UPDATE: Half Sigma has a response here, though not much new content.
More GSS fun! In response to something Whiskey said, I have updated my post on women & immigration. I got home today planning on doing a different GSS post. There had been two recent posts at the Hoover Hog on anti-semites, and a theme that stuck with me is the theory that Jews are pursuing a group evolutionary strategy against the white race. This is used by the racial right (although some deny being rightists) to explain Jewish liberalism. Half Sigma, in contrast, explains Jewish liberalism as being motivated to keep school prayer away from their kids, as Christianity with all its fun holidays and lack of dietary restrictions is just too much of a temptation for a Jewish mother to hazard. I’m going to look at questions that are racially vs religiously charged and compare the responses of Jews vs whites generally to see where the gap is larger.
LETIN for RELIG(3)
| Summary Statistics | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean = | 3.45 | Std Dev = | .86 | Coef var = | .25 | |||
| Median = | 3.00 | Variance = | .74 | Min = | 2.00 | |||
| Mode = | 3.00 | Skewness = | .39 | Max = | 5.00 | |||
| Sum = | 235.02 | Kurtosis = | -.58 | Range = | 3.00 | |||
| Cells contain:
-Column percent -Weighted N |
Distribution | |
|---|---|---|
| LETIN | 2: INCREASED A LITTLE | 9.6
7 |
| 3: SAME AS NOW | 50.3
34 |
|
| 4: DECREASED A LITTLE | 25.6
17 |
|
| 5: DECREASED A LOT | 14.4
10 |
|
| COL TOTAL | 100.0
68 |
|
For RACE(1)
| Summary Statistics | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean = | 3.77 | Std Dev = | 1.00 | Coef var = | .27 | |||
| Median = | 4.00 | Variance = | 1.00 | Min = | 1.00 | |||
| Mode = | 3.00 | Skewness = | -.39 | Max = | 5.00 | |||
| Sum = | 8,381.33 | Kurtosis = | -.28 | Range = | 4.00 | |||
| Cells contain:
-Column percent -Weighted N |
Distribution | |
|---|---|---|
| LETIN | 1: INCREASED A LOT | 2.6
58 |
| 2: INCREASED A LITTLE | 4.0
88 |
|
| 3: SAME AS NOW | 36.8
818 |
|
| 4: DECREASED A LITTLE | 27.3
606 |
|
| 5: DECREASED A LOT | 29.4
654 |
|
| COL TOTAL | 100.0
2,224 |
|
The absolute difference in means divided by standard deviation for RACE(1): 0.32
AFFRMACT for RELIG(3)
| Summary Statistics | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean = | 3.32 | Std Dev = | .95 | Coef var = | .29 | |||
| Median = | 4.00 | Variance = | .90 | Min = | 1.00 | |||
| Mode = | 4.00 | Skewness = | -1.23 | Max = | 4.00 | |||
| Sum = | 752.84 | Kurtosis = | .39 | Range = | 3.00 | |||
| Cells contain:
-Column percent -Weighted N |
Distribution | |
|---|---|---|
| AFFRMACT | 1: STRONGLY SUPPORT PREF | 8.1
18 |
| 2: SUPPORT PREF | 9.8
22 |
|
| 3: OPPOSE PREF | 24.6
56 |
|
| 4: STRONGLY OPPOSE PREF | 57.5
131 |
|
| COL TOTAL | 100.0
227 |
|
For RACE(1)
| Summary Statistics | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean = | 3.46 | Std Dev = | .83 | Coef var = | .24 | |||
| Median = | 4.00 | Variance = | .69 | Min = | 1.00 | |||
| Mode = | 4.00 | Skewness = | -1.59 | Max = | 4.00 | |||
| Sum = | 31,677.78 | Kurtosis = | 1.84 | Range = | 3.00 | |||
| Cells contain:
-Column percent -Weighted N |
Distribution | |
|---|---|---|
| AFFRMACT | 1: STRONGLY SUPPORT PREF | 5.4
494 |
| 2: SUPPORT PREF | 5.8
536 |
|
| 3: OPPOSE PREF | 26.4
2,422 |
|
| 4: STRONGLY OPPOSE PREF | 62.3
5,712 |
|
| COL TOTAL | 100.0
9,163 |
|
The absolute difference in means divided by standard deviation for RACE(1): 0.17
RACPUSH (“(Negroes/blacks/African-Americans) shouldn’t push themselves where they’re not wanted.”) for RELIG(3)
| Summary Statistics | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean = | 2.88 | Std Dev = | 1.13 | Coef var = | .39 | |||
| Median = | 3.00 | Variance = | 1.28 | Min = | 1.00 | |||
| Mode = | 4.00 | Skewness = | -.46 | Max = | 4.00 | |||
| Sum = | 1,187.31 | Kurtosis = | -1.24 | Range = | 3.00 | |||
| Cells contain:
-Column percent -Weighted N |
Distribution | |
|---|---|---|
| RACPUSH | 1: AGREE STRONGLY | 16.8
69 |
| 2: AGREE SLIGHTLY | 20.2
83 |
|
| 3: DISAGREE SLIGHTLY | 21.1
87 |
|
| 4: DISAGREE STRONGLY | 41.9
173 |
|
| COL TOTAL | 100.0
412 |
|
For RACE(1)
| Summary Statistics | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean = | 2.31 | Std Dev = | 1.10 | Coef var = | .47 | |||
| Median = | 2.00 | Variance = | 1.20 | Min = | 1.00 | |||
| Mode = | 1.00 | Skewness = | .27 | Max = | 4.00 | |||
| Sum = | 39,953.03 | Kurtosis = | -1.24 | Range = | 3.00 | |||
| Cells contain:
-Column percent -Weighted N |
Distribution | |
|---|---|---|
| RACPUSH | 1: AGREE STRONGLY | 29.7
5,138 |
| 2: AGREE SLIGHTLY | 29.6
5,115 |
|
| 3: DISAGREE SLIGHTLY | 21.0
3,639 |
|
| 4: DISAGREE STRONGLY | 19.7
3,417 |
|
| COL TOTAL | 100.0
17,309 |
|
The absolute difference in means divided by standard deviation for RACE(1): 0.52
BUSING for RELIG(3)
| Summary Statistics | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean = | 1.75 | Std Dev = | .43 | Coef var = | .25 | |||
| Median = | 2.00 | Variance = | .19 | Min = | 1.00 | |||
| Mode = | 2.00 | Skewness = | -1.17 | Max = | 2.00 | |||
| Sum = | 838.91 | Kurtosis = | -.63 | Range = | 1.00 | |||
| Cells contain:
-Column percent -Weighted N |
Distribution | |
|---|---|---|
| BUSING | 1: FAVOR | 24.7
118 |
| 2: OPPOSE | 75.3
360 |
|
| COL TOTAL | 100.0
479 |
|
For RACE(1)
| Summary Statistics | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean = | 1.79 | Std Dev = | .41 | Coef var = | .23 | |||
| Median = | 2.00 | Variance = | .17 | Min = | 1.00 | |||
| Mode = | 2.00 | Skewness = | -1.43 | Max = | 2.00 | |||
| Sum = | 35,480.28 | Kurtosis = | .04 | Range = | 1.00 | |||
| Cells contain:
-Column percent -Weighted N |
Distribution | |
|---|---|---|
| BUSING | 1: FAVOR | 20.9
4,145 |
| 2: OPPOSE | 79.1
15,667 |
|
| COL TOTAL | 100.0
19,813 |
|
The absolute difference in means divided by standard deviation for RACE(1): 0.02
The average of the distances for racial issues comes out to: 1.03 / 4 =~ 0.26
Now for religiously charged issues.
ABANY (allow abortion for any reason) for RELIG(3)
| Summary Statistics | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean = | 1.22 | Std Dev = | .41 | Coef var = | .34 | |||
| Median = | 1.00 | Variance = | .17 | Min = | 1.00 | |||
| Mode = | 1.00 | Skewness = | 1.35 | Max = | 2.00 | |||
| Sum = | 667.02 | Kurtosis = | -.19 | Range = | 1.00 | |||
| Cells contain:
-Column percent -Weighted N |
Distribution | |
|---|---|---|
| ABANY | 1: YES | 77.9
426 |
| 2: NO | 22.1
121 |
|
| COL TOTAL | 100.0
546 |
|
For RACE(1)
| Summary Statistics | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean = | 1.59 | Std Dev = | .49 | Coef var = | .31 | |||
| Median = | 2.00 | Variance = | .24 | Min = | 1.00 | |||
| Mode = | 2.00 | Skewness = | -.39 | Max = | 2.00 | |||
| Sum = | 39,058.99 | Kurtosis = | -1.85 | Range = | 1.00 | |||
| Cells contain:
-Column percent -Weighted N |
Distribution | |
|---|---|---|
| ABANY | 1: YES | 40.5
9,920 |
| 2: NO | 59.5
14,570 |
|
| COL TOTAL | 100.0
24,489 |
|
The absolute difference in means divided by standard deviation for RACE(1): 0.76
SUICIDE4 (“Do you think a person has the right to end his or her own life if this person: d. Is tired of living and ready to die?”) for RELIG(3)
| Summary Statistics | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean = | 1.70 | Std Dev = | .46 | Coef var = | .27 | |||
| Median = | 2.00 | Variance = | .21 | Min = | 1.00 | |||
| Mode = | 2.00 | Skewness = | -.85 | Max = | 2.00 | |||
| Sum = | 893.41 | Kurtosis = | -1.28 | Range = | 1.00 | |||
| Cells contain:
-Column percent -Weighted N |
Distribution | |
|---|---|---|
| SUICIDE4 | 1: YES | 30.4
160 |
| 2: NO | 69.6
367 |
|
| COL TOTAL | 100.0
527 |
|
For RACE(1)
| Summary Statistics | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean = | 1.85 | Std Dev = | .36 | Coef var = | .19 | |||
| Median = | 2.00 | Variance = | .13 | Min = | 1.00 | |||
| Mode = | 2.00 | Skewness = | -1.93 | Max = | 2.00 | |||
| Sum = | 40,740.61 | Kurtosis = | 1.71 | Range = | 1.00 | |||
| Cells contain:
-Column percent -Weighted N |
Distribution | |
|---|---|---|
| SUICIDE4 | 1: YES | 15.3
3,376 |
| 2: NO | 84.7
18,682 |
|
| COL TOTAL | 100.0
22,058 |
|
The absolute difference in means divided by standard deviation for RACE(1): 0.42
HOMOSEX (does the human species contain more than one sexx…just kidding, you know what it is) for RELIG(3), excluded “OTHER” response.
| Summary Statistics | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean = | 2.91 | Std Dev = | 1.31 | Coef var = | .45 | |||
| Median = | 4.00 | Variance = | 1.72 | Min = | 1.00 | |||
| Mode = | 4.00 | Skewness = | -.59 | Max = | 4.00 | |||
| Sum = | 1,611.33 | Kurtosis = | -1.45 | Range = | 3.00 | |||
| Cells contain:
-Column percent -Weighted N |
Distribution | |
|---|---|---|
| HOMOSEX | 1: ALWAYS WRONG | 28.5
158 |
| 2: ALMST ALWAYS WRG | 5.4
30 |
|
| 3: SOMETIMES WRONG | 13.3
74 |
|
| 4: NOT WRONG AT ALL | 52.8
293 |
|
| COL TOTAL | 100.0
555 |
|
For RACE(1)
| Summary Statistics | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean = | 1.82 | Std Dev = | 1.24 | Coef var = | .68 | |||
| Median = | 1.00 | Variance = | 1.54 | Min = | 1.00 | |||
| Mode = | 1.00 | Skewness = | .99 | Max = | 4.00 | |||
| Sum = | 46,007.10 | Kurtosis = | -.84 | Range = | 3.00 | |||
| Cells contain:
-Column percent -Weighted N |
Distribution | |
|---|---|---|
| HOMOSEX | 1: ALWAYS WRONG | 66.8
16,874 |
| 2: ALMST ALWAYS WRG | 5.1
1,285 |
|
| 3: SOMETIMES WRONG | 7.2
1,829 |
|
| 4: NOT WRONG AT ALL | 20.9
5,269 |
|
| COL TOTAL | 100.0
25,258 |
|
The absolute difference in means divided by standard deviation for RACE(1): 0.88
PRAYER (approval of court ruling that no state/local government may require reading of Lord’s Prayer or Bible verses in public schools) for RELIG(3)
| Summary Statistics | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean = | 1.18 | Std Dev = | .38 | Coef var = | .33 | |||
| Median = | 1.00 | Variance = | .15 | Min = | 1.00 | |||
| Mode = | 1.00 | Skewness = | 1.68 | Max = | 2.00 | |||
| Sum = | 622.06 | Kurtosis = | .81 | Range = | 1.00 | |||
| Cells contain:
-Column percent -Weighted N |
Distribution | |
|---|---|---|
| PRAYER | 1: APPROVE | 82.1
434 |
| 2: DISAPPROVE | 17.9
94 |
|
| COL TOTAL | 100.0
528 |
|
For RACE(1)
| Summary Statistics | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean = | 1.58 | Std Dev = | .49 | Coef var = | .31 | |||
| Median = | 2.00 | Variance = | .24 | Min = | 1.00 | |||
| Mode = | 2.00 | Skewness = | -.34 | Max = | 2.00 | |||
| Sum = | 34,658.31 | Kurtosis = | -1.88 | Range = | 1.00 | |||
| Cells contain:
-Column percent -Weighted N |
Distribution | |
|---|---|---|
| PRAYER | 1: APPROVE | 41.6
9,099 |
| 2: DISAPPROVE | 58.4
12,780 |
|
| COL TOTAL | 100.0
21,879 |
|
The absolute difference in means divided by standard deviation for RACE(1): 0.82
Average of differences for religiously-tinged issues: 2.88 /4 = 0.72
I’m going to post this and then calculate the results. Are Jews laicites or multicultists? See if you can beat me to it! Yeah, I know I have a head start since you didn’t instantly start reading this as soon as I posted it. You just have to be both lucky and fast.
UPDATE: Finished. Half Sigma wins hands down. Granted, there was subjectivity in what questions I chose to analyze. Think you can do a better job? Get to it! So why did the racialists get it wrong? My guess is that race is simply more salient to them and because they consider it a major motivating factor they assume it must also be for Jews. Because they do not lump Jews in with whites and are themselves concerned with promoting the interests of whites, they think Jews must also contrast themselves with whites (though as Half Sigma has noted, Jews think of themselves as whites) and the status of whites must be their target.
Entitled to an Opinion 
July 2, 2009 at 7:27 am
From what I can gather the more solidly liberal wing of Judaism, for example the Upper West Side limousine liberal version, is associated mainly with Jewish people who aren’t particularly religious. Which doesn’t necessarily square with Siggy’s idea that Jewish liberalism is designed mainly to keep prayer out of schools.
Peter
July 2, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Atheism is one of the best predictors of liberalism. Read atheist sites (or even Andrew Sullivan, ostensibly a Catholic) and you’ll see plenty of fear that someone somewhere might start teaching creationism or invoking God to explain natural disasters. I’m merely an untheist, but many are antitheists.
July 2, 2009 at 8:41 am
I think MacDonald would argue that there is no problem here since his theory assumes that ostensible motives are often rationalizations for evopsych imperatives anyway. But that’s a problem with his theory. It explains so much that it allows him to accuse his opponents of “ethnocentric self-deception” which is paranoid and dumb.
July 2, 2009 at 9:26 am
It explains so much that it allows him to accuse his opponents of “ethnocentric self-deception” which is paranoid and dumb.
Are Jews hyperethnocentric? Is there actual psychological evidence for this?
July 2, 2009 at 5:38 pm
It’s a good question. My understanding is that the standard test batteries meant to measure ethnocentricism (or is it “ethnocentrism”?) are modeled after Adorno’s theoretical work and not designed to test for traits among in-group minorities. Still, it shouldn’t be hard to corner through comparative survey data, and I wonder if I’m missing something. Maybe TGGP can do some GSS magic.
To support his hypothesis/conclusion that Jews are hyperethnocentric, MacDonald overwhelmingly relies on political, historical, and literary interpretation. If there are psychometric data buried in the heap, they aren’t easy to locate.
In CoF, he does cite a weird study claiming that Israeli infants have more intense fear reactions to strangers than North German infants (see note 14 to the preface).
July 2, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Chip, the GSS doesn’t say anything about motives/rationilizations. We have positions on issues and that’s enough.
Funny enough, the explaining away of MacDonald’s detractors arguments reminds me of the Freudian/Marxist tactic that both he and Popper derided as Bulverism.
Top Hat, I think the Inductivist had a post a while back showing they were rather ethnocentric. I don’t know about “hyper” though.
July 2, 2009 at 6:32 pm
In CoF, he does cite a weird study claiming that Israeli infants have more intense fear reactions to strangers than North German infants (see note 14 to the preface).
I read that but MacDonald didn’t explain whether these were Ashkenazi, Sephardi, or Mizrahi infants.
Sloppy.
July 3, 2009 at 1:21 am
A Jew is a Jew.
Macdonald has done ground-breaking research into these peoples and this snarking will not cover-up what the Jews are up to as they attack the White Race!!!
July 3, 2009 at 6:10 pm
What was snarking about it? You are welcome to do a GSS analysis and present us with the results or state specific critiques of my own.
July 7, 2009 at 2:00 am
I’m sure that Mr. Cuntjoy’s GSS analysis will be forthcoming very soon.
July 3, 2009 at 9:23 am
TGGP,
Thanks. I had never heard that term. It’s useful and it fits. Oppenheimer’s approach to his subjects is the same deal. Bulverism. Good word.
I don’t think an objective survey of ethnocentricism would require tapping for motives/rationalizations; you just need to gather respondents’ opinions on telling points. I’m imagining a ranked agree/disagree assignment for statements like: “I think the values and traditions of my people are being threatened”; or: “loyalty to one’s family is more important than loyalty to one’s country.” Etc. If a survey can be devised that reliably predicts ethnocentric temperament (perhaps as revealed through other measures) for a test population, then the next step would be to compare scores among in-groups to see where Jews fit in the spectrum. The fact that MacDonald (apparently – correct me if I’m wrong) hasn’t done anything like this adds to my suspicion that he isn’t really doing science.
Or it could be that such an approach is problematic in ways that don’t occur to me; it’s curious that I haven’t been able to find reference to ANY relevant psychometric research.
July 3, 2009 at 11:08 am
Or it could be that such an approach is problematic in ways that don’t occur to me; it’s curious that I haven’t been able to find reference to ANY relevant psychometric research.
Jensen doesn’t have any problem finding psychometric data on the black-white IQ gap or the white-Jewish IQ gap.
July 3, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Some wag once said “life is an IQ test”. It’s stunning how many things IQ is associated with and we are very interested in it. Ethnocentrism takes a seat at the back of the bus.
There might be some relevant questions in the World Values Survey.
July 3, 2009 at 8:55 pm
Ethnocentrism takes a seat at the back of the bus.
Of course the bulk of psychometric research revolves around IQ/g.
Nonetheless, MacDonald has had 11 years since CofC came out to look up psychological data on Jews and ethnocentrism and he has practically no research papers to point to support his theory.
I mean, come on, he’s had 11 years to look up data and he can’t produce anything?
July 3, 2009 at 9:26 pm
MacDonald is a professor of psychiatry, so I would have assumed he’s familiar with psychometrics. I don’t know if he actually made use of it before he got “the Jew thing”. Maybe he’s just more into impressionistic, “literary” scholarship.
July 3, 2009 at 8:47 pm
TGGP; you commented over at race/history/notes. Prefer to have the conversation here, because N/A can get a little testy, rather not spark his anger on his forum. The reason why what N/A posted sounds so strange to me is that I remember the following research:
1. Women tend to pursue short-term mating strategies when they are ovulating, which means being more attuned to physical attractiveness rather than male status tied to his providence ability, which seems to me like it would favor a genetically high-quality male from an out-group, at least more than ususal.
2. Major histocompatiblility complex research; during ovulation, women tend to be twice as attracted to clothing with different MHC complexes than the type they possess. In the same vein, women who are on contraceptives are more likely to be attracted to their MHC type.
But then it strikes me; what about the role of deceptive behavior? For example, after childbirth, apparently there is a psychological mechanism within women that urges them to constantly reassure the father that the child looks like his, even though objective observers are less likely to rate both father and child as physically similar. This makes sense; the woman is in a crucial stage of weakness, when the father’s abandonment could doom both parent and child, so it would be in her interests to even self-deceive to convince the uncertain father that the child is in fact his. Could the same thing be at work in the “racist” ovulating woman? I am thinking that superficially, such a woman could express in-group loyalties, while at the same time feeling sexually attracted to the out-group stranger. If there is a Red Queen sort of arms race between males and females where males are at least able to partially discern when these women are in estrus, this could be a defense mechanism such that the expressed feeling could later be remembered as more salient than it might normally be in a period a woman is most likely to conceive. Who knows? She might even get it from the dark stranger and return home to “Daddy’s” arms the very same day. What do you think?
July 3, 2009 at 9:25 pm
I have also heard of the studies showing women are more attracted to more short-term “masculine” types during ovulation. If the other man is superficially similar enough to the long-term mate, its paternity could not unquestioned. That would not be the case if the two men are of different races.
July 3, 2009 at 8:54 pm
That’s the only reason I can venture why a woman would choose to express such in-group loyalties at the moment when it in her genes’ best possible interest to surreptitiously “defect” from her pair-bond (if able), unless such behavior is deceptive in nature. What could it possibly benefit her to do such a thing; how would other strange males know her cycle, which might possibly be an impetus for her “protector” to shield her from say, forced rape, if they are not directly “plugged in” to her habits?
July 4, 2009 at 1:03 pm
[…] Half-Sigma vs Kevin MacDonald by TGGP […]
July 6, 2009 at 12:07 pm
TGGP: MacDonald is actually a professor of psychology (not psychiatry), but your point stands (unless we’re all missing something, I suppose).
Billare: On the question of short- vs long-term mating strategies, it would be interesting to know if the “racist” ovulation effect differs in women who are in relationships when compared with those who are single and shopping. I was conceptualizing it more as a kind of long-term mate selection compass effect, rather than as a deceptive behavior. TGGP’s point about racial consistency as cuckold insurance make sense.
July 6, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Whoops, typo. I am now having a laugh imagining a Woody Allen type character employing MacDonald as a psychiatrist.
July 6, 2009 at 2:32 pm
According to Wikipedia there are 5.2 million jews in the united states. None of the survey questions you listed have more than 500 some odd respondents. That’s not a very good sample size to determine anything.
That’s usually the problem with the GSS in general.
July 6, 2009 at 6:57 pm
It doesn’t actually matter how many jews in the U.S there are with regards to the survey’s accuracy. It’s the absolute sample size that’s important. However, because jews make up a relatively small portion of the U.S population and, accordingly, a small portion of those surveyed by the GSS (which is far smaller than the U.S population) my sample sizes for them are indeed unfortunately small. I wouldn’t say it’s a problem for the GSS in general, because you can use it to examine larger groups.
July 9, 2009 at 11:06 pm
“Half Sigma, in contrast, explains Jewish liberalism as being motivated to keep school prayer away from their kids, as Christianity with all its fun holidays and lack of dietary restrictions is just too much of a temptation for a Jewish mother to hazard.”
Nope, don’t buy it. If this were true we’d expect to see see Jews oppose, not support, massive Latin American immigration. Hispanics are after all Christians, and relatively strong ones at that. It’s white Europeans that the open-borders Jews have issues with, not Christians per se.
July 10, 2009 at 7:51 pm
My GSS analysis included immigration. Jews didn’t differ that much from the larger white public, and their mean score was for less immigration. I don’t think Jews oppose immigration from white christian countries either. They are more liberal on immigration because they are liberals. They are liberal in the first place due to religion.
July 11, 2009 at 12:40 pm
“Jews didn’t differ that much from the larger white public, and their mean score was for less immigration.”
None of these Jews seem to be in public life then. There are no Jewish politicians who are tough on immigration, and the only prominent pundit who comes to mind is Mickey Kaus.
You yourself admit that Jews are liberal, and liberalism is defined by the belief that the West ought not be white, among other things. It abhors homogeneity.
July 11, 2009 at 12:54 pm
To be clear, I think that the notion that Jews are “pursuing a group evolutionary strategy against the white race” is idiotic. But it does not follow that there is not a good deal of (misplaced) hostility among many Jews towards white Europeans and Americans of European descent. Read some of the writings of the wretched Richard Nadler or John Podhertz.
Or read the Jewish commenters at Half Sigma and other sites. Their constant gnawing fear seems to be “white nationalists”, an odd fear to have if they “think of themselves as whites”.
July 11, 2009 at 11:19 pm
The elite generally is more in favor of immigration. The GSS also does not focus on grabbing public figures.
Liberalism is not defined in that way. Liberalism dates at least back to the French revolution, which had nothing to do with the West not being white. Woodrow Wilson was one of the most important liberal/progressive, and was considerably more racist than his predecessors in the White House. You think liberalism is defined by racial attitudes presumably because racial issues are so salient for you. For many evangelicals and Jews, the religious dog whistles politicians blow are considerably more important. The GSS data supports that. Michael Hoffman actually associates Judaism with racism. This is because his anti-semitism is motivated by his Catholicism.
I’m not a big fan of Half Sigma and so I don’t hold up his commenters as any source of authority. I don’t doubt that you can find things written by prominent Jews that are racially offensive, just as Hoffman can find things religiously offensive. My impression from Half Sigma is that he’s puzzled that so many white nationalists are anti-semitic/anti-Israel, and thinks that black anti-semitism is more coherent. He doesn’t really seem to have much fear of white nationalists (as they are quite fringe), he just doesn’t like a lot of them.
July 10, 2009 at 10:40 am
Concerning group-comparative ethnocentrism, it looks as though MacDonald does cite at least one study finding that “Jews had the highest bias toward their own ethnic group among groups classified as White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs), Asians, Italians, Other Europeans, and Blacks, with the only significant difference between Jews and WASPs.”
MacDonald’s citation is from the first chapter of “Separation and its Discontents,” and the study is referenced as:
Silverman, I., & Case, D. (1995). Ethnocentrism vs. pragmatism in the conduct of human affairs. York University Research Report #231, November.
I haven’t found the study online, but it appears to have been reprinted in the 1998 book, Indoctrinability, Warfare and Ideology which was co-edited by Frank Salter.
July 10, 2009 at 11:22 am
Looks like the above text was re-issued in America in 2001 under the title “Ethnic Conflict and Indoctrination.” You can read most of the Silverman and Case chapter on Google Books here.
July 11, 2009 at 2:32 pm
LMAO. This GSS analysis is worthless. You’re not even attacking your own strawman properly. How does this crap refute anything that MacDonald says? Post some tables and… MacDonald’s wrong! Whee, we’re being quantitative and smart, not like that moron MacDonald!
Might I ask, have any of you geniuses actually read anything by MacDonald? Do you have a clue what he actually says, or are your impressions of his work derived from people like Half Sigma, who hasn’t read MacDonald’s work either, and is probably basing his impression of MacDonald’s work off of yet others who haven’t read it?
I’ve been following the Kevin MacDonald controversy for about six years now, and really, his critics are without exception completely pathetic. The *vast majority* have never read anything he’s written, and the few who have either obsess over minor details in his work which do not alter his overall argument, or else basically concede that he’s essentially right but still call him an “anti-Semite” anyway (e.g. John Derbyshire).
I seriously don’t think any of you are going to be taking apart any of MacDonald’s arguments any time soon. Take a look at his paper on the Jewish role in shaping US immigration policy, for instance. It’s been online for about a decade, is widely cited by racialists, and yet nobody has yet produced a rebuttal to it.
July 11, 2009 at 11:21 pm
I’ve got some of MacDonald’s books on my computer, but haven’t gotten around to reading them (a lot of other stuff competes for my attention). I have read a lot of stuff at his website, VDARE and elsewhere. I do not aim to refute every thing he says, just to compare how his thesis compares the competing one of Half Sigma.
July 11, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Nonetheless, MacDonald has had 11 years since CofC came out to look up psychological data on Jews and ethnocentrism and he has practically no research papers to point to support his theory.
I mean, come on, he’s had 11 years to look up data and he can’t produce anything?
Well that assumes there’s data to be looked up, doesn’t it?
I’d really like to see what would happen to the poor researcher who tried to do a study on Jewish ethnocentrism. Especially if the results showed Jews to be more ethnocentric than other groups. Haha. Yeah, big mystery why these studies haven’t been done.
You want evidence that Jews are ethnocentric? How’s this one: Jews exist, despite thousands of years of living as a minority amongst other peoples, and ample opportunities to convert and assimilate, and in fact despite many attempted forced conversions.
That whole Israel project and the history behind that doesn’t exactly point to a low level of ethnocentrism either. What about the West Bank settlers, are they ethnocentric? Gee, that one’s a tough call – anybody got some GSS data we can look at?
July 11, 2009 at 11:24 pm
n/a of the race/history/evolution blog cites academic papers discussing Jews all the time, frequently written by Jews.
Israel’s existence is evidence of some degree of ethnocentrism. How many ethnes have their own states? A lot, actually. The issue of religious conversion just underscores Half Sigma’s emphasis on religious cleavages.
July 13, 2009 at 10:21 am
Reader,
See my note above regarding lab research by Silverman & Case, which can be interpreted to show that Jews are indeed slightly more ethnocentric than other groups. (Or at least that was the finding in 1995.) However, Silverman and Case argue, pace MacDonald (?), that baseline ethnocentrism does not translate into ethnic-nepotism when pragmatic factors weigh in favor of other options.
I’ve read CoF and some of MacDonald’s other writings. I think his arguments deserve to be taken seriously and examined in course. TGGP’s GSS analysis doesn’t purport to offer a wholesale refutation of MacDonald’s big idea, but it’s a step in the right direction. For a statistically oriented psychologist, MacDonald relies far too much on rhetorically flavored lit-crit and sweeping generalizations.
July 13, 2009 at 6:54 pm
It has also come to my attention that MacDonald is insufficiently bigoted, at least with respect to Catholics. Still, he has never gone so far as to use Conan O’Brien as an example of a WASP.
July 20, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Great topic. An alternative theory to jews using liberalism to subvert population X, is jews using liberal/conservative pageantry to subvert population X.
Also, I think Wasps are natural beneficiaries of theories of jews as conspiratorial oppressors of population majorities, just like jews may be natural beneficiaries of theories of Wasps as conspiratorial oppressors of population majorities.
And why do the dutch successfully escape so much attention? Better or worse “evolutionary strategy”?
Finally, where do the large wasp/jew hybrid class fit into this?
July 20, 2009 at 8:40 pm
The pageantry is a big distraction, but since the bi-polarization of politics (there’s always government & opposition, in parliamentary terms) is so universal no body could blame it on jews with a straight face. Liberalism is at least a more limited phenomenon (though I don’t see how Cromwell or Robespierre can be blamed on Jews either).
For a long time, the majority of the U.S population was WASP, so it wouldn’t make sense to depict them as “oppressors of population majorities”. That would better fit the British empire though (although I think many of their former colonies are worse off for independence).
A comedian on Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn a while back asked the same question about the Dutch as compared to the Jews. It was of course a joke though. I think the Dutch aren’t as heavily represented among the most accomplished individuals in various fields in America. I don’t know what share of the U.S population is Dutch. I should probably check that out. It’s also easy to forget that the Dutch were once imperialists as well. There is at least one Dutchman who looks back on their old history with pride. The Dutch are also lucky that most people don’t associate them with the hated Boers.
My favorite anti-semite blogger disputes the notion that WASPs and Jews are especially likely to intermarry.
July 20, 2009 at 9:06 pm
The Catholic-Jewish thing feels about right.
It’s also fun to wonder about conversion in light of genomic data. When Stephen Colbert was publicly sequenced, it turned out that he was top-heavy with Jewish ancestry. How not-surprising is that?
Still, deracination is another subject that MacDonald seems predisposed not to consider too deeply. I don’t know about centers of influence, but Jews in the heartland seem far removed from Rothian guilt and quite content with mongrelized matrimony. I could name names, but anecdotes taint data.
Carry on.
July 20, 2009 at 9:47 pm
Catholics and Jews both have more recent immigrant ancestry to the same cities, so it shouldn’t be too surprising.
From my blog stats I notice another anti-semite blogger has scrounged up some numbers regarding Jews and politics. Nothing really new, but credit for presenting evidence all the same.
I should have added a note regarding the conservative-liberal pageantry. There are some prominent Jews on the right, but overall Jews overwhelmingly support the left. That’s what makes the Kevin MacDonald take more popular (though it should be noted that he includes the neoconservatives in his analysis). On the other hand, we’ve got biases about what’s “typical” being salient, as in the feminist bank-teller example. It is interesting to note though how Joe McCarthy surrounded himself with Jews and targeted Yankee WASPs. I am reminded of something I read about the reason behind Rupert Murdoch’s subsidy of neoconservatives. Rather than Jews themselves seeking to create pageantry, perhaps pageant-producers seek out Jews. How different are the skills needed to produce explicit vs implicit entertainment? Political pageantry was certainly very strong in America before the influx of Jewish immigrants, so it seems a simpler explanation.