Geert Wilders’ Unrequited Love

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Geert Wilders loves Israel. He lived there for two years in his youth and sees it as a bastion of the West in a sea of Muslim barbarism: For example:

“If Jerusalem falls into the hands of the Muslims, Athens and Rome will be next. Thus, Jerusalem is the main front protecting the West. It is not a conflict over territory but rather an ideological battle, between the mentality of the liberated West and the ideology of Islamic barbarism. There has been an independent Palestinian state since 1946, and it is the kingdom of Jordan.” He called on the Dutch government to refer to Jordan as Palestine and move its embassy to Jerusalem.

Wilders also includes Judaism as part of the European cultural tradition, expressing his desire that “the European Judaeo-Christian tradition to be formally recognised as the dominating culture.”

Wilders also rejects certain elements of the right that are particularly offensive to Jews:

‘My allies are not Le Pen or Haider,’ he emphasises. ‘We’ll never join up with the fascists and Mussolinis of Italy. I’m very afraid of being linked with the wrong rightist fascist groups.’ Dutch iconoclasm, Scandinavian insistence on free expression, the right to provoke are what drive him, he says.

One would think then that Wilders would be popular among Jews, but he is not. It’s one thing to support Israel, but the problem is that he has the outlandish idea that Europe should be for Europeans and that immigration from Muslim countries should be halted.  Read more

Why Are Professors Liberal?

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Richard Redding’s LA Times op-ed,  “It’s Diverse If You Are Liberal” comes to the shocking conclusion that conservative viewpoints are excluded from college campuses. Who’d have thought? Indeed, “most [students] did not think it entirely safe to hold unpopular opinions on campus.”

Intellectual diversity is what schools value least. Instead, it is only diversity of race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation — all of which are very desirable, to be sure — that rules the day in higher education. This agenda dominates higher education in faculty hiring, student admissions, curricula, student life programs and virtually every other aspect of college life.

Redding must establish his bona fides by genuflecting before the gods of the “very desirable” forms of diversity. What if the conservative faculty he thinks would be a great addition turn out to really hate all this other diversity—as a real (at this point, revolutionary) conservative would?

I have a recent article on this, in The Occidental Quarterly—soon to be available online to subscribers. (Hint.) Redding notes that conservative students are at a disadvantage because “conservative students lack academic role models, have more distant relationships with their professors and have fewer opportunities to do research with professors (particularly on sociopolitical issues).” Read more

Christopher Donovan: The Media Eclipse That is Jon Stewart

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Jon Stewart is riding high these days.  The Jewish funnyman — born John Leibowitz — hosts the top-rated Daily Show, released the best-selling book Earth:  The Book and is set for a satirical rally designed to mock the conservative Whites who attended the Glenn Beck rally.  President Obama is scheduled to appear on his show.

He is of course celebrated by his co-ethnics in the media as a genius.

He isn’t, of course.  He’s a modestly funny, left-wing Jew straight from the tradition of the culture of critique.  America, to him, is a big place filled with dumb, doughy Whites whose foibles deserve merciless skewering.  He throws in the occasional mockery of others for an appearance of balance.

His own background is typically Jewish — and typically connected.  He’s from New Jersey, claims anti-Semitic bullying as a child, has a brother who’s chief operating officer of the New York Stock Exchange, and was once roommates with Anthony Weiner, the Jewish Congressman from New York City (to whom Stewart donates). Read more

Schopenhauer and the Perception of the Real or Surreal Postmodernity (Part 2)

Schopenhauer and the Perception of the Real or Surreal Postmodernity (Part 2)

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Schopenhauer is a crucial source in understanding the psychopathological impact of religions, myths and systems of beliefs. At times he labels them “allegories” whereas in other places he describes them as the “metaphysics of the masses” or “people’s metaphysics” (Volksmetaphysik). Just as people have popular poetry and the popular wisdoms or proverbs, they also need popular metaphysics. They need an interpretation of life; and this interpretation must be suited for their comprehension. The great majority of humans have at best a weak faculty for weighing reasons and discriminating between the fact and the fiction.  Does this sound familiar?

No belief system, no ideology, no religion is immune from self-serving delusional tenets linked to false perceptions of reality, although, in due time, each of them will undergo the process of demythologization and eventually become a laughing stock for those who see the illusions underlying these delusional myths.

We can illustrate this changing masquerade of history repeating itself when observing the mindset of modern opinion makers. People have always wished, by means of different allegories, to transcend their cursed reality and make frequent excursions into the spheres of the hyperreal, the unreal, or the surreal — in order to offset the absurdity of their existence. It is natural that they resort to religious and ideological devices, however aberrant or criminal these allegorical devices may subsequently turn out to be.

Accordingly, the motor of religious mass mimicry, which Schopenhauer describes, is again our objectified will. Consequently, the whole course of human life is patterned along the principle of imitation, where even the smallest thing in our perception is borrowed from that role model who is viewed now as a path-breaking innovator or a new messiah. Mimicry is the powerful motor of the will, the theme which was later expanded by Schopenhauer’s disciples, such as Gustave Le Bon.

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Rabbi Yosef’s Statement: “Goyim were born only to serve us”

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A strong sense of Jewish racial superiority can be seen in some recent statements by Israeli Sephardic leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef as well as quite a bit of other similar material.

The JTA article on the rabbi’s statement includes this disclaimer:

The American Jewish Committee condemned the rabbi’s remarks in a statement issued Monday.

“Rabbi Yosef’s remarks — suggesting outrageously that Jewish scripture asserts non-Jews exist to serve Jews — are abhorrent and an offense to human dignity and human equality,” said AJC Executive Director David Harris. “Judaism first taught the world that all individuals are created in the divine image, which helped form the basis of our moral code. A rabbi should be the first, not the last, to reflect that bedrock teaching of our tradition.”

Which goes to show how easy it is for the Jewish community to project whatever image it desires–no matter what the facts. Americans and other Westerners have been long indoctrinated with the view that Jewish ethics are universalist, so the AJC’s statement will have a ring of truth for most readers, Jews and non-Jews alike. Indeed, the AJC statement implies that Judaism made an irreplaceable contribution to universalist ethics.

The transformation of Jewish ethics to a veneer of universalism was an important project of the 19th-century attempt to present Judaism as on a par with Christianity.  In doing so, it trampled on a great deal of its own history. As John Murray Cuddihy noted, “these Diaspora groups were uninterested in actual history; they were apologists, ideologists, prefabricating a past in order to answer embarrassing questions, to outfit a new identity, and to ground a claim to equal treatment in the modern world” (The Ordeal of Civility, p. 177). Read more

Schopenhauer and the Perception of the Real or Surreal Postmodernity (Part 1)

Schopenhauer and the Perception of the Real or Surreal Postmodernity (Part I)

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The text below is the expanded version of Tom Sunic’s speech, delivered at the New Right conference in London, on October 23, 2010.

There is a danger in interpreting the text of some long gone author, let alone of some heavyweight philosopher, such as Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 – 1860). The interpreter tends to look at parts of the author’s prose that may best suit his own conclusions, while avoiding parts that other critics may find more relevant, and which the interpreter may consider either incomprehensible or irrelevant. This is true for Schopenhauer in so far as he deals in his multilayered work with diverse subject matters, ranging from the theories of knowledge, to the role of women, sex, eugenics, religion, etc., while offering aphoristic formulas on how to live a more or less liveable life.  Moreover, in his entire work Schopenhauer deals extensively with the perception of objective reality, our self-perception, and how our self-perception reflects itself in the perception of the Other, for instance in the mind of my political foe or friend. It’s no wonder that when Schopenhauer is read along with some postmodern authors, his work can retrospectively yield some groundbreaking insights, of which even he was not aware.

The devil is often in the details, but harping on the details alone may often overshadow the whole. Just because Schopenhauer was critical of Jewish monotheism, or made some critical remarks about women, should not lead us to the conclusion that he was a standard-bearer of anti-Semitism or a hater of women. The fact that Adolf Hitler was one of his avid readers should not overshadow the fact that the father of modern psychoanalysis, the Jewish-born Austrian Sigmund Freud, learned a get deal from him on the how irrational will is expressed in sexual drive.

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Jewish Liberals and Israel: Managing the Enemy

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Philip Weiss expressed his surprise that “liberal” rabbis would support buying products produced at a West Bank settlement. Of course, this is not too surprising, and one of his readers called him on it.  In the reader’s experience, there are plenty of rabbis who are

progressive on issues such as labor, immigration, environment, capital punishment, etc. …  They say they feel for the plight of the Palestinians, but when it comes to any real challenge to the status quo, such as BDS in any form, they are not to be found. Their voices during the Lebanon and Gaza invasions were there in mild, but very mild, criticism. They spend most of their time on the Middle East “reaching out to our Muslim brothers.” I must say they are very supportive of Muslim groups and Islamic mosques when it comes to anti-Muslim discrimination. But, there is an unstated and sometimes stated price for these folks to pay, which is “be gentle on Israel, be critical of certain measures, such as house demolitions, but be understanding in general.”

Since I work with the same Muslim groups, going back several years ago I found their deference to their “liberal Jewish friends who are so supportive of us” to be very frustrating. But, fortunately, these are not foolish people and they have now seen the ploy. As a result, while interfaith dialogue between liberal Jewish clergy and Muslims still exists, it is pretty much window dressing and Muslim groups are much more outspoken on Palestinian issues. But, in conclusion, liberal/progressive Jewish clergy in the LA area set back support for Palestinian rights like Wiesenthal Center, ADL and AIPAC never could; and I believe that was their role.

In my experience, it’s the same with secular Jewish academics: constantly reaching out to all non-White groups, including Muslims, and advocating all things multi-cultural. Paragons of tolerance and moral uplift, they are quick to make minor criticisms of Israel but never suggest that the US government or American Jews abandon their support for Israel or seriously question the settlement project. Their goal is to seek Muslim cooperation in the assault on White America while channeling Muslim outrage at Israel to manageable levels. In faculty email debates, the Jewish professors do all the talking, while their Muslim colleagues defer to them. So there were no peeps of protest by the Muslims when the Jewish activist professors ignored my suggestion that they channel all that moral outrage at intolerance, violations of human rights, and ethnic cleansing by directing their activism at changing policy in Israel. Read more