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  • Campaign against me by the Southern Poverty Law Center

    The Southern Poverty Law Center has initiated a campaign against me. The controversy started in September, 2006 when someone not connected with CSULB emailed all the full-time people in the Psychology Department — except me — alerting them to a comment about me at the SPLC website.  Heidi Beirich of the SPLC came to Long Beach from November 12–15 2006 to interview faculty and administrators about me. During the 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 academic years there was also a great deal of discussion and debate about my work and associations on faculty email lists. Eventually several departments issued statements dissociating themselves from my work and, in some cases, condemning my work. I was an active participant in these debates and I have replied to the statement of the History Department (see below). (The History Department statement was the only departmental statement that included specific charges related to my scholarship.) In April, 2008, Beirich returned to CSULB to lead a meeting in which she again denounced me. A speaker from the Anti-Defamation League also participated in this meeting. The following lists various news reports and articles related to these events.

    Academic Year 2006-2007

    Article by me: Heidi Does Long Beach: The SPLC vs. Academic Freedom. VDARE, November 14, 2006.

    Civil Rights Group Investigates Professor, CSULB Daily 49er, Nov. 13, 2006 (Local Version)

    Professor Discussed, Investigated Further,  CSULB Daily 49er, Dec. 5, 2006 (Local Version)

    On April 25, 2007, the SPLC released Beirich's report on me: Promoting Hate: California Professor is Font of Anti-Semitism.

    Los Angeles Times article on this report, April 25, 2007.

    Long Beach Press-Telegram article, April 26, 2007.

    Inside Higher Education article, April 26, 2007, with commentary from readers. Local version:

    National Public Radio Interview with Adolfo Guzman Lopez, April 25, 2007 (Requires RealPlayer.) LOCAL

    SPLC comment on CSULB response, July 30, 2007. Local

    Academic Year 2007-2008

    Psychology department to issue statement on professor's controversial literature, CSULB Daily 49er, February 7, 2008.

    My Replies to the CSULB History Department Statement of April 4, 2008:

        Reply #1 on Jewish involvement in influencing U.S. immigration policy

        Reply #2 on Issues in European social history.

        Reply #3 on my work generally 

    Psychology professor denounces departments' reprimands of his work, CSULB Daily 49er, April 14, 2008. 

    Hate speech forum makes waves in Beach Auditorium: CSULB psychology professor Kevin MacDonald, anti-illegal immigration sentiments and white supremacist "lone wolves" discussed. CSULB Daily 49er, April 15, 2008.

    ADL report.

    The Professor Anti-Semites Love. Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, May 9, 2008.

        My comment on the article.

     

     

    Academic Year 2008-2009

    Article in the Jewish Chronicle (a publication of the Greater Long Beach and West Orange County Jewish Federation), October, 2008

    Article in the Long Beach Press-Telegram, October 3, 2008:

    Faculty votes disapproval of professor: CSULB: Academic Senate distances itself from Kevin MacDonald's controversial works. (Local)

    By Kevin Butler, Staff Writer

    LONG BEACH - The Cal State Long Beach Academic Senate has voted to disassociate itself from the writings of a controversial psychology professor who has been accused of having anti-Semitic and white ethnocentric views.

    "While the Academic Senate defends Dr. Kevin MacDonald's academic freedom and freedom of speech, as it does for all faculty, it firmly and unequivocally disassociates itself from the anti-Semitic and white ethnocentric views he has expressed," according to the resolution Thursday.

    Responding to the resolution, MacDonald, a tenured professor, said "everyone has ethnic interests."

    "This is an absolutely respectable scientific proposal," he wrote in the e-mail to the Press-Telegram.

    "European Americans are the only group whose ethnic interests have been pathologized," he added. "No one disputes that Koreans, say, have ethnic interests and have a right to keep Korea Korean."

    "Quite a few of the people who voted to censure me are ethnic activists on behalf of their ethnic group," he continued. "The College of Liberal Arts is full of these people. Yet only I am censured."

    MacDonald had been invited to discuss his work with the Academic Senate prior to the vote, but he did not respond, according to Academic Senate chairman Praveen Soni.

    MacDonald's research on Jews has been called anti-Semitic by organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

    Academic senate disassociates itself from Professor MacDonald. Article in the CSULB Daily Forty-Niner, October 7, 2008.


    "Stalinism lives — in the CSULB Women’s Studies Department,"  The Occidental Observer, Nov. 1, 2008.

  • Academic Year 2009-2010 

    "The academic left's involvement in politics" blog from The Occidental Observer, Feb. 1, 2010."

    Jousting with CSULB Students," The Occidental Observer, Feb. 23, 2010. 

    "Academic ‘left’ opposes free speech, academic freedom," Op-Ed in the CSULB Daily 49er, Feb. 22, 2010. (Local) 

 

    Academic Year 2011-2012

    In April 2012, Mark Potok of the SPLC wrote an article claiming that I engaged in "opprobrious, flagrant, insulting, defamatory’ speech” and should therefore be fired from the University.

    Potok's article: “Anti-Semitic California Prof Now Attacking Black People with Lies“

    My Comment: "The Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman Affair: Enter the SPLC (and CSULB) Thought Police"

    Academic Year 2013-2014

    More Evil from Heidi Beirich, The Occidental Observer, July 1, 2013

    Article in the Daily 49er on not being allowed to teach in Fall of 2014 ("Controversial Psychology Professor to Retire in the Fall." (Local)

     


    Heidi Beirich asked to interview me as part her Nov. 2006 visit to CSULB. This page contains an email exchange between Beirich and me where I point out a variety of distortions of my work that appeared in an article on me that she and Mark Potok (another SPLC staff member) wrote. [This is a local version of that article. Many of the same distortions and inaccuracies appear in the comment about me at the SPLC website.]  Given Ms Beirich's poor record in accurately portraying my writings, I had no confidence that she would conduct and report on an interview with me in a non-biased way. Nevertheless, I offered to be interviewed by her if she would answer my concerns about her previous writing about me. She did not respond to this offer. Go directly to the email exchange between Beirich and me:


    How I Got Here: My Personal Intellectual and Political Odyssey

    Part of the controversy has been over my ideas and my intellectual and political associations. They are the result of a long odyssey that has eventually led me to beliefs and attitudes that were once a powerful mainstream current of U.S. political and intellectual opinion but are now well outside the mainstream. In my view, the main reason for this change has been the intellectual and political movements discussed in my book, The Culture of Critique.

    One of the few accurate claims in the Potok and Beirich piece is that I started out on the far left during my time as a student at the University of Wisconsin in the 1960s and well into the 1970s. But they don't discuss how I got to where I am now. My writing on Judaism started out as an interesting theoretical exercise in evolutionary psychology and the theory of groups but gradually changed my life as I read more on history, especially the history of Jews and anti-Semitism. What really changed my perspective was during the late 1990s when I began to read the history of the changes in U.S. immigration policy culminating in the 1965 law. I regard this change as contrary to the interests of the European-descended people of the United States, and I am on firm ground when I argue in Chapter 7 of The Culture of Critique that this was mainly the result of Jewish ethnic activism. Consider the following from Hugh Davis Graham's Collision Course: The Strange Convergence of Affirmative Action and Immigration Policy in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002; pp. 56–57):

    Most important for the content of immigration reform [i.e., loosening], the driving force at the core of the movement, reaching back to the 1920s, were Jewish organizations long active in opposing racial and ethnic quotas. These included the American Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, and the American Federation of Jews from Eastern Europe. Jewish members of the Congress, particularly representatives from New York and Chicago, had maintained steady but largely ineffective pressure against the national origins quotas since the 1920s.... Following the shock of the Holocaust, Jewish leaders had been especially active in Washington in furthering immigration reform. To the public, the most visible evidence of the immigration reform drive was played by Jewish legislative leaders, such as Representative Celler and Senator Jacob Javits of New York. Less visible, but equally important, were the efforts of key advisers on presidential and agency staffs. These included senior policy advisers such as Julius Edelson and Harry Rosenfield in the Truman administration, Maxwell Rabb in the Eisenhower White House, and presidential aide Myer Feldman, assistant secretary of state Abba Schwartz, and deputy attorney general Norbert Schlei in the Kennedy-Johnson administration.

     
    The movement that this sea change in law unleashed will eventually cause the displacement of the American population as it was constituted in 1965. The following passage from the Preface to the Paperback edition of Culture of Critique discusses my personal odyssey:
     

    THE QUESTION OF BIAS

    I have several times been called an 'anti-Semite' for the tone of some of my writings, both in CofC and my comments on various Internet discussion lists. To be perfectly frank, I did not have a general animus for organized Jewry when I got into this project. I was a sort of ex-radical turned moderate Republican fan of George Will. Before even looking at Judaism I applied the same evolutionary perspective to the ancient Spartans and then to the imposition of monogamy by the Catholic Church during the middle ages (see MacDonald 1988a, 1995b). There are quite a few statements in my books that attempt to soften the tone and deflect charges of anti-Jewish bias. The first page of my first book on Judaism, A People that Shall Dwell Alone (MacDonald 1994), clearly states that the traits I ascribe to Judaism (self-interest, ethnocentrism, and competition for resources and reproductive success) are by no means restricted to Jews. I also write about the extraordinary Jewish IQ and about Jewish accomplishments (e.g., Nobel prizes) in that book. In the second book, Separation and Its Discontents (MacDonald 1998a), I discuss the tendency for anti-Semites to exaggerate their complaints, to develop fantastic and unverifiable theories of Jewish behavior, to exaggerate the extent of Jewish cohesion and unanimity, to claim that all Jews share stereotypically Jewish traits or attitudes, especially in cases where in fact Jews are over-represented among people having certain attitudes (e.g., political radicalism during most of the 20th century). And I describe the tendency of some anti-Semites to develop grand conspiracy theories in which all historical events of major or imagined importance, from the French Revolution to the Tri-lateral Commission are linked together in one grand plot and blamed on the Jews. All of this is hardly surprising on the basis of what we know about the psychology of ethnic conflict. But that doesn't detract in the least from supposing that real conflicts of interest are at the heart of all of the important historical examples of anti-Semitism. Most of this is in the first chapter of Separation and Its Discontents -- front and center as it were, just as my other disclaimers are in the first chapter of A People that Shall Dwell Alone.

    It must be kept in mind that group evolutionary strategies are not benign, at least in general and especially in the case of Judaism, which has often been very powerful and has had such extraordinary effects on the history of the West. I think there is a noticeable shift in my tone from the first book to the third simply because (I'd like to think) I knew a lot more and had read a lot more. People often say after reading the first book that they think I really admire Jews, but they are unlikely to say that about the last two and especially about CofC. That is because by the time I wrote CofC I had changed greatly from the person who wrote the first book. The first book is really only a documentation of theoretically interesting aspects of group evolutionary strategies using Judaism as a case study (how Jews solved the free-rider problem, how they managed to erect and enforce barriers between themselves and other peoples, the genetic cohesion of Judaism, how some groups of Jews came to have such high IQ's, how Judaism developed in antiquity). Resource competition and other conflicts of interest with other groups are more or less an afterthought, but these issues move to the foreground in Separation and Its Discontents, and in CofC I look exclusively at the 20th century in the West. Jews have indeed made positive contributions to Western culture in the last 200 years. But whatever one might think are the unique and irreplaceable Jewish contributions to the post-Enlightenment world, it is na?ضe to suppose they were intended for the purpose of benefiting humanity solely or even primarily. In any case I am hard pressed to think of any area of modern Western government and social organization (certainly) and business, science, and technology (very probably) that would not have developed without Jewish input, although in some cases perhaps not quite as quickly. In general, positive impacts of Jews have been quantitative rather than qualitative. They have accelerated some developments, for example in finance and some areas of science, rather than made them possible.

    On the other hand, I am persuaded that Jews have also had some important negative influences. I am morally certain that Jewish involvement in the radical left in the early to middle part of the last century was a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for many of the horrific events in the Soviet Union and elsewhere. (About this, of course, one can disagree. I am simply saying that I find the evidence compelling.) But the main point is that I came to see Jewish groups as competitors with the European majority of the U.S., as powerful facilitators of the enormous changes that have been unleashed in this country, particularly via the successful advocacy of massive non-European immigration into the U.S. I found that I was being transformed in this process from a semi-conservative academic who had little or no identification with his own people into an ethnically conscious person -- exactly as predicted by the theory of social identity processes that forms the basis of my theory of anti-Semitism (see MacDonald 1998a). In fact, if one wants to date when I dared cross the line into what some see as proof that I am an 'anti-Semite,' the best guess would probably be when I started reading on the involvement of all the powerful Jewish organizations in advocating massive non-European immigration. My awareness began with my reading a short section in a standard history of American Jews well after the first book was published. The other influences that I attributed to Jewish activities were either benign (psychoanalysis?) or reversible -- even radical leftism, so they didn't much bother me. I could perhaps even ignore the towering hypocrisy of Jewish ethnocentrism coinciding as it does with Jewish activism against the ethnocentrism of non-Jewish Europeans. But the long-term effects of immigration will be essentially irreversible barring some enormous cataclysm.

    I started to realize that my interests are quite different from prototypical Jewish interests. There need to be legitimate ways of talking about people who oppose policies recommended by the various Jewish establishments without simply being tarred as 'anti-Semites'. Immigration is only one example where there are legitimate conflicts of interest. As I write this (November, 2001), we are bogged down in a war with no realizable endgame largely because of influence of the Jewish community over one area of our foreign policy and because of how effectively any mention of the role of Israel in creating friction between the U.S. and the Arab world — indeed the entire Muslim world — is muzzled simply by the cry of anti-Semitism. [Addendum, Nov. 2006: This point has continued to receive attention. I wrote an article on neoconservatism as a Jewish movement (2004), and John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have published their very influential article on the power and influence of the Israel Lobby (2006). The influence of the Israel Lobby over U.S. foreign policy and the use of charges of "anti-Semitism" to stifle debate are prominent features of both articles.] And at home we have entered into an incalculably dangerous experiment in creating a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural society in which the intellectual elite has developed the idea that the formerly dominant European majority has a moral obligation to allow itself to be eclipsed demographically and culturally -- the result, at least at its inception and to a considerable degree thereafter, of the influence of Jewish interest groups on immigration policy and the influence of Jewish intellectual movements on our intellectual and cultural life generally. As noted above, the rise of Jewish power and the disestablishment of the specifically European nature of the U.S. are the real topics of CofC.

    I agree that there is bias in the social sciences and I certainly don't exempt myself from this tendency. It is perhaps true that by the time I finished CofC I should have stated my attitudes in the first chapter. Instead, they are placed in the last chapter of CofC -- rather forthrightly I think. In a sense putting them at the end was appropriate because my attitudes about Jewish issues marked a cumulative, gradual change from a very different world view.

    It is annoying that such disclaimers rarely appear in writing by strongly identified Jews even when they see their work as advancing Jewish interests. A major theme of the CofC is that Jewish social scientists with a strong Jewish identity have seen their work as advancing Jewish interests. It is always amazing to me that media figures like the Kristols and Podhoretzes and foreign policy experts like Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle do not feel an obligation to precede their remarks on issues affected by their solicitude for Israel by saying, 'you should be wary of what I say because I have a vested ethnic interest in advancing the interests of Israel.' But the same thing goes for vast areas of anthropology (the Boasian school and racial differences research), history (e.g., obviously apologetic accounts of the history and causes of anti-Semitism or the role of Jews in the establishment of Bolshevism), psychology (the Frankfurt School, psychoanalysis), and contemporary issues (immigration, church-state relations). The point of CofC that really galls people is the idea that we should simply acknowledge this bias in (some) Jewish researchers as we do in others. There are a great many books on how Darwin and Galton were influenced by the general atmosphere of Victorian England, but writing of a Jewish bias immediately results in charges of 'anti-Semitism.'

    But the deeper point is that, whatever my motivations and biases, I would like to suppose that my work on Judaism at least meets the criteria of good social science, even if I have come to the point of seeing my subjects in a less than flattering light. In the end, does it really matter if my motivation at this point is less than pristine? Isn't the only question whether I am right?


     

    The following sections from my reply to John Derbyshire's review of The Culture of Critique illustrate how I see conflicts of interest between Jews and non-Jews:

    It doesn't require an evolutionary theory to realize that good, reasonable people can have conflicts of interest, and that the results of conflicts of interest can be devastating to the side that loses. My view is that modern evolutionary theory gives us a powerful way of understanding why this must be so. Anti-Semites have often portrayed Jews as the embodiment of evil. Consistent with evolutionary theory, however, I have documented that Jews tend to be highly intelligent, good parents, and patriots fighting to preserve their people and extend their people's power and influence — sometimes at the expense of the interests of other peoples. Many organized groups of Jews have pursued such conservative goals by resisting other groups and behaving aggressively against them. By the same logic, it is legitimate for non-Jews to defend their own ethnic interests. Is this a formula for perpetual conflict? Hopefully not, but the only hope for a just resolution is to recognize the nature of the situation and agree on terms, not to deny the importance of one's own interests.  . . .

     Derbyshire does not think it hypocritical for Jews to promote multiculturalism in the U.S. while wishing to maintain Jewish ethnic dominance in Israel. The hypocrisy comes from the fact that, as I note in Chapter 8 of The Culture of Critique, the Jewish advocacy of Israel as a Jewish ethnostate coincided with a major effort by Jewish organizations and Jewish-dominated intellectual and political movements to supplant the prevailing view of the United States as a European Christian civilization with a predominantly European ethnic base. Especially hypocritical is that the disestablishment of the European basis of American identity was performed with appeal to universalist Enlightenment ideals of justice and individual rights, while it pathologized the ethnocultural basis of American civilization that had become an important foundation of American identity by the early decades of the 20th century. Although it is common for defenders of Israel to describe Israel as a democracy based on Western political ideals, I have yet to see any important Jewish organization or intellectual movement pathologize the ethnic basis of Israeli society or challenge the many ways in which Jewish ethnic interests are officially recognized in Israeli law and custom (e.g., the Law of Return). Indeed, the American Jewish community has been complicit in the ongoing ethnic warfare in the Middle East that has resulted in the dispossession, degradation, and large-scale murder of the Palestinians.

    Derbyshire accuses me of being one of those who would prefer "a return to the older dispensation" — the older cultural and ethnic mix characteristic of the United States until the changes inaugurated in the last 35 years. I plead guilty to this charge. That regime was stable and it was good for people like me (and Derbyshire), and even for the American Jewish community who saw the modest, low-profile, non-violent character of anti-Jewish attitudes that were fairly common prior to World War II dwindle to irrelevance in the postwar period. Nothing wrong with that.

     


     

    Email Exchange between Heidi Beirich and me, November 6–7, 2006

    Ms Beirich: Re your request for an interview: I'd be happy to give you an interview if you send a letter to university administrators and the College of Liberal Arts faculty clarifying issues arising in the article on me that you and Mark Potok wrote. [This is a local version of that article.] You claim that you "don't print falsehoods at the SPLC." If so, then please respond to the following issues.

    1.) Why do you refer to me as having a masters degree when I have a Ph.D.? Obviously, the intent is to make your readers think I don't have a Ph.D. and am therefore less qualified to write on these issues.

    2.) You state, "Jews, he says, have historically been in the minority, so they've collectively decided to push multiculturalism, interracial marriage, and socialism on Gentiles — even as they hypocritically pursue group cohesiveness among themselves - to destabilize society and diminish threats to themselves." I have never discussed interracial marriage as a theme of 20th-century Jewish intellectual and political movements or anywhere else that I know of. Please tell me and the rest of the CSULB faculty where this comes from. The rest is a gross oversimplification of an entire book, leaving out the evidence and the qualifications from the book.

    3.) You state "Harvard's Steven Pinker, a respected psychology professor, characterized MacDonald's work as failing 'basic tests of scientific credibility.'" Why do you only cite a negative comment and ignore all the positive comments about my work, including academics? Why don't you point out that, according to the letter, Pinker had not read my work before he made his comments. Why don't you mention that I have responded to Pinker's comments in detail:

    http://www.kevinmacdonald.net/Pinker.htm

    Why don't you note that in his review of The Culture of Critique in the Human Ethology Bulletin, Frank Salter of the Max Planck Institute comments as follows:

    On a personal note, it is overdue that John Tooby and Steven Pinker applied their professional skills seriously to critique MacDonald's work in the appropriate scientific forums. This now seems obligatory as a matter of professional duty given the severity of their attack on a colleague who has refrained from ad hominems throughout this sorry event. Still, it is now too late to reverse the harm done to both MacDonald's and probably HBES's reputation by what can only be judged reckless, unscholarly, and plain uncivil slurs. For these they should apologize....

    http://www.csulb.edu/~kmacd/review-salter.html

    4.) I have resigned from the NPI and my name no longer appears on their website. I have indeed published in The Occidental Quarterly because it is the only available outlet for my writing on Jewish topics. I don't necessarily endorse all of the attitudes reflected in all of the articles.

    5.) People tend to think that the SPLC is a reputable organization. However, there have been credible reports of ethical lapses even from critics on the left. Many of these criticisms have to do with fund raising tactics, indiscriminate charges of racism, exaggeration of the power of certain groups, and failure to provide the context of speeches and quotations, thereby leading to false inferences. See, for example:

    http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pubs.asp?ID=536  [Note: The following three links did not appear in the original email exchange between Beirich and me.]

    Ken Silverstein, "The Church of Morris Dees." Harper's Magazine, November, 2000.

    Paul Gottried on the SPLC (Taki's Top Drawer, March, 18, 2007).

    Joann Wypijewski, "To the Back of the Bus." The Nation, December 25, 2000.

    Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Poverty_Law_Center 

    6.) You state, "This leads MacDonald to some remarkable conclusions; he blames the deaths of "millions of people" on "the failure of Jewish assimilation into European societies," This presumably refers to the following passage from the last chapter of Culture of Critique:

    I have suggested that there is a fundamental and irresolvable friction between Judaism and prototypical Western political and social structure. The present political situation in the United States (and several other Western countries) is so dangerous because of the very real possibility that the Western European tendency toward hierarchic harmony has a biological basis.

    The greatest mistake of the Jewish-dominated intellectual movements described in this volume is that they have attempted to establish the moral superiority of societies that embody a preconceived moral ideal (compatible with the continuation of Judaism as a group evolutionary strategy) rather than advocate social structures based on the ethical possibilities of naturally occurring types.[i] In the twentieth century many millions of people have been killed in the attempt to establish Marxist societies based on the ideal of complete economic and social leveling, and many more millions of people have been killed as a result of the failure of Jewish assimilation into European societies. Although many intellectuals continue to attempt to alter fundamental Western tendencies toward assimilation, muted individualism, and hierarchic harmony, there is a real possibility that these Western ideals are not only more achievable but also profoundly ethical. Uniquely among all stratified cultures of the world, prototypical Western societies have provided the combination of a genuine sense of belonging, a large measure of access to reproductive opportunities, and the political participation of all social classes combined with the possibilities of meritocratic upward social mobility.

    This comment appears in a fairly speculative section at the end of the book in which I briefly describe the tension between what I view as Western tendencies toward individualism being threatened when a society becomes organized around conflicting and competing ingroups and outgroups. I offer the hypothesis that individualism cannot survive high levels of ingroup/outgroup competition as an empirical proposition based on my reading of some historical examples. From this perspective, lack of assimilation becomes a problem leading to group conflict and eventually, in some cases violence. Indeed, my second book on Judaism, Separation and Its Discontents, argues that competition between groups is the root cause of anti-Semitism and the most intense, bloody conflicts between Jews and non-Jews over the ages. That is what I am saying here.

    I think that my critics essentially want me to assert that Jewish behavior is utterly irrelevant to anti-Semitism, and I cannot accept that point of view. I am hardly alone in supposing that Jewish behavior-very often Jewish success-must be taken into account in any adequate theory of anti-Semitism.

    Such beliefs were common among Zionists beginning in the late nineteenth century, and they are also apparent in the work of historians such as Jacob Katz and Albert Lindemann (see Lindemann's Esau's Tears for a particularly compelling account.) My position is that we should not simply assume that every instance of anti-Semitism is completely irrational. (Let me emphasize that by 'rational' I mean 'predictable' or 'explicable', not 'justified'.) Rather, we should suppose that in general there are indeed real conflicts of interest between groups and that outbreaks of hostility are a complex interplay of fantasy and reality. Anti-Semitism, like hatred directed at other ethnic groups, has taken many different forms from simple dislike to economic boycotts, enforced social ostracism, pogroms, expulsion and genocide. The result is that even after one has the outlines of a theory of anti-Semitism, there remains the task of attempting to understand in detail how it develops in particular areas. For example, Poland and other Eastern European nations did not initiate a Holocaust despite a great deal of anti-Semitism. Like others, I think that to understand specific horrors of the Holocaust one must understand the psychology of the top Nazi leadership, but that is not the subject of my book or my area of expertise.

    Are you willing to modify or provide qualifications to your comments?

    7.) You state, that MacDonald "suggests that colleges restrict Jewish admission and Jews be heavily taxed 'to counter the Jewish advantage in the possession of wealth.'" This is really outrageous. There is a big difference between advocating something and discussing this as a grim likelihood. I am discussing the possible consequences of a hypothetical ethnicity-based spoils system. Please tell me how you would change your comments given this context. This is the relevant section; the section on Jews appears in the second to the last quoted paragraph:

    In recent years there has been an increasing rejection among intellectuals and minority ethnic activists of the idea of creating a melting pot society based on assimilation among ethnic groups (see, e.g., Schlesinger 1992).

    Cultural and ethnic differences are emphasized in these writings, and ethnic assimilation and homogenization are viewed in negative terms. The tone of these writings is reminiscent of the views of many late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Jewish intellectuals who rejected the assimilationist effects of Reform Judaism in favor of Zionism or a return to a more extreme form of cultural separatism such as Conservative or Orthodox Judaism.

    The movement toward ethnic separatism is of considerable interest from an evolutionary point of view. Between-group competition and monitoring of outgroups have been a characteristic of Jewish-gentile interactions not only in the West but also in Muslim societies, and there are examples of between-group competition and conflict too numerous to mention in other parts of the world. Historically, ethnic separatism, as seen in the history of Judaism, has been a divisive force within societies. It has on several occasions unleashed enormous intra-societal hatred and distrust, ethnically based warfare, expulsions, pogroms, and attempts at genocide. Moreover, there is little reason to suppose that the future will be much different. At the present time there are ethnically based conflicts on every continent, and clearly the establishment of Israel has not ended ethnically based conflict for Jews returning from the diaspora.

    Indeed, my review of the research on contact between more or less impermeable groups in historical societies strongly suggests a general rule that between-group competition and monitoring of ingroup and outgroup success are the norm. These results are highly consistent with psychological research on social identity processes reviewed in SAID (Ch. 1). From an evolutionary perspective, these results confirm the expectation that ethnic self-interest is indeed important in human affairs, and obviously ethnicity remains a common source of group identity in the contemporary world. People appear to be aware of group membership and have a general tendency to devalue and compete with outgroups. Individuals are also keenly aware of the relative standing of their own group in terms of resource control and relative reproductive success. They are also willing to take extraordinary steps to achieve and retain economic and political power in defense of these group imperatives.

    Given the assumption of ethnic separatism, it is instructive to think of the circumstances that would, from an evolutionary perspective, minimize group conflict. Theorists of cultural pluralism such as Horace Kallen (1924) envision a scenario in which different ethnic groups retain their distinctive identity in the context of complete political equality and economic opportunity. The difficulty with this scenario from an evolutionary perspective (or even a common sense perspective) is that no provision is made for the results of competition for resources and reproductive success within the society. Indeed, the results of ethnic strife were apparent in Kallen's day, but "Kallen lifted his eyes above the strife that swirled around him to an ideal realm where diversity and harmony coexist" (Higham 1984, 209).

    In the best of circumstances one might suppose that separated ethnic groups would engage in absolute reciprocity with each other, so that there would be no differences in terms of economic exploitation of one ethnic group by the other. Moreover, there would be no differences on any measure of success in society, including social class membership, economic role (e.g., producer versus consumer; creditor versus debtor; manager versus worker), or fertility between the separated ethnic groups. All groups would have approximately equal numbers and equal political power; or if there were different numbers, provisions would exist to ensure that minorities would retain equitable representation in terms of the markers of social and reproductive success. Such conditions would minimize hostility between the groups because attributing one's status to the actions of the other groups would be difficult.

    Given the existence of ethnic separatism, however, it would still be in the interests of each group to advance its own interests at the expense of the other groups. All things being equal, a given ethnic group would be better off if it ensured that the other groups had fewer resources, lower social status, lower fertility, and proportionately less political power than itself. The hypothesized steady state of equality therefore implies a set of balance-of-power relationships-each side constantly checking to make sure that the other is not cheating; each side constantly looking for ways to dominate and exploit by any means possible; each side willing to compromise only because of the other sides's threat of retaliation; each side willing to cooperate at cost only if forced to do so by, for example, the presence of external threat. Clearly, any type of cooperation that involves true altruism toward the other group could not be expected.

    Thus the ideal situation of absolute equality in resource control and reproductive success would certainly require a great deal of monitoring and undoubtedly be characterized by a great deal of mutual suspicion. In the real world, however, even this rather grim ideal is highly unlikely. In the real world, ethnic groups differ in their talents and abilities; they differ in their numbers, fertility, and the extent to which they encourage parenting practices conducive to resource acquisition; they also differ in the resources held at any point in time and in their political power.

    Equality or proportionate equity would be extremely difficult to attain or to maintain after it has been achieved without extraordinary levels of monitoring and without extremely intense social controls to enforce ethnic quotas on the accumulation of wealth, admission to universities, access to high status jobs, and so on.

    Because ethnic groups have differing talents and abilities and differing parenting styles, variable criteria for qualifying and retaining jobs would be required depending on ethnic group membership. Moreover, achieving parity between Jews and other ethnic groups would entail a high level of discrimination against individual Jews for admission to universities or access to employment opportunities and even entail a large taxation on Jews to counter the Jewish advantage in the possession of wealth, since at present Jews are vastly overrepresented among the wealthy and the successful in the United States. This would especially be the case if Jews were distinguished as a separate ethnic group from gentile European Americans.

    Indeed, the final evolution of many of the New York Intellectuals from Stalinism was to become neoconservatives who have been eloquent opponents of affirmative action and quota mechanisms for distributing resources. (Sachar [1992, 818ff] mentions Daniel Bell, Sidney Hook, Irving Howe, Irving Kristol, Nathan Glazer, Charles Krauthammer, Norman Podhoretz, and Earl Raab as opposed to affirmative action.) Jewish organizations (including the ADL, the AJCommittee, and the AJCongress) have taken similar positions Sachar (1992, 818ff).

    In the real world, therefore, extraordinary efforts would have to be made to attain this steady state of ethnic balance of power and resources. . . .

     

    -----Original Message-----

    From: Heidi Beirich [mailto:Heidi.Beirich@splcenter.org]

    Sent: Tuesday, November 07, 2006 6:42 AM

    To: Kevin MacDonald

    Subject: Re: Interview

    OK. I'll write no comment from you and that you wouldn't discuss facts for the purposes of accuracy.

    Heidi

     

    On 11/6/06 4:46 PM, "Kevin MacDonald" <kmacd@csulb.edu> wrote:

    > You're right. I don't believe that you don't print falsehoods

    > knowingly and I do think you would love to get me fired. No thanks. KM

    >

    > -----Original Message-----

    > From: Heidi Beirich [mailto:hbeirich@splcenter.org]

    > Sent: Monday, November 06, 2006 2:41 PM

    > To: kmacd@csulb.edu

    > Subject: Interview

    >

    > Dear Dr. MacDonald,

    > I was hoping you might be willing to be interviewed when I come to

    > your campus next week. I know you have seen my email to the faculty

    > list and greatly disagreed with what I had to say. I hoped you might

    > be willing to express your opinions about your work and academic

    > freedom to me as well. I also have several things I would like to fact

    > check with you, such as your relationship with NPI and TOQ. Although

    > you might not believe it, we don't print falsehoods at SPLC and I have

    > no intent to attack academic freedom. I would greatly appreciate a

    > chance

    to talk with you.

    > Best,

    > Heidi Beirich

    > ****************

    > Heidi Beirich, Ph.D.

    > Deputy Director

    > Intelligence Project

    > Southern Poverty Law Center

    > 400 Washington Ave.

    > Montgomery, AL 36104

    > (334) 956-8309 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting            (334) 956-8309      end_of_the_skype_highlighting

    >

    >