General

Rob Lonaker on 9/11

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Kevin MacDonald: Rob Lonaker’s current TOO article “9/11: Media Ignores Evidence for WTC Explosives” was a difficult editorial decision. I have long been very sympathetic to the idea that Israel knew about 9/11 in advance. This was based on reliable descriptions of the Israeli filming crew and the art students, as briefly summarized in the article. But I was very reluctant to go further into 9/11 conspiracy theories. However, I decided that the common denominator here is huge pressure on the media from Jewish activist organizations to prevent discussion and a full investigation—even when there was presumptive evidence of Israeli foreknowledge—and that always rankles me.

The question, as always, is: What do they have to hide? Pressure against public discussion of Jewish issues is very common: the role of neocons in promoting the Iraq war, the bombing of the USS Liberty, the power of Jews in the media and the political process in the US and throughout the West, role of the organized Jewish community in promoting massive non-White immigration and multiculturalism in the West,  the status and role of Jews in the early decades of the USSR, the causes of historical anti-Semitism, and on and on.

There is definitely a logic whereby Israel and its agents had a huge motive to ensure maximum destruction. So if they knew about it in advance, then it is not much of a leap to suppose that they went further and made sure that the attack would be a success. I am not concluding that this is what happened, only arguing that it should be investigated by an impartial commission.

Anyway, the point of this post is simply to solicit commentary on this issue. Let the chips fall where they may.

Alan Dershowitz on Jewish Media Influence

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A sure sign that Jews control the media is that someone like Alan Dershowitz can get away with trotting out totally lame arguments in the mainstream media against the idea that Jews control the media. (Do Jews Control the Media?)  It’s an example of Orwell’s idea of blackwhite: “a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary.”

Dershowitz’s basic point is that yes, there are “individual Jews” with influence in the media, as well as the law, finance, and academia. His phrase “individual Jews” is meant to indicate that they are people “who happen to be Jewish.” They do not “act together in a conspiratorial manner.”

If he means that Jews in the media do a Protocols-of-the-Elders-of-Zion thing where they get their marching orders from Abe Foxman, I would have to agree with him. But the fact is that in general Jews do not act simply as individuals. There is a shared vision that influences the attitudes and behavior of individual Jews. As I note in summarizing J. J. Goldberg, “There is a great deal of consensus on broad Jewish issues, particularly in the areas of Israel and the welfare of other foreign Jewries, immigration and refugee policy, church-state separation, abortion rights, and civil liberties” (see Jewish Power, p. 5). Indeed, the consensus on these issues among Jewish activist organizations and the Jewish intellectual movements reviewed here despite a great deal of disagreement on other issues is striking.These attitudes typify the entire Jewish political spectrum, from the mainstream Jewish left to the neoconservative Jewish right, and in general, the Jewish profile on these issues is quite different from other Americans. Massive changes in public policy on these issues coincide with the period of increasing Jewish power and influence in the United States.

Philip Weiss points out that Dershowitz himself has emphasized general Jewish goals, particularly the defense of Israel. And he presents examples of Jews in the media who see themselves as promoting Israel or who actively exclude points of view critical of Israel. To which I would add the comment by Eric Alterman about Martin Peretz, publisher of The New Republic: “It is not enough to say that TNR’s owner is merely obsessed with Israel; he says so himself. But more importantly, Peretz is obsessed with Israel’s critics, Israel’s would-be critics, and people who never heard of Israel, but might one day know someone who might someday become a critic.”

Dershowitz gives the New York Times as an example of a Jewish-owned media, noting that is critical of Israel. But in general, the Times’ coverage has been highly skewed toward Israel, as documented by Alison Weir’s If Americans Knew. Weiss gives the well-known quote from former editor Max Frankel: The NYT’s former executive editor Max Frankel wrote, “I was much more deeply devoted to Israel than I dared to assert … Fortified by my knowledge of Israel and my friendships there, I myself wrote most of our Middle East commentaries. As more Arab than Jewish readers recognized, I wrote them from a pro-Israel perspective.”

A recent Forward article recounts the firings of Rick Sanchez, Octavia Nasr, and Helen Thomas for their comments on Jewish issues. It points out that “Jews have done more than other groups to make it clear that they will not suffer lightly the public slights like those made by Sanchez — let alone by those with even bigger mouths, like Mel Gibson. As Foxman put it, ‘We are a community that is sensitive, and — have no doubt — we’ll respond.’ ‘

Right. But at least we know what the game is. The truth will be suppressed with all the power that the Jewish community can bring to bear. The message is out that anyone who wishes to have a career in the media must play by these rules or look for another line of work.

Kevin MacDonald Interview Series

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There is an series of interviews of me produced by jwillfilms on a dedicated You Tube Channel: Available interviews:

Part  1: MacDonald on Group Evolution;

Part  2: The End of White People, Part 1;

Part  3: The End of White People Part 2;

Part  4: Jewish Moral Deception

Racial Genetic Similarity and Difference: The Witherspoon et al. Study

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One scientific topic that has been often previously discussed here and at other similar sites is the biological validity of the race concept.  This, unfortunately, has become necessary, because some people, perhaps with political motivations, assert, contrary to the evidence, that “race does not exist” and that race is a “social construct” with “no biological foundation.”

One popular and misinterpreted finding that has been eagerly grasped at by those who preach that “race is not real” is derived from the work of Richard Lewontin, which demonstrated that more genetic variation exits within than between groups.  In a previous article in this journal, I have explained how Lewontin’s finding in no way discredits the race concept.  However, there are “anti-racist” activists who still claim, based on their misinterpretations of population genetics, that it is possible for individual Europeans (“Whites”) to be more genetically similar to sub-Saharan Africans (“Blacks”) than to other Europeans.  Until now, there has been no formal proof that this assertion is incorrect.  I am now pleased to say that a recent scientific paper has delved into this very topic and that the findings of this paper clearly demonstrate that the race deniers are wrong.  First, let me give a brief introduction for the sake of clarity.

A number of scientific studies have shown that it is possible to genetically cluster individuals to their self-identified race with near 100% accuracy.  Further, racial categories can be determined by the genetic data even without any a priori information about the groups involved.  In other words, racial groups can be empirically observed through genetic analysis without any prior assumptions about these groups by the researchers.

However, does that imply that individual members of these races will always be more genetically similar to members of their own racial group compared to members of other groups?  Or, are genetic clustering and individual genetic similarity so different that this may not be always so?  Can individuals share more genetic similarity to members of other groups rather than to members of their own group, even if everyone is properly clustered with their self-identified race? In other words, can there be significant genetic overlap between individuals on the fringes of, say, the European and African clusters?

These are the questions asked, and answered, in the paper “Genetic Similarities Within and Between Populations” by Witherspoon et al. (online free).  I will simplify the authors’ statements and analogies so as to make the work more understandable to the broad readership; although this may mean that certain detailed specifics are glossed over, the main “take home” points and essential interpretations remain intact.  And, since the paper is available online at no cost, any reader interested in delving into the scientific details can do so at their leisure.

The authors introduced the metric “w”, which they defined as “…the frequency with which a pair of individuals from different populations is genetically more similar than a pair from the same population.”  In other words, what is being determined with “w” is the frequency with which, for example, individual Whites and individual Blacks may be more similar to each other than to members of their own race. This measurement, which is based upon gene by gene comparisons between individuals, is different from the two measurements of clustering that the authors compare to “w.”  Unlike “w”, the clustering measurements incorporate population-level genetic information, and thus consider the “aggregate” qualities of the population’s genetic information.  To put it simply, and bypassing many details, “w” compares individuals to each other, while clustering is, essentially, comparisons of individuals to the “genetic average” (or “centroid”) of different populations.  By crude analogy, we could consider physical traits. “W” would analogous to how similar two individuals are to each other in height, weight, eye color, skin color, hair color, facial features, etc.  Clustering, in contrast, is more analogous to how similar each individual is to the average measurements of height, weight, eye color, etc. for any group.  Thus “w” can tell us how similar individuals are to each other, while clustering tells us whether an individual is more similar to one group or another.  Clustering allows us to “bin” (or “cluster”) individuals as belonging to one group or another.

Is it possible for individuals from different groups to be more genetically similar to each other than to members of their own group?  More importantly, can this occur even if all of these individuals are correctly “binned” by genetic cluster analysis to their correct racial group?  In other words, is it possible to correctly cluster everyone to their self-identified race, even though members of different groups are more similar to each other than to some members of their own group?  In theory, yes, and the authors provide an example of how this may occur.  For the sake of understanding, I will simplify their explanation and calculations.

Assume that the measurement “q” represents the averaged gene frequencies for groups or for individuals.  The African genetic average (or “centroid”) of “q” may be 0.46; the European “q”, 0.61.  This “q” measures the average frequency of different gene types at various parts of the genome. Assume three individuals, two Africans and one European, with their own individual “q” measurements of 0.4, 0.52, and 0.55 respectively.  Consider the African with q = 0.52.  He is closer to the African average of 0.46 than to the European average of 0.61.  Thus, he clusters with Africans; in fact all three individuals would cluster with their identified group. Yet, at the individual level, the African at 0.52 is closer to the European’s 0.55 value than to the other African’s 0.4 value.  Thus, it would seem that individual racial overlap can be possible even though clustering is absolutely correct.  Does this actually occur in reality?

Bamshad et al. (“Deconstructing The Relationship Between Genetics and Race”, Bamshad et al., Nat. Rev. Genet. 5, 598-609, 2004.) , using 377 DNA markers in 1,056 individuals, found that in 38% of the cases, individual Europeans were more similar to individual Asians than to other Europeans.  So it would seem that significant genetic overlap across broad racial lines exists, even if everyone is correctly binned to their own racial group.  But, is this really true?  Will that hold true when more markers are used?

These are the questions that the Witherspoon et al. paper attempted to address. What were their basic findings?  The authors first examined the amount of genetic overlap between individual Europeans and sub-Saharan Africans using 175 markers, comparing the “w” metric with two measurements of clustering. Since clustering is a less stringent measurement than is genetic similarity (“w”), it is not surprising that, with a given number of genetic markers, there is less overlap with clustering than with “w.”  For example, in the case of Africans vs. Europeans and using 175 markers, the two measures of clustering gave overlaps of 4.9% and 1.9%; in contrast, the “w” measure of similarity has an overlap of 23%.  This “w” means that, given these 175 markers, nearly one quarter of the time an individual European will be genetically more similar to an African than to another European.  This tracks fairly well with the findings of Bamshad, discussed above.  At the same time, 175 markers were sufficient to yield clustering at an accuracy of ~95–98%.   

Thus, given a moderate number of markers, accurate racial clustering of individuals may not coincide with individual members of a group always being more similar to members of their own compared to individuals of another group. Are the racial liberals then correct?  It is possible for a Dane to be more similar, genetically, to a Nigerian than to a fellow Dane, even if the error rate is less than 25% of the time?  The answer is, simply put, no.  This genetic overlap between individuals from the major racial groups is an artifact of not using sufficient numbers of markers.

As the authors used more and more markers to compare the three major racial groups (Europeans, East Asians, and sub-Saharan Africans), the less stringent clustering measurements rapidly fell to a 0% overlap, as expected from previous studies.  What about the more stringent measurement “w”, which looks at comparisons between individuals, and does not consider group data?  Once the authors reached 1,000 (or more) markers, the genetic overlap between these groups essentially reached zero. It is useful at this point to quote the authors about this fundamentally important finding:

This implies that, when enough loci are considered, individuals from these population groups will always be genetically more similar to members of their own group.

With respect to the question of whether individual members of one group may be genetically more similar to members of another group, they write:

However, if genetic similarity is measured over many thousands of loci, the answer becomes ‘never’ when individuals are sampled from geographically separated populations.

Thus, the naïve “anti-racist” view, actually stated at times (e.g., the NOVA program on race), that it is possible for individual Europeans and Africans to be more genetically similar to each other than to members of their own race, is simply false.  Any such “finding” is simply due to insufficient numbers of DNA markers being used.

With an adequate methodology, individual members of the major racial groups will always be more similar to members of their own group than to members of other groups.  Some may not like this and deem it “racist”, but these are the scientific facts, nonetheless.

For whatever reason, the authors were not satisfied with ending their study with these findings and decided to repeat their data analysis incorporating populations they term “intermediate” or “admixed.”  These included New Guineans, South Asians, Native Americans, African Americans and “Hispano-Latino” groups.  Not unexpectedly, it became somewhat more difficult to distinguish between groups, with a given number of markers, when these additional “intermediate/admixed” populations were added.  Even with more than 10,000 markers, the “w” measurement and the clustering measurements never quite reached zero with respect to overlap, although the numbers were low.  For example the authors state that with 1,000 or more markers the “w” measurement reached a value of 3.1%, meaning that even with the intermediate/admixed populations, genetic overlap was at a frequency of less than 5%.

Do these latter findings mean that there will always be genetic overlap between members of more closely related groups, especially when so-called “intermediate” and “admixed” populations are considered?  Although some people may fervently wish that 100% accurate classification will remain impossible, except for the most widely divergent groups, this may well not be the case.  We are entering an era in which reasonably affordable whole genome sequencing will be possible, and with the proper methodologies, it will be possible to compare a number of markers considerably larger than what is used in the current paper.  While 10,000 markers may not be sufficient to eliminate overlap between all groups completely – although it does reduce the overlap to very low levels – it is possible that larger numbers of markers, or even whole genome comparisons, could do so.  With more data, it may well be possible to distinguish, with near 100% accuracy, between groups that still demonstrate a low level of “w” with current data.

We must also consider the issue of genetic structure, not directly addressed in this study.  Although structure can include such genetic phenomena as inversions, deletions, and copy-number variation, the major component of genetic structure is the co-inheritance of specific genes.  In other words, we must consider not only the frequencies of each gene taken in turn, but the frequencies of specific genes together.  For example, there are genes that code for eye color, skin color, hair color, etc.  One can examine the frequency of each gene on a one-by-one basis in an individual (or group) and do all the pairwise comparisons to another individual (or group) and determine “w.”  But what are the frequencies of particular combinations of gene types inherited together?  For example, what is the frequency of having genes for blue eyes and blonde hair and fair skin, etc. co-inherited, rather than measuring the frequencies of each of these genes in turn and averaging the results?  Genetic structure superimposes further genetic differences on top of one-by-one consideration of genes; therefore, differences between groups are going to be larger when structure is considered compared to when only frequency differences of individual genes are measured and averaged.

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To further explain the difference between genetic similarity and genetic structure, I present an analogy using colored marbles.  Assume that individuals of different races each have a set of marbles, numbered from one to 100, with the marbles being of various colors.  Genetic similarity (the basis of the “w” metric) would be analogous to comparing the marbles of two individuals one-by-one; first comparing the color of marble #1, then #2, then #3, and so forth, on an individual basis and then counting the total number of matches.  Genetic structure, on the other hand, would be analogous to asking if the two individuals have similar, or even identical, combinations of colors for specific marbles.  For example, person A may have red marbles for #1, #6, and #15; blue marbles for # 3, #10, #33, and #95; green marbles for #7, #8, #22, and #84, and a yellow marble for #38.  If this particular, specific combination of colored marbles is of importance, we can then ask if person B has a similar combination.  What is important here is not the one-by-one counting of matches, but whether the whole pattern is replicated, or almost replicated, between two individuals (or groups).

What about the relation between genetic ancestry and individual phenotype? The authors state that: “Thus it may be possible to infer something about an individual’s phenotype from knowledge of his or her ancestry.” However, since phenotypic traits are coded for by a number of genes smaller than that required to yield low genetic overlap, the authors assert that there may be significant phenotypic overlap between people of different groups.  They give an example of a trait “determined by 12…loci”, which would yield a 36% overlap of phenotypes between individuals of different groups.  Yet, racial groups show markedly different phenotypes.  How is this so, if what the authors state is true?

There are two points that the authors neglect to emphasize.  First, many phenotypic traits, including racially relevant ones, have been selected for because of their adaptive value, or the populations commonly exhibiting these traits have been subject to genetic drift isolated from other populations.  Thus, it is not reasonable to assume that genes that code for a particular phenotype are going to have the same “worldwide distributions” as markers used in this study. For example, gene alleles coding for skin color show markedly higher frequency differences between populations than do the neutral markers used in population genetics.

A second point is that racial phenotypes are the result of genetic structure, of many types of traits co-inherited together. It is the sum total of all these differences that allow for racial distinction at the phenotypic level.  Looking at individual phenotypic traits, just like looking at individual gene frequencies, is going to provide a markedly incomplete picture of human racial variation.

These findings powerfully support Frank Salter’s concept of ethnic genetic interests.  After all, there is essentially zero genetic overlap between individual members of different major racial groups; a member of one of these groups is always going to be more similar to a member of their own group than to that of another.  Multiplying over the large numbers of people that constitute racial groups yields a very substantial genetic interest.

Even if we take at face value this paper’s findings concerning the intermediate/admixed populations, the ethnic genetic interest concept holds as well. In the vast majority of cases, individuals will be more similar to members of their own group; overlap, while not zero, is low.  When one multiples these differences over the large numbers of people involved, then there are very large and crucial differences of genetic interests regardless of which populations are considered.

But that is not all.  First, consider that with sufficient numbers of genes assayed, the small degree of overlap observed with the intermediate/admixed groups may disappear; it would almost certainly disappear if genetic structure is considered.

Second, and perhaps most important, the ethnic genetic interest concept is not based on overall genetic similarity/difference, but rather on differences in frequencies of distinctive genes, above and beyond random gene sharing.  After all, those genes that do not differ in frequency between groups do not contribute to differences in genetic interests, because their frequency stays unchanged regardless of the outcome of competition.  Even if an entire racial group were to die out, the frequency of these “shared genes” would remain unchanged.  Note that measurements of overall genetic similarity, such as “w”, will as a matter of course also include genes that do not differ in frequency between groups. Therefore, even when “w” shows a low degree of overlap, there may well be no overlap at all with respect to those genes that are distinctive, that vary in frequency between populations.

To further explain the importance of distinctive genes vs. “w”, I will go back to my colored marbles analogy.  Imagine that the distribution of colors for marbles 1–80 was completely random, but the colors for marbles 81–100 were specific to a person’s race.  Overall similarity in marble color (analogous to “w”) would consider all 100 marbles.  However, if we were to ask how the color frequencies of the marbles were to change if people of one race were completely removed from the example, we would observe that only marbles 81-100 would be affected.  For marbles 1–80, since the color distribution is completely random with respect to race, it doesn’t matter if one race or another is eliminated from this marble counting exercise.  Only the “population-distinctive marbles” are at issue here.

Likewise, when considering competition and conflicting genetic interests between human groups, the gene frequencies that really matter are those that exhibit differences in frequency between the groups, not those that are randomly distributed between the groups.

Thus, while the Witherspoon et al. paper strongly supports the concept of ethnic genetic interests, we need to remember that ethnic genetic interests is a more stringent and specific concept than simply measuring the degree of genetic similarity.  If we are not careful, we may otherwise conclude that a group of mice constitute a greater genetic interest for a person than does another person, since the group of mice would contain more copies of the person’s gene sequences than would another single person! (By some measurements, mice and humans are ~90% genetically similar.)

But this is not the case: Genetic interests are determined by the gene frequencies that are distinctive between humans and mice (as well as differences in genetic structure between the two species). They are not determined by overall genetic similarity, and they are not determined by counting the numbers of gene sequences held in common.

In summary, this is a crucially important paper that demonstrates that individual members of the major racial groups will always be more genetically similar to members of their own group than to individuals of the other major races.  The paper demonstrates the importance of using sufficient numbers of markers in these studies, and the findings also underscore the differences between the concepts of clustering (“binning”) of individuals into groups vs. measurements of the genetic similarity between individual members of these groups (“w”).

Although the inclusion of “intermediate” and “admixed” populations prevented the genetic overlap of cross-racial individuals from reaching zero, with a sufficient number of markers the overlap was at a very low level.  Further, it is quite possible that when utilizing a greater number of markers, or even a whole genome analysis, this genetic overlap may vanish completely.

Another important point to consider when evaluating this (and any other) genetic study is that genetic structure is an important part of human genetic variation that has not yet been carefully examined, but which will likely amplify the differences in genetic variation between human population groups.  When considering the totality of genetic structure, individual overlap between racial population groups, including “intermediate” and “admixed” group, will almost certainly be nil.

Finally, the data from this paper support Frank Salter’s conception of ethnic genetic interests, although we must remember that genetic interests are properly thought of as derived from differences in the frequencies of distinctive genes, rather than counting total copies of genes shared in common.

In the final analysis, the primary findings of this paper are a devastating blow to politically motivated assertions of “no genetic differences between human races.”

Footnote:

With respect to the issue of clustering itself, there has been some controversy, which has been laid to rest with a recent article “Geography and genography: prediction of continental origin using randomly selected single nucleotide polymorphisms”, Allocco et al., BMC Genomics 8:68, 2007; online free.

Race deniers, as we know, claim that there are no genetic differences at all, of any significance, between even the major continental racial groups.  When confronted with the ease by which people can be “binned” (or “clustered”) into specific racial groups, the deniers bluster that such clustering requires an enormous number of markers and/or requires the choice of “biased” markers specifically picked because these markers are known, in advance, to sharply vary in frequency between groups.

These assertions and accusations are incorrect.  Allocco et al. have demonstrated that only 50 randomly chosen markers (with the emphasis on random) can cluster individuals into the major continental racial groups (Europeans, sub-Saharan Africans, and East Asians) with 95% accuracy.  The “misclassifications” resulting in the 5% “error” rate were of two African Americans, likely of admixed racial heritage, who were observed to be in between the European and African clusters.  The authors also demonstrated that as few as 5 completely random markers are sufficient to yield a 63% accuracy rate in clustering individuals into racial groups.  The authors state that “differences between continentally defined groups are sufficiently large that even a randomly selected, minute fraction of the genetic variation in the human genome can be used to characterize ancestral geographic origin in an accurate and reproducible manner”, and they conclude that their findings “argue strongly against the contention that genetic differences between groups are too small to have biomedical significance.”  The authors also assert that the clustering methodology can be “easily extended” for distinguishing more closely related groups and those with mixed origins, as long as more genetic data is obtained, sufficient to make these distinctions.

Much of this type of work is freely available to the public. It would seem that the race deniers are running out of excuses as to why they continue to promote what amounts to fraudulent pseudo-science to an unsuspecting public.

Ted Sallis (email him) writes on scientific issues.

Donations

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This is an exciting time. As we have pointed out many times, politics throughout the West is becoming ever moreracialized. White people are increasingly concerned about the changes they see all around them, and Whites are definitely worried about becoming a minority. We know that politicians are forced to toe the establishment line when it comes to issues like immigration, multiculturalism, and Jewish power and influence. However, the presence of intelligent, well-written commentary on contemporary issues may well seep into their consciousness even though they can’t discuss issues the way we do. We are the conscience of White America in an age when there are vast temptations to give in to the system.

As these changes continue to accelerate, White people will increasingly identify as White and support causes that advance the interests of Whites. It is therefore critical to maintain an intellectually honest critique of the current regime. TOO is one of the few websites that deals explicitly with all of the enemies of our people and does so in a fact-based, rational manner.

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Academic ‘left’ opposes free speech, academic freedom

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This appeared in the CSULB Daily 49er, February 22, 2010

For nearly four years the Cal State Long Beach community has seen repeated attacks on me. Powerful activist organizations — the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League — have come to campus to condemn me. Several departments at the university have issued public denunciations, and I have been harassed and condemned by individual professors on faculty e-mail lists. Beginning with the current semester, several students have disrupted my classes; they have campaigned to get me fired and have written inflammatory articles in the Daily 49er.

Why all this hostility? Fundamentally, I am attacked because I advocate ideas that fly in the face of the conventional wisdom as seen by the academic left that has come to dominate the university.

First and foremost, I am an evolutionary psychologist. On the basis of my understanding of the theory and research in this field, my view is that everyone has ethnic interests — including people of European descent. A great many other identifiable groups in multicultural America have a strong sense of ethnic identity and interest. Quite a few departments on this campus are devoted to strengthening the ethnic identity of non-Whites and articulating their interests. But explicit expressions of white European-American identity and interests are condemned as indicating moral turpitude or even psychiatric impairment.

This is a completely unnatural state of affairs — the result of a prolonged assault on the legitimacy of these concepts by politically and ethnically motivated elites that have dominated public discourse on issues of race and ethnicity since before World War II and especially since the 1960s.

I reject labels such as “White supremacist” or “racist” that are routinely bestowed on assertions of White identity and interests as a means of muzzling their expression. Non-Western peoples throughout the world continue to seek political power, and they attempt to control their borders, establish their own cultures and defend their perceived interests. No one would claim that Korea, say, has a moral obligation to import millions of non-Koreans or to change their culture so that the traditional people and culture are pushed aside. Many countries, including Mexico, have excluded immigrants and dealt with them harshly. Israel not only has an identity as a Jewish state, it also rigorously enforces a biological conception of Jewishness as the basis of its immigration policy. Israel has erected an apartheid society on the West Bank and has discriminatory policies against its Palestinian minority within Israel.

Nevertheless, as Joel Kotkin points out in his recent book The Next Hundred Million, the U.S. stands poised to add 100 million non-Whites by 2050, making the current white majority into a minority and implying a dramatic decline in their political and cultural influence.

Whether explicitly or implicitly, ethnostates are the norm throughout the world. Societies in Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand that have been controlled by whites for hundreds and, in the case of Europe, for thousands of years are the only ones to accept the idea that the ethnic majority has a moral imperative to cede power and become a minority. I view this outcome as the result of competition over the construction of culture in which the legitimate interests of Whites have been compromised. My scholarly book, The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements (Westport, CT: Praeger,1998), and much of my subsequent writing, are an attempt to determine how this unnatural state of affairs came about.

The big picture is that the left championed the interests of the working and middle classes of pre-1965 America. Since that time, the left has been strongly identified with massive non-white immigration and multiculturalism — policies that have compromised the interests of the working and middle classes of traditional America, Black and White alike.

My main concern is that this upheaval opposes the legitimate interests of the European-descended peoples of the U.S. It’s not about hatred. It’s about seeing legitimate conflicts of interest among different ethnic groups. I was a staunch leftist as a young person. But it’s obvious that the left now stands for policies that are radically opposed to the interests of people like me.

As part of this revolution against pre-1965 America, the left has erected a culture of political correctness in which expressions of ethnocentrism by Europeans are proscribed. Organizations such as the SPLC and the ADL seek to stifle free speech by condemning any hint of ethnocentrism by Europeans — and only Europeans.

Because their point of view is intellectually bankrupt and cannot be rationally defended, the left has repeatedly resorted to force to accomplish its goals. Many European countries and Canada have savage legal penalties that enforce intellectual conformity on these issues. In America the sanctions are more informal — but nevertheless similarly effective. The condemnations of my writing and my affiliations by academic departments, professors and students at Cal State Long Beach are a part of this campaign to shut down free speech on these issues and to make my life as difficult as possible.

America and other Western societies stand to lose much as a result of these transformations. Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam has shown that increasing ethnic diversity lowers the willingness to contribute to charity or to public goods such as, apropos the current national debate, public health care. Ethnic diversity also increases social isolation and lowers trust both within and between races; it also lowers political participation and lessens confidence in political leaders.

Throughout the world, ethnically diverse societies are marked by ethnic conflict. The bottom line is that no one has come up with a formula to get rid of ethnicity as a form of identity and as a vehicle of expressing interests. None seems on the horizon. My vision of the future of Western societies is that they are well on the road to becoming cauldrons of competing ethnic groups, with chronic divisions over issues like affirmative action, redistribution of wealth and the establishment of public goods like health care — any issue that may be seen as benefiting one ethnic group more than another. In the long run, democratic forms of government and the rule of law are threatened.

An early sign of this dystopian future is that American politics have become increasingly racialized. The Republican Party routinely receives roughly 90 percent of its votes from Whites, while overwhelming majorities of non-Whites identify with the Democratic Party. There is a palpable rage building in America among the tea partiers and working and middle-class white Americans who want something like the America they grew up in. These people are being pushed out economically and politically. They are less able to avoid the costs of multiculturalism: They can’t move to gated communities or send their children to all-White private schools. Their unions have been destroyed and their jobs either shipped overseas or performed by recent immigrants, legal and illegal.

Despite what some of my critics have claimed, I have never advocated violence as a solution to the rapidly diminishing prospects of non-elite White Americans. But we are clearly headed into very dangerous times.

Kevin MacDonald is a psychology professor at CSULB and a member of the American Freedom Party.

Nietzsche and the Origins of Christianity, Part 2

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Part 2

But Nietzsche’s main contention, and his most controversial conjecture, was this: Christianity as Jewish revenge.  He paints the following picture, to which I have added factual details as we understand them today.

Paul could see the growing oppression of the Jews.  They had only limited ability to fight back militarily.  They were increasingly frustrated and trapped, confronted by a larger and more powerful enemy than they had ever encountered before.  So Paul, perhaps together with Luke, Mark (both educated, upper-class Jews) and Peter (the chandala apostle), concocted a plan.  They could not use force against the Romans because the Jews were too few and too weak.  The Romans were also few in number, and militarily strong.  But the common man, the masses, especially the chandala Gentiles — they were many.  If they could come to oppose the Romans then an overthrow, a revolution, might be possible; or at the very least, the iron-grip rule would be weakened.  But the Gentiles did not have the same hatred that the Jews had; they were less oppressed, and had less to lose under Roman rule.  And they were not naturally inclined to fight on the side of the Jews.  Even if a leader were to emerge, the Gentiles would not follow a Jew — unless he was the Son of God.

A Jewish rebel, a fellow chandala, but a divine One sent by God — or better, the embodiment of God himself — might be able to win over the allegiance of the unthinking and superstitious Gentile masses.  It would be a kind of ‘charm offensive’ against Rome — to steal away their moral authority and place it, ultimately, in the hands of a Jew who would sooth their suffering, and ‘save’ them.  “Salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22), as Nietzsche is fond of reminding us.  This sort of stealth insurrection would avoid the kind of direct confrontation that would get the rebels imprisoned or killed, and it would be done in the name of nominally higher values like faith, hope, and love.

Tales of a Jewish messiah come to earth, however, would cause trouble with Paul’s fellow Jews.  First, the messiah was supposed to save the Jews, not the Gentiles.  Second, despite the urgent need, the ancient prophetic signs were not yet in place; any alleged messiah would be false.  Furthermore Jesus apparently had a habit of working on the Sabbath, flouting Judaic law.  These things were likely the source of Jewish antipathy toward him while he was alive.

The situation demanded a two-pronged strategy.  One person — Peter — would work with his fellow Jews to convince them that, yes indeed, this savior would work to the benefit of the Jews; he could be a true ‘redeemer’ after all.  The others — Paul, and perhaps Mark, Luke, and others17 — would undertake to spread the ‘Good Word’ to the non-Jewish masses.  How do we know this?  Paul tells us himself:

·         “Now I am speaking to you Gentiles.  Inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry…” (Rom 11:13);

·         “[Jesus was revealed to me] in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles” (Gal 1:16);

·         “Let it be known to you that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will listen” (Acts 28:28);

·         “[Barnabas and Paul] related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles” (Acts 15:12).

This conversion of the Gentiles was the core of the overall plan; without them the insurrection would fail:  “I want you [Gentiles] to understand this mystery: a hardening has come upon part of Israel until the full number of Gentiles come in, and so all Israel will be saved” (Rom 11:25-26) — saved by the Redeemer from Zion.18 To this end, the doctrine of ‘original sin’ was essential.  Every man was condemned from birth, unless he accepted the Jewish savior:  “all men, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin” (Rom 3:9); “sin came into the world through one man [Adam] and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned” (Rom 5:12).

Peter’s assignment is made clear in Galatians (2:7-8):

I [Paul] had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised [non-Jews], just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised [Jews], (for He who worked through Peter for the mission to the circumcised worked through me also for the Gentiles)…

So the plan devised by the ‘Apostle to the Gentiles’ (Paul) and the ‘Apostle to the Jews’ (Peter) was well underway by the mid-50s ad.  Nietzsche called it “the most subterranean conspiracy that ever existed” (sec. 62).

As far as we can tell, this small band of Jewish revolutionaries met with marginal success at first.  Judging from the near complete lack of written documentation (apart from Paul’s own letters), they had little immediate effect.  Once again, the chronology is telling:  Jesus lived for 30-some years; 20 years then passed with no written record at all; and for 20 more years we have only the Pauline epistles.  So: 70 years gone by, and the sum total of recorded history for this group of Christian Jews is a handful of letters by their leader, Paul.

And then Paul dies — executed in Rome, so we are told.  Coincidentally, it is just at this time (66 ad) that the first Jewish Revolt begins.  The battle waxes and wanes for four years, until the Romans prevail in 70, destroying the great Jewish temple at Jerusalem.  Suddenly, the game changes.  The Jews are annihilated, defeated, and enraged.  Their hatred knows no bounds.  A burning resentment — ressentiment, according to Nietzsche — gives rise to a maniacal thirst for revenge:  “The Romans will pay for this, if it takes a thousand years.”

As luck would have it a nascent insurrection was already underway, thanks to Paul and his band of “little ultra-Jews” (sec. 44).  Unfortunately, Peter and Mark both died during the Revolt, and with Paul already gone the movement was decapitated.  The only survivors were Luke and the chandala apostles Phillip and John.19 Someone then decided to launch a full-court press for Jesus.  They decided that the story of his life needed to be written, clearly demonstrating his divine nature.  Within a year of the destruction of the Temple, suddenly, miraculously, the Gospel of Mark appears.

As the first detailed account of Jesus, it was crucial that it reach and impress the non-Jewish masses.  Hence it was written explicitly for them.  Jewish terms and concepts are explained (5:41, 7:1, 13:46, 14:12, 15:42).  Jesus employs simple-minded parables (4:10-12, plus many examples throughout).  And the book is replete with miracles from the very first page; even the apostles performed them! (6:13). It no doubt had a great effect.20

The Gospel of Mark evidently sufficed, at least for some 10 years.  Then, unknown persons for unknown reasons decided to embellish this text, but under different names.  Thus came the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.  (Again, expert consensus indicates that neither of these were written by their namesakes.)  So by the year 90 we have the three ‘synoptic Gospels’ completed, all of which were constructed on a similar plan.

Finally, some time in the final decade of that first century, the Gospel of John appears — again, authorship unknown.  It is notably different, both in content and tone, from the other three:  no mention of the virgin birth or baptism of Jesus, no ‘casting out of demons’ miracles, clear separation from orthodox Judaism, only rare mention of the suffering and downtrodden peoples, many first-person references by Jesus, and, oddly, Jesus now carries his own cross (previously, Simon).  In general, Jesus is portrayed as more thoughtful and philosophical.  It seems to have targeted a more upper-class audience, both Jews and non-Jews.  Perhaps it was meant as ‘Christianity for the intellectuals.’

By the early 100s, then, everything was in place.  All NT books were complete, and they created — literally created — an image of Christ that was compatible with the OT, and, more importantly, suited the larger purpose of winning allegiance from the masses.  The Pharisee Jews were not happy, because they understood that this Jesus was a false messiah, but they would come to accept the benefits of a Jewish Christ that could sway the public at large and undermine support for Rome.  The plan was brilliant, and by all accounts, it worked.  Christianity grew from being persecuted by Rome, to being tolerated under the reign of Constantine (306–337), to being installed as the official state religion by Theodosius in 380 — coincidentally, just 15 years before the disintegration of the Empire.

Of course, it is very difficult to know the extent to which Christianity was a causal factor in the collapse — many other forces were at work, including imperial overstretch, economic inflation, growing attacks by outside powers, barbarization of the Roman military, depopulation from recurrent plagues, environmental degradation, lead poisoning, and corruption within the leadership.  Notably, the first modern era account of Rome’s collapse — Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–1789) — was also the first to cite Christianity and Christian ‘moral decay’ as a leading cause; on this count Nietzsche was not original.  Scholars since Gibbon’s time generally prefer some combination of the other factors.  But the actual cause is not really at issue here.  Christianity was certainly very influential during the period of decline, and it undeniably filled the void created when Rome finally collapsed in 476.  Even if Christianity was merely the opportunist of the time, Nietzsche’s main contention holds.

* * * * *

Whatever the cause or causes, Christianity proved the victor.  Unfortunately, says Nietzsche, this victory came at a tremendous cost.  The Romans, in fact, had the nobler values.   Having absorbed and assimilated the best of classical Greek culture, the Romans of that first century ad were the embodiment of strength, nobility, life-affirmation, and excellence — in short, all that was greatest in humanity.

For the Romans were the strong and noble, and nobody stronger and nobler has yet existed on earth or even been dreamed of:  every remnant of them, every inscription, gives delight…  (Genealogy, 1.16).

Greeks!  Romans!  The nobility of instinct, the taste, the methodical research, the genius of organization and administration, the faith in — the will to — man’s future, the great Yes to all things, become visible in the imperium Romanum, visible for all the senses, the grand style no longer mere art but become reality, truth, life.  (Antichrist, sec. 59)

The Empire could withstand almost anything — “but it was not firm enough against the most corrupt kind of corruption, against the Christians” (sec. 58).  They were the revolutionaries and anarchists, pulling on the great pillars of the Empire by draining it of its greatest strength, its system of values:

The Christian and the anarchist: both decadents, both incapable of having any effect other than disintegrating, poisoning, withering, bloodsucking; both the instinct of moral hatred against everything that stands, that stands in greatness, that has duration, that promises life a future.  Christianity was the vampire of the imperium Romanum… (ibid.)

The defeat was total.  “Which of them has won for the present, Rome or Judea?”  Nietzsche answers:

But there can be no doubt:  consider to whom one bows down in Rome itself today — and not only in Rome but over almost half the earth, everywhere that man has become tame or desires to become tame:  in front of three Jews, as is known, and one Jewess (Jesus of Nazareth, the fisherman Peter, the rug weaver Paul, and the mother of the aforementioned Jesus, named Mary).  This is very remarkable:  without doubt Rome has been conquered.  (Genealogy, 1.16)

When they were defeated, nobility itself was destroyed, and the Jewish chandala morality, the slave morality, arose victorious.  For the slaves and Jews this was a happy outcome; for humanity at large it was a catastrophe of the highest magnitude.

How was this attack conducted?  First, by countering every aspect of Roman morality and spirituality, and second, by establishing a system favorable to Jewish interests.  Against Roman polytheism, the Jews placed monotheism (or “monotono-theism”, as Nietzsche would have it).  Against a sense of privilege, nobility, and hierarchy, the Jews placed ‘equality before God’, and the notion of ‘equal rights.’  Against the ideal of human fulfillment and self-realization here on Earth, salvation now came in the afterlife.  Against the gods of nature, who could be cruel and ruthless as well as beneficent, they placed a God of ‘pure spirit’ and love.  Against the ideal of bodily strength and vigor, they placed the concept of spiritual health and bodily indifference.  Against allegiance to men based upon leadership and the demands of the polity, they placed dependence on the priests.  Against truth and reason, they placed lies and faith.

Nietzsche held out particular scorn for the three cardinal virtues of Christianity: faith, hope, and love (Paul, in 1 Cor 13:13).  Faith is fundamentally opposed to truth, because one simply ‘believes’ for no rational reason, or worse, in spite of reason; “if faith is quite generally needed above all, then reason, knowledge, and inquiry must be discredited: the way to truth become the forbidden way” (sec. 23).  Faith is a “form of sickness, and all straight, honest, scientific paths to knowledge must be rejected by the church as forbidden paths.  Even doubt is a sin. …  ‘Faith’ means not wanting to know what is true” (sec. 52).  It engenders dependency, because one is not allowed to think critically, or for oneself; the believer becomes dependent on the priest, who in turn gains power over the believer.  Hence “every kind of faith is itself an expression of self-abnegation, of self-alienation” (sec. 54).

Hope, Nietzsche reminds us, was the one evil that did not escape Pandora’s box.  It strikes the modern reader as odd to think of hope as an evil, but in the hand of the Christian it becomes merely “a hope for the beyond” — an unfulfillable (or at least unverifiable) promise of a blessed afterlife.  As such, Christian hope is meaningless; worse still, a tool for manipulation, “precisely because of its ability to keep the unfortunate in continual suspense” (sec. 23).  To repeatedly promise with no ability to deliver — this is the function of the priest.

Love is the most striking of the three, born as it is, paradoxically, out of Jewish hatred and revenge.  Rather than teaching the non-Jews to hate the Romans — for which there was no real basis — Paul and his fellow Jews used ‘God’s love’ to seduce the masses.  This necessitated, first of all, a certain conception of God:  “To make love possible, God must be a person,” not merely some abstract metaphysical entity.  To truly personalize God, he must come to Earth in human form — hence Jesus.  ‘Jesus’ (of the Pauline persuasion) now serves a specific purpose: to allow us to ‘love God’ more easily.  Once we are in love, we both tolerate more, and are ripe for manipulation.  “Love is the state in which man sees things most decidedly as they are not. …  In love man endures more, man bears everything” (ibid).  So once the masses are drawn to the Jewish Messiah by love, they accept what he says unquestioningly, and are willing to submit to trials and hardship — a perfect combination for the Jewish priest.  Accept the Jews, those chosen people of God; don’t resist the Jews; love thy neighbor, the Jew (Rom 13:9) — this is the message:

The Christian…is distinguished by acting differently: by not resisting, either in words or in his heart, those who treat him ill; by making no distinction between foreigner and native, between Jew and non-Jew (‘the neighbor’ — really the coreligionist, the Jew); by not growing angry with anybody, by not despising anybody…  (sec. 33)

Because the goal was to convert and mobilize every available person, Jesus (God) must love all people equally.  Paul thereby negated one of the most ancient realities of human society — the hierarchy of rank among individuals — with his doctrine of a God that gives his blessing to all. He also negated the existence and importance of ethnic and national differences and conflicts among different ethnic and national interests: All people are essentially the same in the eyes of God. All men have an immortal soul that can be saved, and thus are inherently equal:  “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body — Jews or Greeks [i.e. non-Jews], slaves or free — and all made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor 12:13); “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28).  In Nietzsche’s paraphrase, “Everyone is the child of God…and as a child of God everyone is equal to everyone.”  There could scarcely be a more pernicious lie than this, he argues.  If no one is worse than anyone else, then no one is better — no one can get better.  This is counter to the whole thrust of life and evolution, which is toward the greater, the higher, the more refined, the nobler.  But it is as necessary as it is destructive, if the masses are to be mobilized.

Thus emerged the slave morality of the Christians, out of the hatred and revenge of the Jews.  And it was all based upon lies:  the lie of equality, the lie of the miracle, the lie of the resurrection, the lie of God, the lie of Christian love.  It is so profoundly opposed to nature and the natural order of the world that it creates a deep sickness within humanity.  This “world of pure fiction” and its “hatred of the natural…of reality!” actually has an interest in creating a sickness that only it can assuage:

Christianity needs sickness just as Greek culture needs a superabundance of health — to make sick is the true, secret purpose of the whole system of redemptive procedures constructed by the church. (sec. 51)

Christianity also stands opposed to every spirit that has turned out well; it can use only sick reason as Christian reason, it sides with everything idiotic, it utters a curse against the spirit, against the superbia of the healthy spirit…  [S]ickness is of the essence of Christianity.  (sec. 52)

The sickly, the weak, the enfeebled, the ignorant, the repugnant — we know these are the essence of a Jewish-contrived Christianity because…Paul tells us:

God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are… (1 Cor 1:27-28).

“This was the formula,” says Nietzsche; under this sign, “decadence triumphed” (sec. 51).  This, in a single passage, contains the essence of Christian depravity and decay.

Decadence is only a means for the type of man who demands power in Judaism and Christianity, the priestly type:  this type of man has a life interest in making mankind sick, and in so twisting the concepts of good and evil, true and false, as to imperil life and slander the world.  (sec. 24)

In Christianity all of Judaism, a several-century-old Jewish preparatory training and technique of the most serious kind, attains its ultimate mastery as the art of lying in a holy manner.  The Christian, the ultima ratio of the lie, is the Jew once more — even three times a Jew.  (sec. 44)

Nietzsche closes Antichrist with guns ablaze:

Paul, the chandala hatred against Rome, against ‘the world,’ become flesh, become genius, the Jew, the eternal Wandering Jew par excellence.   What he guessed was how one could use the little sectarian Christian movement apart from Judaism to kindle a ‘world fire’; how with the symbol of ‘God on the cross’ one could unite all who lay at the bottom, all who were secretly rebellious, the whole inheritance of anarchistic agitation in the Empire, into a tremendous power.  ‘Salvation is of the Jews.’  Christianity as a formula with which to outbid the subterranean cults of all kinds…and to unite them:  in this lies the genius of Paul.  His instinct was so sure in this that he took the ideas with which these chandala religions fascinated, and, with ruthless violence, he put them into the mouth of the ‘Savior’ whom he had invented…  This was his moment at Damascus:  he comprehended that he needed the belief in immortality to deprive ‘the world’ of value, that the concept of ‘hell’ would become master even over Rome — that with the ‘beyond’ one kills life.  (sec. 58)

The whole labor of the ancient world in vain…the whole meaning of the ancient world in vain!  Wherefore Greeks?  Wherefore Romans?  All the presuppositions for a scholarly culture, all scientific methods, were already there…  Everything essential had been found, so the work could be begun…  All in vain!  Overnight, nothing but a memory!  …  [R]uined by cunning, stealthy, invisible, anemic vampires.  Not vanquished — merely drained.  Hidden vengefulness, petty envy become master.  Everything miserable that suffers from itself, that is afflicted with bad feelings, that whole ghetto-world of the soul on top, all at once.  (sec. 59)

Parasitism as the only practice of the church; with its ideal of anemia, of ‘holiness’, draining all blood, all love, all hope for life; the beyond as the will to negate every reality; the cross as the mark of recognition for the most subterranean conspiracy that ever existed — against health, beauty, whatever has turned out well, courage, spirit, graciousness of the soul, against life itself. …  I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great innermost corruption, the one great instinct of revenge, for which no means is too poisonous, too stealthy, too subterranean, too petty — I call it the one immortal blot on mankind.  (sec. 62)

What an incredible feat:  to turn Europeans away from their own western heritage — a noble, life-affirming Greco-Roman culture — and toward a foreign, alien, decadent, Oriental worldview.  And it was done as revenge, out of hatred, and built upon lies.  An ancient religion — Judaism — born of falsehood and lies, creates another born of falsehood and lies.  It is done for reasons of power, control, wealth, and survival.  And the lie prevails.

Judaism never did fully accept Christian morality or the notion of a Christian Messiah — even if he were a Jew.  Though there was considerable overlap in the two religions — both are variations on the slave morality — Judaism retained its insularity, suspicion of Gentiles, need for control, exploitation, and power, and inclination for revenge.  As Christianity took flight it became, of course, a non-Jewish religion.  Christian morals thus emphasized compassion, love, ‘resist not evil’, ‘turn the other cheek’, ‘blessed are the meek.’  There could obviously be no suspicion of non-Jews within Christianity, but this was replaced by a suspicion of all that was great, strong, and noble — the exemplar, the outstanding individual who put the lie to the notion of universal equality.

Implications for the Contemporary Scene

So what are the consequences of all this for today?  There are many, of course.  If indeed the essence of Pauline Christianity is sickness, and if it indeed is anti-natural and neglects all that is healthy and strong, then we should see some tangible evidence of this.  For example, given that ultimate value lies in spiritual salvation, we might expect that the more pious, church-going nations would have less concern about bodily health.  And in fact there seems to be a correlation between the two.  Using obesity rates as a rough measure of physical health, an analysis of public survey data shows that the most religious Christian nations are also the most obese.  Specifically, about 60 percent of the people in the U.S. and Mexico consider Christianity “very important,” and these same two nations have the highest obesity rates — 30 and 25 percent, respectively.  Conversely, France, Germany, and the Czech Republic are less than 20 percent religious, and are also less than 15 percent obese.21 Of course, correlation is not causation, and we cannot say that Christian beliefs cause or promote ill health.  But even if the converse is true — if the sick, the ill, the obese are drawn to Christianity — this does not speak well for the religion.   Either way Nietzsche’s point appears confirmed:  Physical health is not a big deal; God loves us no matter what.

But on more philosophical points, four items in particular stand out as clear implications.  First, a heavy emphasis on freedom.  The Judeo-Christian slave morality arises from an extreme lack of personal and social freedom, and thus it should exhibit a clear preoccupation, or even obsession, with freedom.  This seems transparently clear in the U.S., at least, where ‘liberty’ is a core value, along with ‘life’ and ‘happiness.’  One recalls President Bush (Jr.)’s 2002 State of the Union speech, peppered with some two dozen references to it.  We could point to our ‘war on terror,’ of which a prime objective is to “bring freedom” to the oppressed.  We could cite our military adventurism in the Middle East, with its “Operation Iraqi Freedom” and “Operation Enduring Freedom” (Afghanistan).  Our leading enemies in the world today are those who “hate our freedoms.”

The current, popular, governmental form of freedom is a debased concept.  It is a freedom of capitalism, a freedom of exploitation, and a decadent, soft, amoral form of personal freedom; ‘liberalism,’ as Nietzsche would have it.  Liberal institutions

undermine the will to power, they set to work leveling mountains and valleys and call this morality, they make things small, cowardly, and enjoyable — they represent the continual triumph of herd animals.  Liberalism: herd animalization, in other words… (Twilight of the Idols, sec. 38).

True freedom, on Nietzsche’s view, is something different.  It is the Greco-Roman conception of the idea — something felt, something lived.  The Greeks and Romans did not speak of freedom or rights at all.  They were free, they lived as free men, and thus did not obsess about it.  And this is precisely the point:  A truly free people does not obsess about freedom, or about rights.  Only those enslaved, or those laboring under a slave morality, continue to do so.  True freedom, Nietzsche says, is the struggle to maintain one’s personal independence and integrity in the face of countervailing forces.  “What is freedom?  Having the will to be responsible for yourself.  Maintaining the distance that divides us.  Becoming indifferent to hardship, cruelty, deprivation, even to life. …  A free man is a warrior” (ibid).

Second, the natural extension of ‘equal before God’ is ‘equal before the law’.  This implies a natural affinity to both democracy and equality of rights.  Democracy is contemptuous precisely because it is the politics of the herd; it finds sustenance in the Judeo-Christian herd morality:  “the democratic movement is the heir of the Christian movement” (Beyond Good and Evil, sec. 202).  For Nietzsche, “the democratic movement is not only a form of decay of political organization but a form of the decay, namely the diminution, of man, making him mediocre and lowering his value” (ibid: 203).  The Roman Empire flourished because it was anti-democratic.

On the general critique of democracy, Plato was in full agreement.  For him (as for Aristotle), democracy was rule by the uneducated masses, and hence the lowest common denominator.  Consequently it was nearly the worst form of government — surpassed only by tyranny.22 The pre-Christian world knew that brute democracy was something to be avoided.

Of course, the mere adoption of a Christian morality did not ensure democracy — as demonstrated by the Byzantine Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, and the many Renaissance dynasties of Europe.  Nor is it the only path to modern democracy — witness the Hindu democratic system in India.  But for Europe at least, large-scale industrial democracy was the “heir” to Christianity, and it took several centuries to become manifest.  It represents only the latest stage in the decline of western man.

The other implication of spiritual equality is that of equal rights. “The poison of the doctrine of ‘equal rights for all’ — it was Christianity that spread it most fundamentally” (sec. 43).  It was a kind of gross flattery to tell even the lowest of the low — the chandalas, the masses — that they were equal to the highest, and deserved equal standing; this “miserable flattery of personal vanity” was a key element in the success of Christianity.  It created the herd, and the herd would be led by their divine Shepherd.  But this is not reality.  In the real world there is order of rank, of lesser and greater individuals.  Rights based on meaningless equality are themselves meaningless.  Men are by nature unequal, and thus the only possible rights are those appropriate for each station — in other words, of unequal rights:  “The inequality of rights is the first condition for the existence of any rights at all” (sec. 57).  Rights are something one holds against another; when all have them, none have them.

Convinced of his equality and his rights, the chandala is willing to fight for them.  Here the Christian rebel takes to work, inciting the masses against those stronger and nobler who would deny their equality — yet another justification for Nietzsche’s contempt:

Whom do I hate most among the rabble of today?  The socialist rabble, the chandala apostles, who undermine the instinct, the pleasure, the worker’s sense of satisfaction with his small existence — who make him envious, who teach him revenge.  The source of wrong is never unequal rights but the claim of ‘equal’ rights. …  The anarchist and the Christian have the same origin.  (ibid)

The passions of the common man are inflamed, envy is fostered, and the result is discontent.  Once the hierarchy of the strong (e.g. the imperium Romanum) is undermined, then the herd becomes the dominant force.  It is thereby easily manipulated by the priestly shepherds.

Thirdly, under the dictate of equality of all men, and the moral prescription to love thy neighbor, one is compelled to accept some form of multiculturalism, and even cultural relativism.  All of humanity is part of the great Christian herd, at least potentially so.  Those not explicitly Christian are converts-in-waiting.  God does not discriminate amongst souls, nor should we.  All are welcome to our flock; the bigger the herd, the better.

Finally, the primary goal of the whole scheme:  benefit to the Jews and the Jewish state.  In this sense we have, on the whole, and in spite of periodic pogroms throughout the centuries, a tremendous success story for the Jewish people.  It cannot be anti-Semitic to point this out.  In fact it is to their credit that such a small and beleaguered people could achieve such influence in an uncertain and dangerous world.

Especially in recent times, Jews have profited immensely from public sympathy — a sympathy frequently rooted in Christian theology.  With Christianity, “we are among Jews”:  Christ, the Virgin Mary, the Apostles, ‘salvation is of the Jews’ — even God is a Jew:

When the presupposition of ascending life, when everything strong, brave, masterful, and proud is eliminated from the conception of God; when he degenerates step by step into a mere symbol, a staff for the weary, a sheet-anchor for the drowning; when he becomes a god of the poor, the sinners, and the sick par excellence…just what does such a transformation signify?

To be sure, the ‘kingdom of God’ has thus been enlarged.  Formerly he had only his people, his ‘chosen’ people.  Then he, like his people, became a wanderer and went into foreign lands…until ‘the great numbers’ and half the earth were on his side.  Nevertheless, the god of ‘the great numbers,’ the democrat among the gods, did not become a proud pagan: he remained a Jew, he remained a god of nooks, the god of all the dark corners and places, of all the unhealthy quarters the world over!  (sec. 17)

Hence:  to love Christ and to love God is to love God’s chosen, the Jews — an ideal situation, if you’re Jewish.  How much the easier to exploit the sympathies of the masses; to curry favor and gain support; to manipulate and mislead.  And as before, survey data show that the more Christian the nation, the greater its sympathy to Israel and Jews generally.23

As a practical consequence, Americans in particular seem satisfied to allow Jewish-Americans an unprecedented and hugely disproportionate role in their nation — in other words, to be their shepherds.  Though less than 2 percent of the population, American Jews are extremely influential in the cultural and economic life of the nation.24 Likewise in the political sphere, where the Israel Lobby — led by AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) and the CoP (Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations) — wields immense power.25 The end result is that, through a hammer-grip on the American superpower, Jewish and Israeli interests are able to influence events throughout the world.  As former Malaysian president Mahathir Mohamad said, “Today Jews rule the world by proxy.  They get others to fight and die for them.” Indeed — the sheep must occasionally be led to slaughter.

And yet…the system is not perfect.  There is, as we know, a lingering anti-Semitism within Christianity.  Some are angry that ‘the Jews killed Christ.’  Many dislike their dominance and corruption of American society.  Others are dismayed at the criminal actions of Israel in the occupied territories.  They are upset by the virtual apartheid that exists there today, the anti-Arab discrimination, and the driving out of Christians from the holy land.  People are unhappy with Jewish manipulation of media and entertainment, with the billions of dollars in annual foreign aid to Israel, with the costly wars in the Middle East that serve primarily to protect Israel — and yet they cannot bring themselves to openly oppose the Jews.  Such internal conflict is easily manifest in various forms of anti-Semitism.

I wonder if many Christians don’t somehow know, deep inside, that their very faith is based on Jewish lies and resentment.  I wonder if they know they have been duped.  There are also, perhaps, subconscious worries that, just maybe, other popular legends might also be fanciful exaggerations built on hatred and lies.26 When governmental and institutional leaders have proven themselves corrupt and unreliable, and occasionally outright liars, then one does not know whom to trust.

Even if Nietzsche was right — if Christianity was in fact “the most subterranean conspiracy that ever existed” — it still cannot go unexposed forever.  People seem to be more willing than ever to challenge age-old (and not-so-old) religious myths.  Perhaps the accumulated sense of manipulation, illness, and moral decadence will cause people to break out of their stupor, ask tough questions, and demand real answers.  If so, then Dr. Nietzsche will have earned his keep.

Dr. Thomas Dalton (email him) is the author of Debating the Holocaust (2009).

Permanent URL: http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/authors/Dalton-Nietzsche2.html

Notes to Part 2

17] Notably, “Barnabas.”  See Acts 14 and 15. [return]

18] The passage in Romans continues:  “The Deliverer [Redeemer] will come from Zion,” referring to the OT prophecy that “deliverance for Israel would come out of Zion” (Ps 14:7).  See also Isaiah 59:20.  [return]

19] Thomas is alleged to have lived a couple more years, until 72.  And several of the other apostles have unknown deaths, and thus may have been alive somewhere.  [return]

20] Lindemann (Esau’s Tears, 1997: 31) describes it this way:  “Both Paul and the writers of the Gospels radically redefined the traditional Jewish notion of messiah, from [an ordinary man] to that of a supernatural figure much resembling the dying and reviving salvation gods that were common to many pagan mystery cults of the day.  There were certainly many overlaps between those cults and early Christianity.”  [return]

21] Obesity data from www.nationmaster.com.  Religious attitudes are reported in the Pew Global Attitudes Project, 19 December 2002.  Data from nine nations shows a strong linear correlation (R2 value = 0.58).  Interestingly, the correlation between obesity and religiosity seems not to be found in Islam; Turkey, for example, is very religious (65% consider it ‘very important’), but has only a 12% obesity rate.  [return]

22] For Plato’s critique see Republic, Book 8.  On his view aristocracy was the ideal form, followed by timocracy and oligarchy; democracy and tyranny were the worst.  Aristotle saw democracy as a degenerate form of ‘rule by the masses’; see Politics, Book 3.  This may strike some as odd, given ancient Greece’s reputation for having invented democracy, and thriving because of it.  And relative to barbarism or anarchy, it was superior.  But it works best as participatory democracy, in a very small state.  Large, modern nation-states, of the kind Nietzsche considered, brought out the worst aspects of democracy.  [return]

23] As the most religious nation (59% ‘very important’), the U.S. is also most sympathetic:  48 percent of the population sympathizes more with Israel in the conflict in Palestine (Pew Research survey, 19 July 2006), a figure that rises to 57 percent among Christian Zionists.  Conversely, the European countries are both less religious and less sympathetic to Israel (which run 38 percent in France, 37 percent in Germany, 24 percent in the UK, 9 percent in Spain). [return]

24] According to Vanity Fair (October 2007), they make up more than half of the “100 most powerful people” in the world.  Of the top 400 richest individuals in the U.S., at least 149 (37%) are Jewish (top 400 reported in Forbes, 30 September 2009; Jewish count by Jacob Berman, www.blogs.jta.org [5 October 2009]).   Fully half of the top 50 political pundits are Jewish (top 50 list from Atlantic, September 2009; Jewish count by Steve Sailer [www.isteve.blogspot.com]).  In media and entertainment the dominance is almost total.  Jewish executives lead all five of the top U.S. media conglomerates — Time-Warner (Jeff Bewkes, Edgar Bronfman), Disney (Robert Iger), News Corp (Rupert Murdoch, Peter Chernin), Viacom (Sumner Redstone, Leslie Moonves, Philippe Dauman), NBC-Universal (Jeff Zucker).  All are Jewish except possibly for Murdoch.  Six of the top seven American newspapers have Jewish management.  Virtually every major Hollywood studio exec is Jewish — see “How Jewish is Hollywood?”, Los Angeles Times, 19 December 2008. [return]

25] In the political sphere, Jewish-Americans comprise 7 percent of the House and 15 percent of the Senate.  Even more impressively, some 80 to 90 percent of both chambers reflexively support Jewish interests.  The reason:  pro-Jewish individuals and lobbies supply half or more of political campaign contributions — for both major parties; see “Candidly speaking: Obama, Netanyahu and American Jews”  Jerusalem Post (11 May 2009).  The lobby AIPAC is among the top two or three most powerful in Washington, and they have absolute dominance in U.S. foreign policy.  All major presidential candidates bend over backward to placate Jewish interests.  For details on the American political scene, see Mearsheimer and Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (2007).  [return]

26] The Holocaust and the 9/11 attacks being the prime examples.   For the Holocaust, see my book Debating the Holocaust: A New Look at Both Sides (www.debatingtheholocaust.com) or G. Rudolf, Lectures on the Holocaust.  On the 9/11 controversy, see D. Griffin, Debunking 9/11 Debunking.  [return]