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A People That Shall Dwell Alone: Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy, with Diaspora Peoples

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This is an academic study of the historical group conflict between Jews and Gentiles. Being academic in tone; it is not written necessarily to entertain, but readers with a keen interest in the subject will find it a revelation.

Is the author anti-Semitic? His research findings did not reveal a flattering portrait of the Jews as he examined 700 mainly Jewish sources about Jew/Gentile conflict. People who are against Jewish interests could certainly use McDonald's information to explain and justify their own ideologies. However, McDonald does not consider himself an anti-Semite and he says that he merely examines the conflict, hoping that his examination will help resolve the group conflict in the future. He does not elaborate how this could happen though. McDonald takes a cool, unemotional approach to his study that does not really advocate anything politically; but his findings have political implications.

McDonald's main concept is that of the Jews' group evolutionary strategy. It is one in which the group historically has strictly ensured that it did not genetically or culturally assimilate with the host population. (McDonald is uncertain of the modern data that says that Jews are assimulating more than in the past and he does not say that their strategy has changed.) Their relationship with the host population is merely "instrumental" while the group keeps focused on what is only good for the group. They have been excluded by the host population but they themselves have also been excluding. Their religion is a "this-worldly religion" that re-enforces the worldly goals of the group: to be fruitful and multiply, to keep their bloodlines pure (especially priestly ones), and to prosper as a group within the host population. The most chilling part of the book was McDonald's statement that if gentiles of European descent can be convinced by Jewish polemics that their Western civilization is morally bankrupt; they can make the European society self-destruct since European morality is individualistic and universal and will not hesitate to condemn their own people, if they are convinced that they are morally bankrupt.

In a nutshell, most of the historical criticisms voiced against Jews are justified by the research in this book. McDonald considers their group evolutionary strategy to have been extremely sucessful even though there has been from time to time violent gentile reaction against it. Of course, there will be accusations that McDonald is lying or distorting things; it is up to the reader to decide.

There is also a short introduction into group evolutionary strategies of other groups such as Gypsies, Mennonites, Overseas Chinese and Puritans which is interesting as well.

I also don't feel qualified to evaluate the author's thesis. However, I think most of us "Gentiles" have had encounters with Jews where an honest discussion of the relationship between Jews and non-Jews has been absolutely clearly made out of bounds by the other party. Why can't we have an honest discussion? Isn't it in everyone's real interest?

First I must say that I think many, many Jews have contributed a great deal to our society and civilization, and are terrific, extraordinary, gifted people. Be that as it is, stifling conversation that relates to race, ethnicity, etc., tends to be something many Jews seem to feel is a solemn duty. Unfortunately, there is a double standard at play with many individuals from this group. On the one hand, Jews must have a right to their identity and homeland. Western Europeans have no such right however, in these individuals' view. We Europeans (and presumably all non-Jews) have the right only to assimilate into the raceless world-man and go extinct. Anything less is racism which is Nazism which is genocide, the absurb shibboleth goes. Clearly many of us of European descent have internalized this suicidal belief.

A Jewish professor at one of the midwest universities gave a very revealing talk at an American Renaissance conference a few years ago, wherein in he stated that ever since the Holocaust, Jews have considered Whites the number one threat to their survival - because the Jews HAD assimilated in Germany and STILL the Holocaust happened. Fortunately, this professor was not an off-kilter apologist for Hitlerism or some other nut. He was just trying to explain why Jews have worked against White interests so assiduously for more than half a century. The big obstacle to the "Gentile"- Jewish dialogue, he said, has been that both groups carry an awful lot of baggage, and it's going to take time to get over that.

Well, why should Jews engage in this dialogue? Quite simply their and our survival may depend upon it. The one world dream is probably a pipe dream, and, if not, is that the kind of world people really want to live in? No distinct cultures, one language, lost identity on a global scale. I'll pass . We should instead be working for the survival of nations and peoples, rather than their steady obliteration. We now seem poised on the precipice of a tremendous cataclysm. How better to avoid it? To protect our sovereignty, borders, traditions, or to go the other way? The former, I think, is the answer.

What can I say...this psychologist has 'GREAT BALLS OF FIRE!' I wish he was my shrink!

MacDonald opens his second edition with a description of several other Diaspora peoples: the Gypsies or Roma, the overseas Chinese, Calvinists and Puritans, Anabaptists, Amish and Hutterites. He describes the mechanisms by which they maintain or maintained a unique identity within a larger society, the social niches that each of them fill, the in group - outgroup mentality that each of the maintain, and the mutual support mechanisms they have evolved whereby the members of the in group take care of one another and often exploit or parasitize the outgroup. This is a valuable background for an analysis of the Jews. It establishes some commonalities among human evolutionary groups, and also leads to some conclusions about the uniqueness of the Jews.

The Gypsies have a reproductive strategy that includes large families and low investment in education. They prize the highly extroverted, aggressive temperament which is useful in gulling the gadje, the host society. They actively discourage intermarriage and even socialization with the gadje.

The Puritans and Calvinists no longer exist as evolutionary units. They thrived for a while couple of centuries ago, but their distinct identity dissolved as their religious convictions became diluted and they intermarried with the surrounding society. Today, Presbyterians and Methodists are no different than anybody else in society.

The Amish and Hutterites maintain their own identities in their own communities. Physical separation and endogamy have maintained them as separate evolutionary entities. They have benign relations with their host societies. They want to be left alone. To that end they go out of their way to be good neighbors to those of the host society who live close to them, but they generally minimize trade and other connections and avoid going into commerce. Their strategy is self-sufficiency.

The overseas Chinese marry among themselves when they can, but have not been reluctant to intermarry with local peoples. Unlike the Jews, they have generally kept a very low profile in host nation politics. Again unlike the Jews, they have been quite ready to abandon Chinese language publications and names in their attempt to blend in with their host societies. Their situation has been different than that of the Jews in that China as an ancestral motherland has existed throughout the duration of their Diaspora.

McDonald says that Jews are unique in that they have been a separate evolutionary group for perhaps three millennia, since their sojourn in Egypt, far longer than any of the above-mentioned. MacDonald's thesis is that the Jews' evolutionary strategy involves eugenic considerations - arranged marriages that enhance the likelihood of highly intelligent offspring, and a society which shuns members who do not enthusiastically support the collective mission. They invest highly in their children's education.

A hard question which has confronted society throughout history is whether Jews are a tribe or race, or merely a religion. Mac Donald quite conclusively demonstrates that they are a genetic entity, an evolutionary unit. Throughout their history they have practiced endogamous and even consanguineous marriages. That is to say that the Rothschilds, the Goldmans and the Sachs married each other's nieces and cousins at an astoundingly high rate. Moreover, the Jews are keenly attuned to ancestry and have very often refused consideration of marriage partners who don't have a totally Jewish pedigree. Also, Jews almost never proselytize. They make it difficult to join the religion and converts to Judaism, as well as many generations of their descendents, have often been kept on its periphery. The result is that Jewish DNA is demonstrably different from that of all of the host peoples among whom they dwell, and in general Jews from any part of the world are more closely related to one another than they are to their gentile neighbors.

McDonald's thesis flies in the face of a standard part of the groupthink on a modern college campus, the Standard Social Science Model. It is the theory first articulated by doctors Skinner and Watson at Harvard in the 1930s that all humans are born with the same potential; only our environment and upbringing differentiates us from one another. The corollaries of this hypothesis are that there are no group differences in ability or temperament.

Jewish scholars have been at the forefront of advocating such theory. Franz Boaz and the American anthropological Association state as much on their website. MacDonald documents the ways in which this stand, although it is incompatible with almost all scientific research, serves the interests of the Jews. It deflects attention away from the Jews' uniqueness as a people, and the intelligence and tribal loyalties which make them such formidable competitors against their gentile hosts. It provides the intellectual foundation for the Jews' championing the rights of other minorities, such as blacks and Hispanics, at the expense of the white Gentile majority. If one assumes that there are no genetic differences among populations, then prejudice and discrimination offers the only explanation for blacks' and Hispanics' failure to achieve rates of success equivalent to those of the white majority. McDonald observes that Jews have been at the forefront of movements making this claim. The effect has been to dilute white power and to make it impossible for the gentile population to use commonsense defenses to justify disproportionate representation in organizations such as teaching staffs and fire departments.

The "old boys network" is one of the canards often thrown at white people, frequently in the same breath as the "oh poor us, victims of anti-Semitism"complaint. MacDonald's career is a perfect illustration of the power of the old boy network. None whatsoever! He came up from a working-class neighborhood in the Midwest and attended state universities in the Midwest. He published rather extensively at second tier universities such as the University of Connecticut and Urbana-Champaign, after which he moved to California State University at Long Beach where he became a full professor after 10 years. In short, he came up by his bootstraps. Meanwhile, others who benefited by tribal affiliation quickly rose to the heights in Ivy League institutions, from which they now scornfully pour down contempt and abuse.

To put it briefly, the supposed old boy network did him no good whatsoever. His professional associations with that lonely band who attempt to perform scholarly work in forbidden fields (read about his associations on Wikipedia) lead to contempt and derision from organizations such as the Southern poverty Law Center which hold themselves out as being far holier than a guy like MacDonald but which in fact are highly biased and politicized. He is not alone; any white gentile who questions why our group is singled out to bear the blame for all of humanity's incivility likewise comes under withering scorn.

Congratulations to Mister MacDonald for having the courage to pursue such an unpopular course of study. I am sure that further research will refine his opinions, and may well reverse some of them. The important thing is the validity of the inquiry itself. He has established the legitimacy of asking questions about what makes Jews unique.

Definitely MacDonald trilogy should get nomination on Nobel price. Not for piece of peace as Obama got, but for dilligent work and for courage to write about everyday's taboos. At first one would take side - best to get ofended or take stone and do some stoning at the gate to ...Guantanamo camp freedom? But looking on separatism as group detachment from mainstream society, it comes out of some commonality of life goals , and criticism of it (against it- anti semitism) is just natural reaction of those from outside, with it. In modeling of society some form of cultism or separatism have certain closed loop saturation point, when minority gets by some slack of nature lebensraum to do things their way. What for? World as reservation or gated community for choosen few.. When book addresses American - white american point of view I am somehow surprised by authority of MacDonald to speak from pedestal of FINAL stage of human society We and They ,looking on its blue print, where recognition of other cultures and bearers of human genome , whose demise was caused by so called us who are also spiritual clones of Judaic theory of WE -Righteous, is just accademic! In that I see some emental structures. But it does not lower quality of book,it is excellent product of thinking out of Ted Turner realm. It made me to see current uncertainty stage for our origin and elite's interpretation of common goym's goals. The antisemitism as natural reaction to general society achievements and rabbid reactions to prophets and words of some speakers.Viz Jermiah. Perhaps review of origins to 20th century formation would be right , to see real key issue for WWI as conflict of 2 elites in Wilheminian Germany which was exported for safety reasons to other territiories. Similarity of current USA where with end of Cold War the internal freewheeling brought current demografic and economic void of ideas.Some reviewers comment on MacDonald from their ideologic strongholds , what I understand . His comment about Independence day- movie , is interesting,What if Jeff Goldblum would pretend that he is one of USa ,as Polish Rabbies welcomed Whermacht as liberators in 1939, and when docked at ET's mothership, would say:" Hi , I am Jef;/..,&f welcome here ,messiah, I am one of Your lost tribe ,just pretending to be as them. I suffered a lot ,get those infidels judgement day- Shalom." So one can see that even serious schollarly idea by inverting can get either real or absurd.? Well researched book and I only wish more challenging books as those, from right, left , bottom or any Rabbinate could be published and made available to those who care to read and made questions about human reason while seeing deeds of those others. ( My appology to English tongue)

PTSDA gives evolutionary psychology a black eye. It's so grotesquely inept and speculative that at least one leader in the field denies that MacDonald IS an evolutionary psychologist.

Its argument in brief: Judaism evolved as a strategy aimed at maximizing Jewish genetic fitness and survival. Its group strategies include: group coercion, segregation, intragroup altruism, social control, and collectivism.

PTSDA's entire discourse on Jewish collectivism would be laughable were it not so frequently dishonest. MacDonald observes that "Conformity to group attitudes and behavior is an extremely important aspect of social control in traditional Jewish communities." Actually, BY DEFINITION, conformity is an extremely important aspect of social control in ANY traditional community, Gentile included. Conversely, lack of conformity to group goals, self-reliance, individual responsibility and the desire to "find oneself" are modern qualities. Curiously, PTSDA doesn't seem to recognize these qualities in American Jews, although the term "self-actualization" was coined by the Jewish psychologist Maslow. Harry Triandis, a leading theorist on collectivism, upon whom MacDonald relies heavily for support told me some years ago that : "Most American Jews tend to be idiocentric [individualistic] although they are probably allocentric [collectivist] in family matters (less divorce)."

PTSDA also ignores the plethora of studies showing that Jewish families score higher on autonomy than any other ethnic/religious group. As Jews are also more secular & liberal, they are LESS, not more, likely to subscribe to the fundamentalist (collectivist) notion that "ingroup norms are universally valid" or that ingroup authorities merit unquestioned obedience. Nor do Jews gravitate to the extreme right wing, with its collectivist tendency toward "distrust of and unwillingness to cooperate with outgroups" (immigrants, blacks, gays). Jews also donate proportionately less charity to Jewish institutions than Christians donate to Christian institutions -- about half vs. 70%. So much for the "high degree of nepotism and within-group charity" PTSDA purports to find among Jews. PTSDA's own source (Ellman) notes that "as late as 1950, 57% of American Christians polled said they would not marry a Jew." Why then doesn't MacDonald call mid-century CHRISTIANS collectivist?

Evidence refuting PTSDA's claim that Jews have been distinctively authoritarian through history can be found in the books's own voluminous references. They indicate that: 1) the abject gratitude commonly expected of children toward their parents in most other (including European) societies was less salient among Jews; 2) Jewish diaspora communities were generally less punitive than their Gentile neighbors; 3) at a time when the Church barred the lower classes from reading, all classes of Jews mixed together in the synagogues and Beit Midrash, where they read and DEBATED the Talmud together with their rabbis.

MacDonald is aware of this, and not just because the material can be found in the works he cites. Elsewhere, when he is discussing not collectivism but high-investment parenting by Jews he readily describes how it encourages Jewish children to "express opinions and contribute to solving problems."

More dishonesty: to find evidence of a Jewish eugenic strategy, PTSDA, (citing Ellman) contends that "Not surprisingly a recent survey [NJPS] indicated that the group least likely to defect from Judaism was the highly educated." Actually Ellman contrasts this ONE highly ambiguous study with 'SEVERAL' others which found the opposite to be true.

PTSDA asserts that Jews are innately more intelligent. Yet the very citation and page number it uses for support contains a passage that undermines its case -- so PTSDA omits it. It reads: Without "specific knowledge" of the "genetic mechanisms" involved, "we have no way to decide whether genetic factors have contributed to the intellectual excellence of the Jewish group. The means to a solution do not exist..." (Vogel, 609). As for Oriental Jews, who MacDonald suggests are innately less intelligent, studies show that Oriental Jewish children raised in the same kibbutz environment as Ashkenazim score comparably on IQ tests.

Some closing observations: 1) the eugenics practices PTSDA purports to find among Ashkenazim (intermarriage among the intellectually gifted) were rare among the Sephardim, who outnumbered the Ashkenazim in medieval times and produced some of the greatest minds of early modern Europe. (Conspicuously, given its large bibliography and theme, PTSDA fails to cite Feuer's well-known refutation of the sociobiological theory of Jewish intelligence). 2) Infanticide, arguably a 'eugenic" practice that disproportionately claimed the lives of the poor, fatherless or handicapped, was exceedingly rare among Jews, who didn't require the foundling hospitals set up in London and Paris for this purpose. Might we not propose a "eugenic advantage" for Christians based on the same "logic" that informs PTSDA? 3) No hard evidence was presented for the "thesis" that Jews are BIOLOGICALLY PREDISPOSED to psychological traits such as collectivism and ethnocentrism. 4) PTSDA's claim that the haverim attempted genetic discrimination against lower class Jews is baseless. 5) Notwithstanding sporadic cultural and economic rivalries, the claim that Jews discriminated against one another based on genetic distance is easily refuted. For example, although a recent study suggests that Yemeni Jews are genetically distant from even Oriental Jews, evidence for any specifically anti-Yemeni behavior is conspicuously absent. 6) Concerning the "purely instrumental" economic relations that Jews allegedly practiced with Gentiles, PTSDA fails to consider how closed Christian guilds were or how instrumental was the economic behavior of Gentiles-- towards Jews and each other. 7) PTSDA highlights parochialism in Judaism, but omits the vast literature on Jewish universalism and cosmopolitanism. 8) In arguing for Jewish verbal over visuospatial inteligence, PTSDA must ascribe the disproportionate contributions of Jewish mathematicians, physicists, chemists and inventors to their prodigious verbal skills! 9) If Sephardim really practiced evolutionary group strategy, all should have left Iberia; instead, most stayed, converted and vanished from history.

Praeger, and perhaps Cal State as well, should be ashamed for letting their academic standards sink so low.

This books central theme is trying to portray a scholarly analysis of Jewish behavior and how that behavior has made Jews both successful and targets of attacks. Yet the analysis has several major flaws. The book tries to pass off as scholarship a reasoning that says Jews have been mean to gentiles and that Jews therefore somehow deserved anti-Semitism. This analysis ignores something central. It is true that Jews, having moved to Europe during the Roman occupation in the first century A.D, began to cultivate certain habits of intermarriage and religious cohesion. Because Jews lived all over the old Roman empire they became perfect intermediaries for trade and eventually became involved in Academia and Banking, two strains that would give anti-Semites much powder for their arguments. Yet these traits are not in themselves explanatory of the ingrained, institutionalized hatred that some on the west had for Judaism. The Europeans accused Jews of being capitalists and communists. They accused Jews of both `sticking together' and `putting their heads where they don't belong'. They accused Jews of being both `religious fanatics' and `secular atheists'. Well how is it possible that all these accusations are true, certainly this book does not reconcile the fact that the accusations against Jews in Anti-Semitism have little factual basis and are more the creation of anti-Semites, who love to find worldwide conspiracies.

This books Pseudo-scholarship is not really worthy of its subject. The author quotes many sources that supposedly portray anti-gentilism within Judaism, but the truth is no such thing exists. Probably the only worthwhile section of this book is the introduction where draws comparisons between Jews and the Chinese Diaspora or the Gypsies, if he had stuck to this theme maybe the book would have had more substance.

MacDonald is another of those neo-Darwinists who has fed racism under the guise of scholarship. His work is largely speculative and is a house of delusion constructed upon scholarly goobledy gop. He also has the distinction of being a witness in support of David Irving's law suit against Deborah Lipstadt for her truthful characterization of Irving as an anti-semite. Irving lost and the judge basically affirmed Lipstadt's view by stating that Irving was what he was - an antisemite, and a disgrace. Irving, like Ernst Zundel, still rages in his anti-semitism and claims that the holocaust didn't really happen. MacDonald is not quite as blatant or known as Irving who has been filmed at meetings of former Nazi (S.S.) soldiers' reunions, nor as transparent as Zundel, but his form of supporting the tradition is perhaps more dangerous as it seems to be scholarly before one sees the overall perspective. Previous listings of reviews of his books are a mix of those who recognize him for what he is, and anti-semites whose views are sometimes rather blatant.
MacDonald is an example of the heavy price society sometimes pays for freedom - in this case, academic freedom. I once wrote him asking him why he did not pick Scottish people (his origin I presume) as a study in survival strategy. That might have been interesting to read. He did not have the grace to reply. Not at all surprising. He is who he is.