectures at Jewish colleges and local temples” (p. 251) as well as other public venues.
An example of Frankfurt School writing in Commentary is Leo Lowenthal’s 1947 article on Heinrich Heine, a 19th-century Jewish poet who converted to Christianity early in his career but later renounced his conversion. “Heine’s religion” is interesting because, as Wheatland notes, it reflects not only Heine’s attitudes but also the attitudes of the New York Intellectuals and the other members of the Frankfurt School. Heine “sacrificed his Jewish traditions in order to embrace the same ideal of cosmopolitanism — embodied by the Enlightenment and the French Revolution — that the Frankfurt School and the prewar writers for Partisan Review adopted … For both groups [i.e., the Frankfurt School and the New York Intellectuals] Marxism embodied the yearning for a repaired and redeemed humanity — a world in which racial prejudice and socioeconomic injustice were overcome” (p. 157).
Eventually, however, Heine and Lowenthal (and the other Frankfurters and New York Intellectuals) abandoned the Enlightenment and reverted to Jewish patriotism. Heine wrote that “my preference for Greece has declined. I see now that the Greeks were merely handsome youths, while the Jews were, and still are, grown men, mighty, indomitable men, despite eighteen centuries of persecution and misery. I have learned to rate them at their true value.” Lowenthal concurred: Judaism “was a tradition that need not be transcended in the name of loftier ideals” (p. 158).
In other words, Jews could advocate cosmopolitan universalism for Whites while at the same time retaining their own Jewish identity. This is perhaps the fundamental intellectual stance of Diaspora Jewish intellectuals since the Enlightenment (and strikingly absent in Israel). Wheatland doesn’t comment on the obvious contradiction here. White Christians are to give up their ethnic and religious attachments as outmoded and “anti-democratic” while Jews fashion an ethnic identity that wears the mask of cosmopolitan universalism.
To his credit, Wheatland presents at least some of the criticisms of the Studies in Prejudice series and, in particular, The Authoritarian Personality. As he notes, a consistent thread of the criticisms was the belief that the authors let their biases color their hypotheses and interpretations. My views on this body of work are a bit more scathing: “It is not difficult to suppose that the entire program of research of The Authoritarian Personality involved deception from beginning to end.”
After WWII, the Institute “returned to Germany with great fanfare, it received the generous support of HICOG [the US High Commissioner in occupied Germany] and the Rockefeller Foundation, … and its staff was viewed as a living bridge to the past” (p. 261). It’s fascinating that Adorno then embarked on a series of articles completely repudiating the entire concept of empirical research — perhaps agreeing with me that The Authoritarian Personality and the rest of theStudies in Prejudice series were not really empirical research at all.
Adorno would presumably not agree with me that these works were nothing more than thinly disguised, ethnically motivated ideology. But that’s what it was — aided and abetted by the organized Jewish community.
Go to Part 2 of this review.
Kevin MacDonald is editor of The Occidental Observer and a professor of psychology at California State University–Long Beach. Email him.
Review of Thomas Wheatland’s The Frankfurt School in Exile, Part III: John Dewey, Sidney Hook, and Herbert Marcuse
Chapter 3 of The Frankfurt School in Exile is titled “John Dewey’s Pit Bull” — a reference to Sidney Hook. Hook had a leadership role among the New York Intellectuals, and is presented as the quintessential Jewish charismatic figure—passionately engaged in public debate. One has the image of him standing up in crowded venues where intellectual debate was a form of hand-to-hand combat, organizing loud protests and angry denunciations of his enemies.
But at the same time, Hook was a professional philosopher with a tenured position at New York University where he specialized in Marxist philosophy. He therefore became the more or less official authority on Marxism among the New York Intellectuals, a group for whom Marxism was at the very center of their world view.
Hook was no dogmatist and he changed with the times. In particular, as he noted in his autobiography, he saw his job as that of developing an intellectually respectable Marxism that fit with American intellectual currents. Indeed, Hook’s worldview was centered around the same problem as the Frankfurt School: The failure of the proletarian revolution in the West conflicted with Marxist dogma.
This is where John Dewey comes in. Hook realized that his leftist political agenda would be strengthened by becoming allied with Dewey because he was a prominent philosopher and public intellectual. As is well-known, the Hook and the New York Intellectuals did much to promote Dewey. Hook and the editors ofPartisan Review (an important journal of the New York Intellectuals) praised Dewey to the skies (see Culture of Critique, Ch. 7). And as intellectual historian David Hollinger points out, “If lapsed Congregationalists like Dewey did not need immigrants to inspire them to press against the boundaries of even the most liberal of Protestant sensibilities, Dewey’s kind were resoundingly encouraged in that direction by the Jewish intellectuals they encountered in urban academic and literary communities.”
Dewey subscribed to a Hegelian philosophy of an active mind able to construct reality. The activist mind has deep roots in American philosophy — going back to the Transcendentalists of the 19th century who in turn were influenced by the same German idealist tradition originated by Hegel.
The basic idea is that humans can construct visions of reality that they can then engineer into existence. This approach is very open to science in the sense that science was seen as a tool to find how to attain human potentials.
The basic problem is that these human potentials are seen within a leftist perspective. Science would be used to created a utopia as imagined by these leftist intellectuals.
These idealistic philosophical ideas are entirely consistent with the findings of contemporary psychology: As I noted in my review of a book on the transcendentalists:
The Transcendentalist belief that the mind is creative and does not merely respond to external facts is quite accurate in light of modern psychological research. In modern terms, the Transcendentalists were essentially arguing that whatever “the animal wants of man” (to quote [Ralph Waldo] Emerson), humans are able to imagine an ideal world and exert effective psychological control over their ethnocentrism. They are even able to suppress desires for territory and descendants that permeate human history and formed an important part of the ideology of the Old Testament—a book that certainly had a huge influence on the original Puritan vision of the New Jerusalem. Like the Puritans, the Transcendentalists would have doubtlessly acknowledged that some people have difficulty controlling these tendencies. But this is not really a problem, because these people can be forced. The New Jerusalem can become a reality if people are willing to use the state to enforce group norms of thought and behavior. Indeed, there are increasingly strong controls on thought crimes against the multicultural New Jerusalem throughout the West.
Hook therefore never abandoned his leftist proclivities but saw Dewey’s philosophy as a better way to attain Marxist political objectives than was possible using classical Marxist ideology — not only more palatable to an American audience but also free from the baggage of historical determinism. After all, Marxist historical determinism had failed: The revolution didn’t happen.
Both the Frankfurt School and Dewey were oriented to achieving practical change in a leftist direction — “promoting rational and progressive social change through action” (p.105). In fact, as Hook described him in his autobiography, Dewey was useful to the communists even though he did not accept Marxism: Dewey “was in Communist eyes the ideal ‘honest liberal’ — a phrase used to characterize liberals who, if not sympathetic to, were at least not critical of the Soviet Union” (p. 159).
The result was a “pragmatic Marxism” much more acceptable to American academics: “Hook’s pragmatic Marxists made up their own minds based on their own evaluations of scientific evaluations of contemporary reality. If consensus could be reached among these private evaluations, collective action was possible, and its democratic course was assured”(p. 109). While phrased in terms of democracy and science, clearly this is a plea for an elite consensus followed by action. Still, it is opposed to orthodox Marxism which believes in historical determinism. Hook eventually saw pragmatism as offering all the advantages of Marxism without the baggage.
It’s interesting that in pursuing his pragmatic Marxist agenda, Hook was unencumbered by a need to justify his views on race and culture. In hisautobiography, Hook simply accepts the idea that Franz Boas and his followers had refuted evolutionary theories of cultural differences that had been dominant until the triumph of the Boasians in anthropology.
Again, this illustrates the centrality of Boas. By discrediting Darwinian theories of culture and race, there was nothing to stop the domination of the intellectual arena by varieties of leftist activism like that of Hook. Indeed, Boas combined his successful academic crusade against Darwinism with far left political activism. Hook notes that Boas, as the leading light of the American Committee for Intellectual Freedom and Democracy was “Surrounded by a hard core of Communist Party members and fellow-travelers and, using Boas’ name as bait, this committee rallied hundreds of American scientists to protest racial and political oppression in Germany, Spain, and Italy. This was followed by another appeal, equally worthy and successful, addressed to scholars in the humanities” (Hook, p. 257). At the same time, Boas and the group “refused to recognize that the Soviet Union was a totalitarian country”(Hook, p. 258).
Despite the fact that Hook decried the communist affiliations of Boas, he accepted the logical outcome of Boasian anthropology — the ideology of ethnic and cultural diversity as a paradigm for America. Indeed, Hook also had a very strong Jewish identification and saw being Jewish as intimately related to advocating diversity. In a Partisan Review article of 1949, Hook presented his ideas on what it meant to be a Jew:
No philosophy of Jewish life is required except one—identical with the democratic way of life—which enables Jews who for any reason at all accept their existence as Jews to lead a dignified and significant life, a life in which together with their fellowmen they strive collectively to improve the quality of democratic, secular cultures and thus encourage a maximum of cultural diversity, both Jewish and non-Jewish. . . . If it is pruned of its Utopianism and its failure to understand that the ethics of democracy presupposes not an equality of sameness or identity but an equality of differences, much of the universalist view still has a large measure of validity.
Judaism = democracy = advocacy of secularism (i.e., opposition to a special place for Christianity in American culture) = advocacy of cultural (and presumably ethnic) diversity. Whatever else one may say about this, it certainly does not represent traditional Jewish society which was highly authoritarian, tolerated no heretical views on religion, and had very negative views of outgroups.
Nor does it represent even vaguely Judaism as it has evolved in the Jewish state(where, as Yuri Avnery notes, Eli Yishai, the current Interior Minister, is energetically promoting ethnic purity within Israel by expelling people, including wives of Israelis, who can’t establish their Jewish ancestry, and where descendants of Russian immigrants with a non-Jewish mother are relegated to second class citizenship. As I was reading the L.A. Times op-ed page today, I thought how refreshing it would be if they ran Avnery’s article. But alas, they saw fit to run an op-ed on the imminent extradition from Australia of an 88-year-old native of Hungary who is alleged to have murdered a Jew in 1944.)
Clearly, although Hook’s philosophy of Judaism is presented in the loftiest of ethical sentiment, it is a philosophy of Judaism tailor-made to suit Jewish interests as a Diaspora within Western societies. Just as clearly, it is a program this opposes the legitimate interests of the White, Christian population of America to retain political and cultural control.
In general, the New York Intellectuals moved in the direction of accepting basic American institutions as a framework for their political activism. The revolution of the left would happen not as a result of bloody revolution but within the traditional institutional structure of the West: “Whether because of Stalin, the theory of social freedom, the purge trials, then Nazi-Soviet pact, the Second World War, the Cold War, the rise of the Warsaw Pact, postwar American prosperity, or the repression of Hungary, almost all the New York Intellectuals grew to embrace American democracy and be suspicious of radical rhetoric” (pp. 133–134).
The Frankfurt School and the New York Intellectuals retained their theoretical differences. For example, Wheatland spends a chapter on the intellectual feud between Hook and the Frankfurt School’s Max Horkheimer. (My verdict: Horkheimer did not appreciate the power of the Dewey/Hook philosophy for creating a leftist revolution.) Each group saw itself as scientific and democratic and the other as metaphysical. But they were on the same page in seeing Christianity and ethnic intolerance as the central problems of America. And they both saw science as able to provide the cure. Intellectual historian David Hollinger notes that they saw themselves as
guarantors of a particular vision of democracy: one authentically Jeffersonian, but being subverted by the perpetuation of old-fashioned religious and ethnic prejudices and being inhibited by a psychologically immature and socially provincial predilection for absolutes that portended an authoritarian political culture for the United States. (p. 136)
The new enemy was not capitalism but the religious attitudes and ethnic intolerance of White people, with White people seen as latent fascists on the verge of enacting an authoritarian society to safeguard their interests as Whites.
But despite paying lip service to democracy, both of these groups championed elitist, anti-democratic attitudes: The whole point was to change America from the top down by getting rid of the traditional folkways of America.
Wheatland concludes with two chapters on Herbert Marcuse and his relationship to the New Left, arguing convincingly that Marcuse did not have much influence on the New Left and may well have been influenced by them to take more activist positions. In the end, the Frankfurt School as a whole and Marcuse in particular had far more direct influence on the leftist culture of the academic world in the period after the 1960s than on the leftist culture of 1960s protests.
The main long term effect of the Frankfurt School and the New York Intellectuals was to seize the high ground of American culture in the academic world. Indeed, beginning in the 1970s, scholars of the Frankfurt School obtained positions at all the most prestigious US universities and became a major part of the leftist culture of the social sciences and humanities.
These ideas were broadened by other leftist currents unleashed by the 1960s counterculture (e.g., studies of Marxism and identity politics centered in departments of ethnic studies and women’s studies). They were then watered down and distributed in the media and in the K–12 educational system. The organized Jewish community was also deeply involved in promoting and funding these intellectual activists and in promoting their ideas throughout the school system. Eventually they were reinforced by powerful social controls against people who dissented from the culture of the left — what amounts to the culture of Western suicide.
At the end of the day, therefore, there was a remarkable commonality among these two groups of leftist Jewish intellectual activists. Much of their success derived ultimately from Jewish ethnic networking. Apart from a few non-Jews like Dewey and Dwight MacDonald, they were self-contained Jewish worlds.
But that Jewish world extended out to important parts of the high ground in American society, particularly the universities. Ultimately, it is not at all surprising that it was all connected to all of the critical concerns of Jewish in post-Enlightenment Western societies: “Critical theory offered the key that unified the interests and concerns of the New York Intellectuals. Marxism, modernism, alienation, conformity, totalitarianism, and the Holocaust were all interconnected within the thought of the Institute” (p. 187).
Kevin MacDonald is editor of The Occidental Observer and a professor of psychology at California State University–Long Beach. Email him.
Racial Cuckoldry, Racial Mimicry
I am sure most people are familiar with the typical definitions of ‘cuckoldry’ in which a woman is unfaithful to her unknowing male partner. Genetically speaking, the most severe form of cuckoldry occurs when the woman’s unfaithful behavior results in being impregnated by the “other man” — with the unknowing male partner being tricked to raise the other man’s offspring as if it were his own. This extreme example of maladaptive behavior is similar to the phenomenon of brood parasitism as practiced by several species, including the cuckoo bird, from which the term “cuckoldry” is derived. Humans or birds – the cuckolded organism suffers a drastic loss of biological fitness by raising as offspring young not their own.
As Dr. Frank Salter indicates in his ground breaking work on genetic interests, these interests – which are ultimate interests to all evolved organisms – can exist at higher levels than mere individual and family. Genetic interests also exist at the level of population groups (“ethnies”). Thus, if cuckoldry occurs at the individual/family level and damages genetic interests, can it not also occur at the level of ethnicity and race, with even wider spread damage done to genetic interests? Can Racial Cuckoldry exist, in which people are misled into thinking that the genetically alien is actually a co-ethnic, and so invest in people with whom they share relatively little distinctive genetic information?
Note by “racial” in this context I mean pertaining to the “ethny” — which can beany genetically defined population (ethnic group, sub-race, race, etc.). Note also that Racial Cuckoldry — defined as the maladaptive investment in genetically alien ethnies and/or alien individuals who are mistakenly considered as belonging to your ethny — is linked to mimicry, that is, Racial Mimicry. Racial Mimicry is fairly straightforward — a member of one ethny mimics the outward characteristics of another ethny and, therefore, may be mistaken for a member of that other ethny.
An example of the racial cuckoldry paradigm is the case of the Kalash, as indicated by this post and comments thread at American Renaissance. The Kalash are an Asian Caucasian group that are, in general, fairer complexioned that the surrounding Pakistani population. Some fraction of the Kalash population, particularly children, are fair even by European standards (i.e., light-haired and light-eyed), and an even smaller percentage of the population may resemble some Europeans in facial features (although most Kalash are, clearly, phenotypically distinct from Europeans).
The different faces of Kalash children
However, cherry-picked pictures of fair Kalash children prompt some hysterical commentators to assert that the Kalash are “Aryans,” racially similar to Europeans and thus racially “White” in the European sense of that word. Of course, this is complete nonsense; large scale genetic analyses clearly show that the Kalash are completely distinct from Europeans, a different race; indeed, the Kalash instead cluster with other Central/South Asian populations.
Faced with the irrefutable evidence that the Kalash are, from a European perspective, a racially alien people, the “hey, they look to me like White Aryans” commentators completely ignore the evidence and essentially repeat the assertions that “if you know anything about race, the Kalash are just like White Europeans.” Except — they are not. The data clearly show that the Kalash are in no way, shape, or form the “ethnoracial kin” of Europeans any more than are other Central/South Asian peoples. Individuals of European descent who are tricked by the superficial phenotypic mimicry of some Kalash for Europeans are victimized by racial cuckoldry. They are identifying the Kalash as part of their (kin) “ingroup” to an extent not supported by the actual genetic evidence. These deluded individuals may maladaptively invest in a genetically alien people who are being mistakenly perceived as being close ethnoracial kin. Is this any different from a bird raising an alien cuckoo in the nest? Is it different from a man unknowingly raising another man’s child, thinking it is his own? In its very essence, the cuckoldry is the same — investment in the genetically alien in place of more proper investment in those genetically closer.
At the ethnic level, this of course occurs with ethnic groups other than the Kalash. The same types of people who become breathless over pictures of Kalash phenotypic outliers also become equally excited by the occasional fair Iranian or upper caste Brahmin Indian. The same hysteria about “Aryans” takes place, completely ignoring genetic data that shows these groups as distinct from Europeans. Probably the non-European groups genetically closest to Europeans are the Ashkenazim, some (and only some minority of) Turks, and unmixed Berbers. The Ashkenazim are likely a Middle-Eastern-European hybrid people and the European component allows for some limited similarity to Europeans, although selection and drift makes the Ashkenazi highly distinct from both Middle Easterners and Europeans. (See also here.) Turks are a mixed bag, some minority may be close to Europeans genetically and phenotypically; however, most others however are Near Eastern and/or Central Asian in biological type. As a whole, the Turkish people are genetically distinct from Europeans, although closer to Europeans than are, say, South Asians (“high caste” or otherwise). Berbers relatively unmixed with Arabs or Negroes are likely closer to Europeans than are Asian Caucasians, having, most probably, split from Europeans after the split with the Asian Caucasians. However, genetic differences exist between all these groups; the point being made here is ofrelative similarity. The major point is that, excitement over a few pictures of fair Kalash children aside, it is highly unlikely that the Kalash are closer to Europeans than are Ashkenazim, Turks, or Berbers.
Racial cuckoldry can exist at the individual level as well. Let us take for an example actor Mark-Paul Gosselaar, who is pictured below. Knowing nothing of Mr. Gosselaar’s ancestry, I am sure that the “Kalash look like White Europeans” enthusiasts would say that Gosselaar looks White and European. Indeed, they may assert that he looks like a typical Northwest European and, judging by his surname, is a perfect example of an unmixed Dutchman.
Mark-Paul Gosselaar
Unfortunately, they would be wrong, as Gosselaar’s mother is of Indonesian ancestry, making him a Eurasian hybrid. Now, insofar as I know, Mr. Gosselaar may be a fine human being, an honorable man, and an excellent actor, and none of this should be construed as disrespect to him as a person. Nonetheless, his ancestry makes him genetically distinct and alien to Europeans, physical appearance notwithstanding. A person of (unmixed) European ancestry who would invest in Gosselaar as a member of their ingroup would be making — all else being equal — a maladaptive choice. If such a person is misled by Gosselaar’s appearance, then this is an example of racial cuckoldry due to racial mimicry.
Now, racial cuckoldry can occur for reasons other than phenotypic (physical appearance) overlap. Mimicry in speech, culture, clothes, mannerisms and other such factors can mislead, resulting in racial cuckoldry as well. However, the Kalash problem is a perfect example of biological phenotypic mimicry leading to racial cuckoldry
Indeed, this is one way of thinking about cultural influence by Jews: Although they are genetically distinct, Jews are often regarded as Whites — despite the fact that they have different genetic interests and despite the fact that they have a very distinctive profile in the construction of culture: They are the main force behind the construction of the culture of critique. Nevertheless, from the Hollywood left to the neoconservatives, the Jewish identity and Jewish interests of prominent figures in the media and in politics are rarely mentioned, at least partly because mentioning Jewish identity is vigorously policed by Jewish activist organizations that are loathe to allow discussion about, say, Jewish influence in Hollywood. Moreover, it has been common for Jews, especially Jews involved in communism or other leftist movements, to change their names so that they didn’t appear Jewish. This deception was made easier because, as noted above, there is some genetic admixture between Jews and Europeans, so that many Jews look European. The result is that Jewish intellectual and political activists are simply categorized by most Americans as Whites.
The Daily Show‘s Jon Stewart: Jewish, but European-Looking
Genetic testing can identify and expose racial mimicry by objectively determining ethny group membership via autosomal genetic analyses. The power of autosomal analysis is an excellent argument for genetic testing and an excellent argument against relying solely on phenotype, culture, etc. for the identification of co-ethnic kin.
This does not imply that phenotype and culture are unimportant; on the contrary, they are very important. But they are secondary and supportive superstructures built upon a foundation of autosomal genetic data. A primary reliance on these secondary racial identifiers leads one open to racial cuckoldry through racial mimicry, and one may see precious resources expended on the mimic rather than on actual co-ethnics. Or one may be open to cultural influences from genetically distinct peoples masquerading as ethnic kin. Testing and more testing — autosomal genetic analyses — is the key to avoiding racial cuckoldry.
Now, on a practical level, for ethnic groups, this is usually not a problem. There is already a set of reasonably sound population genetic studies for many ethnic groups, including the Kalash. Rational individuals can look at the genetic data and understand that several pictures of unusual Kalash children cannot alter the racial profile of that entire group. The Kalash are a unique people that should be preserved, and I wish them well in their struggle for survival. But, they are not European. In the last analysis, the Kalash are part of the broader genetic interests of Central/South Asians; Europeans have their own survival to worry about and need to let the Asians sort out their ethnic relations for themselves.
What about on a more individualized level? Unfortunately, it is not (currently) practical to have autosomal genetic testing be as routine for large numbers of people as is, say, fingerprinting. But, it is not difficult to identify the ethnic ancestries of most people. Surely, Gosselaar’s ancestry is known, and it is possible to realize that, physical appearance aside, his mixed Eurasian background makes him genetically alien to Europeans. All else being equal, investing in Gosselaar based on his appearance would be a maladaptive choice for Europeans, and would be an example of racial cuckoldry. Once one knows the ethnic ancestry about an individual, particularly if population genetics data exist for that individual’s constituent ethnic ancestry group or groups, one can estimate how genetically similar or dissimilar that individual is to you or to anyone else. You would simply use ethnic genetic data as a proxy for that person; for example, if the individual in question is German, population genetics data for Germans as a whole can be used to estimate the probable genetic profile of that individual. In most cases, it is not necessary for the person to be directly tested, although that option would be optimal. And, if that person believes that the ethnic proxy is not a good representation of his/her own genetic background, and that use of the proxy would be an unfair imposition of an imprecise genetic identity, then this individual can be tested with available autosomal genetic analyses. Individualized testing should always be an option, but if it is not possible, then the ethnic proxy represents a reasonable substitute.
The main point is to avoid racial cuckoldry if at all possible. It would be beneficial if people would actually think through the consequences of a “they look White to me” attitude if the genetic data are reasonably definite that “they” are in no way similar to Europeans. Science can help us in understanding our genetic interests, but this help is useful only if it is accepted. A Luddite rejection of genetic science can lead to maladaptive choices. A bird feeding an alien cuckoo has no choice in the matter; there, instinct is exploited to promote cuckoldry. Thinking humans always have a choice; make that choice an adaptive one.
After all, what is the difference for a man between cuckoldry and adoption? The former consists of a man being deceived into raising genetically alien offspring because he thinks it is his own; the latter consists of a man choosing to raise a genetic alien even though he knows it is not his own. We may debate the wisdom of adoption — and for the specific case of people who cannot have their own children, adopting co-ethnics may indeed be adaptive — but at least the adoption decision is made with the knowledge that the child in question is the offspring of others. No ignorance or deception is involved. Now, if people want to “adopt” the Kalash or Gosselaar into the family of Europeans, then let that choice be an informed one, with the genetic consequences, derived from genetic assays, clear and out in the open.
Refusing to accept the available data is a poor method for decision making. Fully formed rational people should embrace the knowledge that is out there, not mindlessly reject it.
After all, it is your adaptive fitness that is at stake.
Ted Sallis (email him) writes on scientific issues.
Leif Erikson Day and America’s European Heritage
Joseph F. Healey has pointed out that White ethnic identities are evolving into new shapes and forms, merging the various “hyphenated” ethnic identities into a single, generalized “European American” identity based on race and a common history of immigration and assimilation. In the light of the fact that virtually every minority group has generated a protest movement (Black Power, Red Power, Chicanismo, etc.), proclaiming a recommitment to its own heritage and to the authenticity of its own culture, European Americans also need some space to express their ethnic heritage. St. Patrick’s Day, Columbus Day, and Leif Erikson Day are festive occasions that White Americans should seize in order to honor their rich history and heritage.
In all societies with a history of migrations, the question “who came first?” becomes important. Centuries before Columbus, the Icelanders answered this question by meticulously recording the names and deeds of the pioneers for posterity, thus inspiring George W. Bush to conclude that on Leif Erikson Day,
we remember that son of Iceland and grandson of Norway for his journey to North America, and we celebrate the influential role Nordic Americans have played in our society. Leif Erikson was among the world’s greatest and most daring explorers. More than 1,000 years ago, he led a crew across the Atlantic to North America. … America is grateful for the many contributions of Nordic Americans, and we continue to draw inspiration from the courage and optimism of the adventurous Leif Erikson.
The discovery of new lands in the West by the Northmen came about in the course of the great Scandinavian exodus of the 9th, 10th and 11th centuries when Vikings “swarmed over all Europe,” conquering kingdoms, founding colonies and empires. In these centuries waterborne Vikings exploded out of their native lands to trade, raid, and settle all the way “from the Pillars of Hercules to the Ural Mountains.” The main stream of Norsemen took a westerly course, striking Great Britain, Ireland and the Western Isles, and ultimately reached Iceland (in 874a.d.), Greenland (in 985) and North America (in 1000).
Leif Erikson’s father, Erik the Red, was the founder of the first European settlement on Greenland. Tradition reports that he gave the island its name as a marketing strategy designed to disguise its harsh environment and make it attractive to would-be colonists. Erik the Red’s father, Thorvald, left Norway for western Iceland with his family, having been exiled for manslaughter. When Erik was similarly outlawed and exiled from Iceland about 980, he decided to explore the land to the west (Greenland), across 175 miles (280 km) of water. The settlers encountered no other inhabitants, though they explored to the northwest, discovering Disko Island. Of the 25 ships that sailed from Iceland, only 14 ships and 350 colonists are believed to have survived to reach their destination – an area later known as Eystribygd (Eastern Settlement). By the year 1000 there were an estimated 1,000 Scandinavian settlers in the colony, but an epidemic in 1002 considerably reduced the population.
The second of three sons of Erik the Red, Leif Erikson (d. 1025) sailed from Greenland to Norway in the year 999 AD, and was there converted to Christianity by the Norwegian king Olaf Tryggvason, and Leif “the Lucky” Erikson joined the king’s body-guard. The following year Leif was commissioned by Olaf to urge Christianity upon the Greenland settlers. On returning to Greenland, he proselytized for Christianity and converted his mother, who built the first Christian church in Greenland. By 1053 the Christian church was well enough established to warrant inclusion in the Archbishopric of Hamburg–Bremen since Pope Leo IX includes it in a bull dated 6 January 1053, the earliest known reference to Greenland by name.
According to the “Saga of the Greenlanders” in the Flateyjarbók, Leif learned of Vinland from the Icelander Bjarni Herjulfsson, who 14 years earlier had become the first European to sight mainland America when his Greenland-bound ship was blown westward off course. He apparently sailed along the Atlantic coastline of eastern Canada but did not go ashore. In the year 1000 AD a crew of 35 men led by Leif Eriksson set out to find the land sighted by Bjarni. The sagas refer to three territories: Helluland (“Flat-Stone Land”, probably Baffin Island), Markland (“Wood Land”, probably Labrador) and Vinland – usually thought to have been located in the area around the Gulf of St Lawrence, possibly New England or New Brunswick.
In 1003 Leif’s brother Thorvald led an expedition to Vinland and spent two years there. A couple of years later, Thorfinn Karlsefni, encouraged by Thorvald’s reports of grapes growing wild in Vinland, led a colonizing expedition of about 130 people in three ships to Vinland, possibly making their first landfall at Baffin Island. They followed the coastline southward until they reached a heavily wooded region, perhaps some part of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and settled there. According to some reports, “there came no snow” in the land which the Wineland explorers had found, indicating that they reached a territory farther south than usually assumed.
Thorfinn Karlsefni’s wife Gudrid (the widow of Leif’s brother Thorstein) gave birth to their son, Snorri (born c. 1005) – the first European in recorded history to be born on the North American mainland. By the time they had stayed there three years, the colonists’ trade with the local Native Americans had turned to warfare, and so the colonists returned to Greenland.
A few years later, Leif Erikson’s sister Freydis led an expedition to Vinland and soon afterward returned to Greenland. She is portrayed in the Saga literature as a personality steeled with a willpower and a strength of character that makes Wagner’s Walkyries look like a group of extras. Pursued and encircled by hostile Natives (“Skraelings”) in Vinland, Freydis (who was pregnant) took up the sword of a slain Viking to defend herself: “she stripped down her shift, and slapped her breast with the naked sword. At this the Skrellings were terrified and ran down to their boats, and rowed away.”
The Norsemen’s name for the land they discovered, Vinland, means “Wine Land.” A German crewman on board Leif Erikson’s ship is said to have been the first to associate the new land with wine:
In the beginning Tyrker spoke for some time in German, rolling his eyes, and grinning, and they could not understand him; but after a time he addressed them in the Northern tongue: “I did not go much further [than you] and yet I have something of novelty to relate. I have found vines and grapes.” “Is this indeed true, foster-father?” said Leif. “Of a certainty it is true,” quoth he, “for I was born where there is no lack of either grapes or vines.”
Thorfinn Karlsefni also reported that he found “wine berries” growing there, and these were later interpreted to mean grapes, though the Norsemen referred to any berry as a “wine berry,” and it is probable that they had actually come upon cranberries. The Vinland name entered the literature of continental Europe, almost certainly first in 1075 through the History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen written by Adam von Bremen. Adam mentioned Vinland on the authority of King Sweyn II Estridsen of Denmark, who told of Iceland, Greenland, and other lands of the northern Atlantic known to the Scandinavians. Adam says of King Sweyn:
He [the king of the Danes] spoke also of yet another island of the many found in that ocean [where Greenland lies]. It is called Vinland because vines producing excellent wine grow wild there. That unsown crops also abound on that island we have ascertained not from fabulous reports but from the trustworthy relation of the Danes. Beyond that island, he said, no habitable land is found in that ocean, but every place beyond it is full of impenetrable ice and intense darkness.
Despite the failure of their efforts to establish a permanent presence in North America, the Norse did make later visits to Vinland to secure materials, and stray finds have turned up in the excavation of native American sites, including a late eleventh-century Norwegian coin found on the central Maine coast (the coin was minted in Norway between 1065 and 1080 during the reign of King Olaf Kyrre). An Icelandic chronicle, Skálholtsannáll (1347), makes reference to a Greenlandship that had been to Markland on a timber-gathering expedition. Timber for shipbuilding was crucial to the Norse as both Iceland and Greenland were largely deforested.
It has been suggested that Christopher Columbus himself spent some time sailing in the North Atlantic, and may well have had knowledge of earlier Norse explorations. His son, Fernando, quotes a note of his father stating: “I sailed in the year 1477, in the month of February, a hundred leagues beyond the island of Tile [Thule, i.e. Iceland], whose northern part is in latitude 73 degrees north and not 63 degrees as some would have it … the season when I was there the sea was not frozen.”
Contrary to popular beliefs, the European world (or the concept of Europe) —with its division of powers, its plurality of small, autonomous and competing nation states linked by a common history, religion and elite language (Latin), maintaining a sophisticated but unstable order of power balance — is to a large extent a medieval creation. Historians like Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre pointed out that “Europe arose when the Roman Empire crumbled”, and that “Europe became a possibility once the Empire disintegrated.”
Medieval Expansion: The Discovery of Vinland and the Birth of Europe
The medieval expansion of European “Lebensraum” can be seen in Viking colonization of the islands of the North Atlantic, even establishing footholds in the New World, in their Norman offshoot’s march eastward to create Western European states in the eastern Mediterranean, and in the settlement of Frankish (German) and Dutch colonists in Eastern Europe that gathered momentum from the eleventh century onwards. In this period, the northern and western isles of Britain, northern Scotland, and the North Atlantic isles (the so-called insular Viking zone) became part of what Peter Heather has called “a Scandinavian commonwealth.”
Christian Krogh (1893): Leif Erikson sights land in America
During the Viking Age (roughly 800–1100), the Vikings played a decisive role in the development of much of Western and Eastern Europe. War was a means of social engineering in a world that lacked rigid social hierarchies. It was, in the words of Clifford R. Backman, a brutal sort of meritocracy. In the long run, this meant that the Germanic groups were led by men with talents for ferocity and ambition.
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The Vikings attacked France 214 times; Great Britain and Ireland, 94 times; Spain, 9 times; Portugal, Morocco, Italy and Turkey, 6 times; and the Germanic lands, including the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg, 34 times. The geographical range of waterborne Viking activity was unprecedented, as John Haywood points out:
In the east the Vikings sailed down the great rivers of Russia to cross the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea to attack Constantinople and the Abbasid Caliphate. Vikings settled extensively in the British Isles, Normandy and, to a lesser extent, in Russia but they also pushed the limits of the known world, crossing the North Atlantic to settle in the uninhabited Faeroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland and to discover, but fail to settle, North America. Viking traders and hunters extended the limits of the known world even further, sailing far into the Arctic waters of the White Sea and exploring the west coast of Greenland as far north as Melville Bay in search of walrus ivory and hides.
The Viking expansion was all about ships, whose expense posed considerable limitations in terms of scale and access. Moving by land, as Heather points out, “early medieval populations could hope to manage maybe forty kilometers a day. Viking sailing ships, however, could cover four times that distance or more in twenty-four hours.”
Access to the relevant mode of transport — ships — was of critical importance to the Vikings, and ships were expensive. It was for this reason that colonization of the North Atlantic was led by aristocrats: Only they could afford the necessary ships.
Viking Longship
As buoyant and flexible as a longship, but a good deal broader, the so-calledknorr carried twenty tons and fifteen to twenty people, and with a good wind and a friendly sea it could sail at six knots, a respectable pace as recently as the Napoleonic Wars.
Viking Knoor
These vessels could carry horses, so that once they were beached the warriors could mount and ride across the countryside raiding. The vessels could also be transported across land on rollers, then put back into the water at a suitable point to continue on their journey. As Backman points out, a fully loaded Viking warship could sail in as little as four feet of water: “This made it possible to strike with lightning speed far inland, without warning, and then disappear just as quickly.” In this way the Vikings were able to cross the Russian countryside, hauling their ships overland between rivers and across watersheds. F. J. Byrnenotes:
Ship-building was the craft that gave the Vikings their terrifying power and enabled them to span a quarter of the globe with an ease unparalleled until modern times. … The long sea-voyages, and especially the transatlantic explorations, were made not in the famous longship (langskipr) but in the rounder merchant vessel (knorr, whence Irish cnairr), and mainly by sail. … [I]t is estimated that the larger Viking ships carried crews of forty or sixty men, while later, in the eleventh century, royal ships — such as those of Cnút, or the Great Serpent of Olaf Tryggvason — held a hundred men.
The Viking ships provided models for imitation elsewhere, as in the case of Alfred the Great’s langscipu — sometimes described as the first attempt to establish a Royal Navy. The skalds of King Cnut — who built a North Sea empire stretching from Dublin, via Scotland and Scandinavia, to the Baltic — advertised their prince’s ships as a symbol of power, a technological advance as revolutionary in the first decades of the eleventh century as ‘dreadnoughts’ were in the opening years of the twentieth.
Obviously, the marine technology that raiding and trading in the Viking Age demanded did not emerge overnight; its foundations lay in the 5th to 7th centuries. In fact, sea-raids out of Scandinavia were not unknown before the Viking age: The Heruls (from Jutland) raided Frisia in a.d. 287 and Spain in c. 455 and c. 460; the Danes are known to have raided Frisia in c. 528 and c. 570. As noted in Viking Empires:
[A]lthough nineteenth- and twentieth-century writers have tended to regard the ‘Viking Age’ as a distinct period of history, it is arguable that the Viking raids were only the culmination of a much longer period of empire-building among the Germanic tribes that inhabited the Scandinavian peninsula, a process that found its beginnings at the start of the first millennium in what is now known as the Roman Iron Age. The beginning of this process was the re-alignment of military strategy that took place in the Roman Empire as a consequence of the Battle of Teutoburg Forest in AD 9.
Throughout the centuries before the Viking expansion — the emigrants from Scandinavia included Goths, Lombards, Vandals, Burgundians, Cimbri, and Anglo-Saxons. The Vikings, thus, were merely the last of a long succession of Germanic emigrants. To the 6th-century Gothic historian Jordanes, Scandinavia was the officina gentium — the “womb” or cradle of the Germanic peoples of the Völkerwanderung.
Over the long run, through the interplay of competition and technological change, war and preparation for war produced the major components of European states. In the Middle Ages, a series of inventions started to make an impact on European society. The Germans acquired or perfected all sorts of metalworking techniques which were remarkable for their ingenuity and efficiency, producing special steel for the cutting edge of swords or battle-axes which was, according to Lucien Musset, unequalled until the 19th century and infinitely superior to that which the imperial arms factories were producing during the Later Roman Empire.
By the time of Leif Erikson’s explorations in North America — at the turn of the second millennium (1000 a.d.) — the bulk of the “cultural DNA-structure” of Western civilization was taking shape: Latin Christendom centered around the Catholic Church (“the Ghost of the deceased Roman Empire”), science (embryonic universities), representative government (parliaments), the rule of law, a monogamous family structure based on the nuclear family, nation states and autonomous towns, citizenship rights etc.
Medieval Europe, thus, became an alloy of the classical, Greco-Roman heritage, Germanic laws and customs, together with elements from the Judeo-Christian tradition. As Heather points out, “Europe finally took on something of the shape that it has broadly retained down to the present: a network of not entirely dissimilar and culturally interconnected political societies clustering at the western end of the great Eurasian landmass.”
From the ranks of the Viking-descended Normans came, as J. R. S. Phillips points out, “the steady supply of highly trained mounted warriors who helped to guarantee European freedom from outside attack, and who were to play a major part in successful European expansion and military superiority overseas, in much the same way as ships armed with cannon were to do in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.”
Alain Erlande-Brandenburg points out that after the treaty of St-Clair-sur-Eptein 911, which granted to the Northmen a territory later known as Normandy, “the destroyers became builders, founding an advanced national state before going on to conquer other lands in southern Italy and England.” In fact, the origins of the English nation state itself can be traced back to the crisis of the Viking invasions.Preparation for large-scale war built up an infrastructure of taxation, supply, and administration that required maintenance. European national states united substantial military, extractive, administrative, and sometimes even distributive and productive organizations in a relatively coordinated central structure (see here and here). As Leonard Dudley points out,
[the Normans] were at the forefront in northern Europe in introducing a monetary economy. Bishops and secular lords financed the construction of new towns with the revenues of tolls levied on trade. … The Normans were also innovators in military techniques. … After a half millennium of declining skills in architecture, economic organization and warfare, Normandy in the eleventh century was suddenly at the forefront of a technological renaissance.
The Norman Conquest opened England to the ethos of chivalry — derived from “cheval” (French for horse) and often associated with important changes in the rules and conduct of war. Elements of that famous ethos — as Michael P. Speidel points out – can be traced back to ancient times:
The ideal of winning in a fair fight, going back to the second millennium BC and known to Homer, was still held by Emperor Julian in the fourth century AD. Germanic armies, in this spirit, were ready to settle beforehand on a time and place for battle. Vandal warriors followed the same ideal when in the decisive battle at Tricamarum in AD 533 they fought only with their swords. Maurice, around AD 600, said that Franks, Lombards, and other blond peoples scorn dirty tricks. The ideal of fairness in battle, so as to show one’s true strength, also guided Beowulf in his fight with Grendel, and later still the English in the battle of Maldon.
The Normans also inspired the evolution of administrative institutions which were the precursors of the bureaucratic machinery of the modern state. The German sociologist Max Weber emphasized the military basis of democratization, citizenship and modernization (e.g. the hoplites of antiquity, the guild army of the middle ages, the lowering of the voting age in the US during the Vietnam War): “Military discipline meant the triumph of democracy because the community wished and was compelled to secure the cooperation of the non-aristocratic masses and hence put arms, and along with arms political power, into their hands.” Marjorie Chibnall points out the warlike character of Normanitas:
The chronicles which describe the lives of the dukes of Normandyare dominated by two themes: their success in war, and their benefactions to the Church. A subsidiary theme is their firm enforcement of just laws; however ruthless, they are never described as tyrants in the Norman chronicles. Warfare has been aptly called the national industry of the Normans, and it was as fighting men that they were most praised by their fellow-countrymen and remembered, with admiration as well as hatred, by their enemies.
Duke William II of Normandy, according to Dudley, may have enabled the West to cross a critical-mass threshold: “Within a century of William’s death, the basic characteristics of Western civilization — standardized media and non-standardized messages — had been established. The rapid diffusion of information across a great mass of population made possible the ceaseless innovation that would henceforth characterize the West. While China, India and the Middle East were suffering from wave after wave of invasions, Western Europe became an impregnable fortress. Gradually it was developing the technologies that would allow it to achieve world dominance.”
The earlier vertical structure of command, with the ruler on top and his subjects below — carried over from the Roman Empire to that of Charlemagne — collapsed as local rulers were able to replicate the system for storage and retrieval of written information previously accessible only to an emperor. As Dudley points out: “With the Carolingian ruler’s monopoly on property rights broken and political power distributed across decentralized networks linked by a standardized communications medium, the stage was set for Western Europe’s great leap forward.”
The development of a standardized medium for written and spoken communication across Western Europe enabled competition among small, independent states. At the same time, the new communications technology permitted the formation of cultural institutions that spread across political boundaries. As Dudley points out,
There thus appeared simultaneously the two conditions necessary for rapid innovation: first, the incentive to do things better, in order to stay ahead of competitors; and second, the ingredients for doing so, namely, easy access to the stock of information accumulated in the past. … [The Norman Conquest] resulted in the unhindered diffusion of a new communications technology that permitted accelerated innovation and economic growth. The ultimate beneficiaries were not just the English but rather the whole of Latin Christendom. The West had now attained a critical mass that would allow it to compete with the established civilizations of Eastern Europe and Asia. Over the long term, the Norman Conquest was perhaps the principal influence on the formation of the modern English language.
The Anglo-Saxon clergyman Alcuin brought together the best existing practices to develop a standardized procedure for preserving information, thus reducing information storage costs. As Dudley points out, it is no coincidence that the Times Roman typeface is a direct descendant of the Caroline Miniscule: “The use … of titles, periods, capitalized initial letters, paragraphs, word separation and chapter breaks replicates the structure standardized by the ninth-century monks who prepared the Tours Bibles.” From a technological point of view, Medieval Europe — with its waterwheels, sawmills, flour mills and hammer mills — became the first great civilization not to be run primarily by human muscle power.
It has been suggested that the Icelandic colony — from which the Vinlandexplorers emerged – was “an interesting forerunner of the American republic, having a prosperous population living under a republican government, and maintaining an independent national spirit for nearly four centuries.” The western world’s first parliament, called the Althing, was established in Iceland. It has convened every year without exception since 930 AD. Without stretching it too far, Norse Vinland and Greenland, like post-Columbian America, can also be seen as a “frontier society” (in the Turnerian sense) marked by a “dual dynamics of war and peaceful interaction … a greater freedom, feelings of self-reliance, social fluidity … and multiple loyalties”.
George W. Bush certainly got this one right: “I call upon all Americans to observe this day with appropriate ceremonies, activities, and programs to honor our rich Nordic-American heritage.” Would that American Whites —inspired by the shining examples of their past — could reclaim their courageous ways and pioneer spirit.
E. R. E. Knutsson (email him) is a freelance writer.
Media Watch Elie Mystal’s Lament: Politically Incorrect Comments on Above the Law
The legal gossip blog Above the Law is a juicy read for bored big-firm associates wanting to know who’s hiring, who’s firing, and whose bitter goodbye e-mail is now circulating the Internet. It’s also got enough interesting stuff for everyone else, like interviews with Sandra Day O’Connor or the “Lawyer of the Day” feature, for attorneys who’ve made complete fools of themselves.
Founder David Lat is a bright Asian from tony New Jersey suburbs who’s worked for Jewish power firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and as a federal prosecutor. He went to Yale Law School and flirted with the Federalist Society, the legal group deemed “conservative” by the MSM but that in reality functions mostly as a vehicle for Jewish interests like support for Israel. He’s now established himself as a legal pundit of sorts.
The word at Above the Law is “snark.” If the firm isn’t Cravath and the school isn’t Yale, it’s what they call a “TTT”, or “third-tier toilet.” Some of the site’s devotees take crass and cynical to whole new levels.
In August of 2008, Lat turned over the editor reigns of Above the Law to a Black Harvard Law grad named Elie Mystal, which as near as I can tell is not a pseudonym. It’s pronounced “Eh-lee Mis-tahl”, and despite the feminine sound, “Elie” is a male. (His father has the same name, and in a funny sidenote, got in trouble with the Southern Poverty Law Center for anti-immigrant comments made in his capacity as a Long Island politician.)
I don’t have much to say about Mystal’s skills as a writer or blogger, though he’s frequently hit for a lack thereof by Above the Law commenters. It’s a safe bet that affirmative action has played a role in his life. And I do note that in his position of power, he likes to take Black (or other minority) advocacy positions.
For a good recent example, see here. .
And here’s where I’d normally reveal the complaint for the nonsense it is. But if you scroll down through the comments, you’ll notice that the commenters have already taken care of that.
Here’s one:
When Jews discovered that their full potential wasn’t recognized and used, they formed their own law firms and completely outclassed their WASP competitors. If the black lawyers really are equally competent and really are discriminated against, why is there not a single black law firm in the V100?
(Though I wouldn’t say Jewish firms “outclassed” gentile ones — outmuscled is more like it. The Jewish takeover of American law is a great topic for another day.)
And another:
Sorry, we have a black president now. The hand-out generation needs to find a new excuse for failing to perform. Think Barack Obama sat around feeling sorry for himself that white men had been voted into office 43 out of 43 times before him?
Or:
Why would I want to build a “professional relationship” with someone who comes from a culture that is increasingly obsessed with branding me a racist by any means necessary? It’s not worth the risk, e.g., that making a positive comment about the watermelon served as part of a lunch meeting won’t get me written up. Race relations have turned into such a PC minefield that I’d rather just stay out of it altogether.
Others simply say that Blacks don’t work as hard.
Now, any number of the 283 posts to this topic are made in jest, and a few support Mystal’s complaint. But most do not. They generally support the position that Blacks at big firms got there through affirmative action, with all the expected results.
In other words, Mystal’s complaint doesn’t go unanswered. And though most Above the Law readers and commenters would eschew or mock White advocacy as “racism”, I sense real dissent bubbling up through the ranks.
Mystal, naturally, dismisses the “racists” as a cranky minority given to blog vandalism.
But the pro-White comments on Above the Law are part of a larger trend. I’ve simply seen too much of a variety and placement of pro-White comments to dismiss the entire phenomenon as a lone Stormfronter with too much time on his hands. Pro-White comments, from subtle to over-the-top, appear everywhere on the Internet these days. Previously, I’ve noted that the New York Times was so alarmed by this that it announced it would be censoring such comments.
The problem with censorship is that commenters are immediately stunned into a recognition that their reasoned dissent is actually deemed “illegal” by the powers that be. That in turn sets off a chain reaction of anger and inquiry: the position is burnished, and now the censorship target is motivated to find out who wants him censored, and why. It also has the effect of simply turning away readers.
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Alternatively, the comments go up — and White advocacy is strengthened.
All of which adds up to a big problem for opponents of Whites.
The death of the MSM and rise of the Internet is, on balance, good for Whites. The tightly-controlled (traditionally, by Jews) MSM organs are dying, and even arguably anti-White blogs like Above the Law can’t lock out all pro-White comments.
And if young White lawyers start heading in a pro-White direction, by the way, this could mean big problems for the system. By positioning, they are expected to be on the enemy side: They’ve been trained in law “schul,” as a friend likes to say, and see their elders hold up “civil rights” and Atticus Finch (while they, meanwhile, grew up with O.J.). Today, they’re being laid off by the hundreds and see affirmative action ridiculousness up close, so they wouldn’t seem to have as much to lose.
Say what you will about lawyers, but they are articulate, and they are good at making trouble. Now that the system needing dismantling is essentially anti-White, this could come in handy.
Christopher Donovan (email him) is the pen name of an attorney and former journalist.
Why I Write
I have been reading, with great interest, the articles recently popping up on TOQonline that answer the question, “Why We Write?” I tend to concur with the assessment that the “most interesting thing about the writers of TOQ isn’t why we write, but why we came to write from the perspective that we have.”
Here I offer my own perspective on why I write (or, rather, why I have been prompted to write and why I wish to continue doing so). It is my hope that you, the reader, will find my perspective not only interesting, but perhaps of some value also.
The first reason that I write is for the well-being of my children, and, by extension, for the future well-being of their children. This “well-being,” or “flourishing,” can only occur within a culture created to nourish, support, and protect Whites.
The culture that we presently have is not a good environment for the cultivating of children of European descent. Indeed, it is poisonous to them. Our present “culture of critique” has done much to wither the roots of White families. Not only can they not thrive in its soil, they cannot even grow in it.
Several years ago there was an arresting and informative article entitled, “Invasive Plant Secretes Acid To Kill Nearby Plants And Spread.”
The invasive strain of Phragmites australis, or common reed, believed to have originated in Eurasia, exudes from its roots an acid so toxic that the substance literally disintegrates the structural protein in the roots of neighboring plants, thus toppling the competition.
“Phragmites is taking over the marsh world,” said UP plant biologist Harsh Bais. “It’s a horticultural disaster.”
Bais is an expert on allelopathy, in which one plant produces a chemical to inhibit the growth of another plant. He refers to these plants with the capability to wage chemical warfare as “natural killers.”
Walnut trees, pine trees, ferns and sunflowers are among the plants that release harmful chemicals to prevent other plants from growing too close to them.
However, Phragmites uses this strategy not so much to keep other plants away, but to aggressively conquer them and invade new territory.
The toxin works, Bais said, by targeting tubulin, the structural protein that helps plant roots to maintain their cellular integrity and grow straight in the soil. Within 10 minutes of exposure to the toxin in the lab, the tubulin of a marsh plant under siege starts to disintegrate. Within 20 minutes, the structural material is completely gone.
“When the roots collapse from the acid, the plant loses its integrity and dies,” Bais noted. “It’s like having a building with no foundation‑‑it’s on its way to self‑destruction.”
Indeed, “it’s like having a building with no foundation.” The foundation to our building, or, if you will, the roots that support the flourishing of White families have been intentionally dissolved; they have been poisoned by the noxious ideas endlessly streaming forth from the mouths and pens of those who have created the culture of critique, with the inevitable result that the plant above can no longer be supported by the roots below. Thus, our plant withers and dies, and its place and resources are taken over by the invasive species that killed it.
It goes without saying, of course, that the acid that Phragmites exudes does not destroy its own roots. That the culture of critique has destroyed White roots, however, is indisputable.
One root of that culture is Christianity. For all the real and perceived faults of this religion, one thing that can be said about its moral teachings is that they will strengthen any group that will adhere to them.
Why? Because races are based on families, and the more children that a family has, and the stronger and healthier those families are, the stronger and healthier the race will be. I believe that Christianity fulfills these functions admirably.
Religious Christians are the only Whites who are reproducing at above-replacement levels. As Philip Longman notes, “In the United States … fully 47% of people who attend church weekly say that the ideal family size is three or more children, as opposed to only 27% of those who seldom attend church.” Indeed, in general, Muslims, Christians, and Jews who are more religiously fundamentalist have more children: Faith equals fertility.
As always, the future belongs to the fertile. The problem for Whites is that formerly White societies have been invaded by other races and ethnic groups. White fertility then becomes a critical issue — far more important than if Western societies had remained overwhelmingly White. Quite simply, we are being displaced, and low fertility is a major part of the problem.
The Duggar Family of Tontitown, Arkansas. They are conservative Baptists. From their website: ” Lo children are a heritage of the Lord, the fruit of the womb is his reward.” (Psalm 127)
Christianity encourages familial responsibility:“But if someone does not provide for his own, especially his own family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” (1 Tim. 5:8). Powerful words, these.
It encourages respect for the husband, and love for the wife (Eph. 5:22-28). Children are to be obedient to their parents (Eph. 6:1) and parents are forbidden to provoke their children to anger (Eph. 6:2). Sexual promiscuity and perversion are condemned. Divorce, except for very specific reasons, is condemned. So is addiction (how many White families, even intelligent ones, have been ruined by divorce, or drug addiction? The entire “Drugs, Sex, and Rock & Roll” culture is antithetical to Christianity, and, by the way, to strong White families as well). Work is praised (“If you do not work, you do not eat,”), 2Th. 3:10.
Is there anything in the above that a White person, keen on the survival of his own race, would find objectionable? Racial strength begins at the family level. This is, in my opinion, the ground of battle. If you lose here, you lose at the racial level. All the books, articles, and pamphlets that you write will be useless. In order for our race to survive, and flourish, White families need to survive, and flourish. In Christianity, you have a ready built engine to power the race forward, but this engine has been sabotaged by those who invented the acidic culture that we now have, that is, the “culture of critique.”
This is why many Jews, who ought to praise Christians for their shared morality, instead ruthlessly attack them for it (e.g., feminism; porn; Psychoanalysis; art; music; education; media; anti-authoritarianism; economics; destruction of moral norms; post-modernism; diversity; tolerance; etc.). Jews rightly perceive this morality to be a threat to their dominance. (They likewise are threatened by Christianity’s theology, but more on that in a different article.)
I also write because I think that my particular White culture (Protestant, Scots-Irish/English) is worthy to be protected.
I have an old picture (circa 1920’s) of my grandpa, who was a Texan, standing on a dusty, Texas road. He is wearing leather chaps, a cowboy hat, cowboy boots, etc. He is standing ram-rod straight and sitting on his left shoulder is a pretty woman, smiling. In his mouth is a pipe, which he is smoking. He is a handsome man, and there is an admirable air of manliness and confidence emanating from him.
His grandpa had fought for Texas during the Civil War, and had been wounded twice, once with a gunshot and the other with the slash of a sword.
In the 1930’s my grandpa came out to California with his family. During the depression he boxed to make money, winning every fight that he entered (22), including his last fight in which he broke his hand.
When I was growing up my father had the Declaration of Independence prominently displayed on an antique desk located in our dining room. Upon this desk was also situated a balance, which signified Fairness and Justice, two things that are wholly ignored nowadays when talking about the interests of Whites.
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I grew up thriving on the stories of the frontiersmen; mountain-men; cowboys; the heroes of the War of Independence; Andrew Jackson; and the heroes of the Confederacy. I always knew that these folks were, if only distantly, my kin.
No one ever talked about hating the North, but I always knew who I was, and where I came from, and that we were, quintessentially (at least from our point of view), American.
I write to preserve pride in the White race and to be honest about our achievements, which are many. I write to preserve my history, and the history of all those admirable men who fought and died for freedom, whether by the pen, or by the sword.
I write because I am a man. I am not a slave. I am not going to bow, God willingly, and lie and say that the naked emperor’s clothes are beautiful.
I write because I believe in Truth (yes, “Truth” with a capital “T”). Races exist. Diversity does not work. Some races are more intelligent than others. Some races are more organized than others. Some races are more violent than others. Some races are more creative than others. Jews have been the necessary but not the sufficient cause of our demise. The sooner that we recognize these truths, the sooner things will get better for Whites.
I do believe in the Gospel, but the Gospel is not going to increase your IQ a standard deviation. “The poor you will always have with you.” IQs have consequences!
I write because I want to maintain the way of life that Christian Europeans created in America. I grew up in a small, overwhelmingly White town in the West. Everybody had a basic understanding of the rules. There was a great deal of trust within our society. Most people were not pathological, or violent. Most Whites wanted to own a home, settle down, and have a family.
Additionally, we did not have to continually bend over backwards to prove that we were not racists, and then bend over forwards to be screwed by the Minorities’ double-standards.
There was not the constant friction of an aggrieved group trying to get something from us by playing off our guilt. The atmosphere was not permeated with the bitter acrimony that professional grievance massagers, like the Jews, generate wherever they go.
Some of my fondest memories come from Christmas, and from Christmas music. I remember going caroling on cold, wintery nights with my Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist, and Pentecostal friends. Truly, everyone was of good cheer. No one turned us from their doors. No neighborhood was “off-limits.” No Jew gave us a nasty look and then showed us her Holocaust tattoo, reminding us that “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” led to the deaths of six million Jews. Frankly, is there anything as heart-warming as “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” or as moving as “Silent Night” (especially the German version)?
I write because I love Western Civilization. I love my kind. I love what Whites have created. I love their literature–everything from Homer to Sir Walter Scott. I love their art; their music; their architecture; their engineering prowess; their genetically driven sense of awe, wonder, and curiosity. I love their science; their energy; their yearning for political freedom; their dependence on logic; their warrior spirit; their sense of honor; their sense of beauty; their sense of justice.
Does anyone honestly believe that these virtues will continue in the forms that Whites have created/molded them when Whites are out of the picture?
Does anyone seriously doubt that Whites (especially White Christians) will not be severely persecuted when they become a minority? Is it not highly likely that this persecution will be directed by those self-righteous haters, the Jews? Have not Jews already demonstrated what they are capable of once they have gained power over a hated Christian majority (e.g., Russia, the Ukraine)?
In summary, I write in the hope that in some small way I can provide a defense against the toxins that are killing our roots. I write for the love of family. I write for the love of God. I write for the love of my culture. I write for the love of my way of life. I write in the aspiration that some day there can be White towns again filled with White people who trust each other, who work for the common good, who practice their religion freely, and who create societies where the cultivation of their children is of the utmost importance. In other words, I write for us.
Jack Spence (email him) is a family man, Westerner (with Southern sympathies!), and Protestant.
Also available at Barnes & Noble
Also available at Barnes & Noble
