/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.23031651]

The debate between Kevin MacDonald and Nathan Cofnas continues:

https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2024/01/26/the-cofnas-macdonald-debate-continues/

[Anonymous No.23031675]

>>23031651
You just linked to a bunch of podcasts. What’s the nature of the disagreement?

[Anonymous No.23031761]

>>23031651
whites are the real jews you dumb retard, that's why the vatican wants them gone

[Anonymous No.23031781]

>>23031675
There are youtube videos where each person is interviewed about the arguments of the other, and provide defences and rebuttals.

>What's the nature of the disagreement?

1. MacDonald publishes his Culture of Critique series which argues that Judaism can be interpreted as a group evolutionary strategy which involves undermining the cohesion and identity of the nation which hosts them by gaining influential positions in mass media, immigration, psychoanalysis etc

2. Cofnas argues that a more sound theory behind the massive over-representation of Jews in positions of influence is the "default theory". This theory proposes that Jews are only in such positions of influence due to their higher than average IQ and their concentration in urban environments. He argues that Jews for example can be found to be over-represented in any ideological movement or industry in which intellect are the required, and points to the fact that Jews may be found in both left- and right-wing movements, political parties, etc.

3. MacDonald publishes an essay defending his theory (which is later redacted due to accusations of racism against the academic journal in which it was published)

4. Cofnas provides a rebuttal

5. Things are quiet for a while

6. Now MacDonald and Cofnas are each interviewed and provide further arguments, rebuttals etc.


Anybody interested in the issue of Jewish over-representation in positions of power, and the Jewish influence on Western culture, should be following this.

[Anonymous No.23031786]

>>23031781
If you want to discuss politics, go to /pol/.

[Anonymous No.23031790]

>>23031786
The Culture of Critique is a book.

[Anonymous No.23031849]

>>23031781
I don't really understand the mystery. Jews appear to have a higher intelligence on average than other ethnic groups. For example, I would guess they are significantly over-represented among Nobel prize winners for physics, which could hardly be explained as an effect of fraud or nepotism. Plus there's probably some level of inner group advantage, whereby they favor other Jewish people and help each other based on their ethnic or cultural kinship. Basically these two factors are just selective effects and don't need to presuppose on any complicated conspiracy or metaphysical aussmption of evil.

[Anonymous No.23031859]

>>23031781
I mean they're both right it's just that MacDonald phrases his shit in ideological terms.

This is how it goes:
>Jews in middle ages live in theocratic Christian societies
>Their religion prevents them from integrating into the feudal system
>Christians persecute them at the behest of the Catholic Church. Burn their books, force them to attend sermons, make them wear distinguishing marks, ghettoise them, etc..
>A lot of Jews crack under this pressure and convert, eventually intermarrying and assimilating into Christian society.
>The Jews which don't convert necessarily are the ones who are most steadfast in their beliefs and most capable of surviving outside of mainstream society, thus they are the merchants, moneylenders, urbanites, etc., creating selection for higher IQ
>They effectively monopolise the moneylending industry due to the Catholic Church's ban on usury.
>They become a major part of the European bourgeoisie and support liberal political movements aimed at curtailing the influence of the Church and weakening the Christian identity in the state and society.
>This earns them a reputation as subverters among the "right wing" and antisemitism becomes no longer purely religious but economic and political in nature
>Later it evolves into a more explicitly racial context with the rise of Darwinian thinking and fascism

So could it be that MacDonald and Cofnas are describing the same phenomenon in different terms? Cofnas is describing the INSTRUMENTAL CAUSE of Jewish power (their high IQ), while MacDonald is describing the cause of the cause (being a persecuted minority).

[Anonymous No.23031860]

>>23031849
Both those points are covered and debated.

[Anonymous No.23031878]

>>23031849
>Jews appear to have a higher intelligence on average than other ethnic groups
Their ethnic group is either German(ic) or Slavic.
>I would guess they are significantly over-represented among Nobel prize winners for physics, which could hardly be explained as an effect of fraud or nepotism
You didn't guess that, and yes it could.

[Anonymous No.23031880]

>>23031859
>So could it be that MacDonald and Cofnas are describing the same phenomenon in different terms?

Potentially, but Cofnas rejects the idea that the phenomenon of Jews being naturally subversive actually exists, not inherently at least and not in the context of 20th/21st century Western societies.

He points for example to the over-representation of Jews in right-wing movements (e.g., neoconservativism, Italian fascism, the NRA, anti-immigration movements).

[Anonymous No.23031888]

>>23031849
>I would guess they are significantly over-represented among Nobel prize winners for physics, which could hardly be explained as an effect of fraud or nepotism
kek, they do. they really do. in these threads we actually have people involved in pic rel. we literally have people who travel around with the goyim defense league and stand on the side of highways or outside synagoges screaming about hitler. they really do talk about "real life activism" with each other in these threads. this is how subhuman these people are.

[Anonymous No.23031893]

>>23031878
>Their ethnic group is either German(ic) or Slavic.

Maybe for Ashkenazi, but you're ignoring Sephardi etc.

>You didn't guess that, and yes it could.

How could it? The fact that Jews are massively over-represented among chess grandmasters, nobel prize winners and other fields in which individual genius is the only factor in determining one's success is definitely something which threatens MacDonald and others' arguments about Jewish nepotism. Not to say that both can't exist, but I don't understand how people can claim Jews can fake their way to being nobel prize winners or chess grandmasters.

[Anonymous No.23031899]

>>23031781
>This theory proposes that Jews are only in such positions of influence due to their higher than average IQ and their concentration in urban environments
This is a disingenuous, trite argument meant to fool the ignorant and uncritical. The surest way to disillusion oneself of this canard is to interact with jews and engage with their intellectual fruits.

[Anonymous No.23031905]

>>23031899
Then how do you refute Cofnas's point that Jews can be found to be over-represented in both left- and right-wing movements?

[Anonymous No.23031915]

>>23031880
>Subversive
This is what I mean by ideological language. Subversion of what? Well, Jews would naturally want to subvert those right wing identitarian movements that imply the social/politcal/economic exclusion of Jews. Historically this was the sort of integralist Catholic ancien regime which was toppled during the age of revolution by Jews, Freemasons, Enlightenment thinkers, political liberals, etc.. More recently, Jews would also want to subvert those European racial supremacist movements which would exclude them.

Jews would not -- as an a-priori principle -- want to subvert any form of political organisation which does not harm them, such as liberal individualism.

Would Cofnas really deny that it is in the ethnic interest of Jews to fight against right wing identitarian movements whether they be racialist or Christian in nature?

[Anonymous No.23031921]

>>23031859
Jews were never persecuted during the middle ages any more so than other criminals, or non-jews deemed to be heretics. Their continued existence during these so-called pogroms proves that. In reality, the church continually protected the jews by moving them from place to place, and eventually giving them complete privacy in 'ghettos'. They were in league all the time, to the detriment of the peasantry.
You think it was a coincidence that only jews were allowed to lend money? Sure, let's put this incredibly powerful tool, which can (and did) leverage power over royal dynasties, into the hands of our religious nemeses. They were playing good cop, bad cop, where the jews played the latter (the oft-described scapegoat).

[Anonymous No.23031934]

>>23031915
This is pretty much the point Cofnas makes: Jews can be found to be over-represented in ANY political or ideological movement which is not explicitly hostile to Jews.

MacDonald argues (imo) that Jews are hostile to anything which binds a society together and gives it an identity which is not universal (and thus meaningless). Cofnas argues that the over-representation of Jews in Italian fascism, neoconservatism etc proves that Jews are more like an atomised mass of high IQ city slickers who gravitate perhaps more towards the kind of liberal movements you describe, but nevertheless can be found to be in the upper echelons of ANY movement or industry which requires intellectual ability.

[Anonymous No.23031937]

>>23031781
>due to their higher than average IQ
Btw, this must be an awkward talking point for liberals/egalitarians. If they admit such group differences, wouldn't it follow that other groups could have a lower than average IQ...?

[Anonymous No.23031955]

>>23031937
That's pretty much the point that Cofnas makes: unless you're going to grant that Jews have a higher-than-average IQ, then the only other way to explain massive Jewish over-representation among CEOs, billionaires, and so on is ethnic nepotism.

[Anonymous No.23031965]

>>23031859
>Cofnas is describing the INSTRUMENTAL CAUSE of Jewish power (their high IQ)
It requires a suspension of disbelief to arrive at the starting point from which an IQ of two to three standard-deviations above average can explain (so-called) conspiracy theories about jews.
Are non-jewish who score that high super-geniuses, capable of dominating any field they choose? It is common knowledge that very high IQ individuals have many shortcomings: emotional, social, even intellectual; likewise that the most successful, say in positions of business, management, and governance, are not geniuses.
We are thinking in magical terms here, and why? Because post-war generations were sold lies which became modern myth which we inherited. In other words we're giving jews the benefit of the doubt, because they're victims, they're a minority, etc., and it simply cannot be true that - that what? That they work together for their own benefit first, and for non-jews second?
Is that what we're doubting, and in favour of the idea that jews rather are super geniuses who have never achieved anything but for their outstanding, unique *genetic* merit? Which one is more plausible when you strip away politics?

[Anonymous No.23031968]

>>23031921
I didn't say they were persecuted more. I said that because they were persecuted the only ones which would remain Jewish instead of integrating would be the ones that are powerful enough to survive outside of mainstream feudal society. Naturally these are the more urban bourgeois types. Thus there was a genetic (and cultural) selection mechanism for higher IQ, more educated, more powerful Jews, supporting MacDonald's thesis. The others would have cracked under the pressure and converted. Protestants didn't have the same selection mechanism because they weren't a minority; some princes converted and their regions had centralised political and military power. Jews never had a Jewish State in Europe, thus the group strategy was different.
>>23031934
It sounds like they agree then. It is in the Jewish ethnic interest to oppose right wing identitarian movements that would exclude the Jews politcally and economically. This is obvious, right? So the question is if you see this as a bad or a good/neutral thing, and that will depend on whether you are a right wing identitarian or not.

[Anonymous No.23031995]

>>23031968
That depends on whether you equate right wing identitarian to anti-semitic.

[Anonymous No.23032004]

>>23031905
Couldn't that be explained as competing visions for the grand group evolutionary strategy, as in different factions have different conceptions about the best strategy for the group so both pursue the aim of being overrepresented in positions of power and control to implement their vision to steer the group?

Personally I find the concept of group evolutionary strategies gets very stretched and doesn't hold great explanatory power compared to more obvious and immediate causes and interests, especially once it's delinked from strict genetic interests. MacDonald is on stronger ground in the first book when detailing the strict Jewish lineage and marriage laws that makes attaching a group evolutionary strategy to a set of actual tight genetic interests in pre-modern times more compelling, but as MacDonald admits that breaks down for all non-Ultra Orthodox Jews post-Napoleon into something much vaguer in book three and modernity.

>>23031955
Nepotism wouldn't be fatal to Cofnas's argument though would it? A low level group evolutionary strategy to give employment/investment/oppourtuinity hand ups isn't the grand group evolutionary strategy of MacDonald's fever dreams.

[Anonymous No.23032036]

>>23032004
>Couldn't that be explained as competing visions for the grand group evolutionary strategy

It could, sure, but then imo it drifts into the area of conspiracy theory, that is to say that unless you provide a way for Jews to prove there is no grand subversive ambition then it pretty much leaves them with no room to maneuver other than to consciously restrict their own intellectual abilities and become mediocre (like blacks, etc) so that nobody will suspect they are up to something.

>>23032004
I don't think so, no. Ethnic nepotism is pretty much irrefutable to anyone except the most far-gone of masochistic liberal whites. In her book World on Fire, Amy Chua identifies similar examples to elite Jewish nepotism like the mainland Chinese in Indonesia (iirc), and uses such examples to explain why hostility exists towards successful ethnic minorities.

Cofnas would probably argue that ethnic nepotism exists to some extent in every ethnic group, but that nepotism among Jews is only highlighted (and perhaps exaggerated) because they are the high IQ group who find themselves among the elite regardless (e.g., chess, nobel prizes). MacDonald seems to argue that there is a function to this nepotism, namely the undermining of the in-group to the benefit of the Jews overall.

[Anonymous No.23032037]

>>23031995
In the Western context, right wing identitarian takes the form of identifying the State specifically with Christian or "white people" (this latter concept usually excludes the Jews, though some consider them white). So by definition it is against the Jews. Obviously in Israel, right-wing identitarianism identifies the State with Judaism, so it is not against the Jews. When talking about Western history, the right wing identitarian ancien regimes conceived of themselves as deriving their legitimacy from the (Catholic) God, and the policy of the Catholic Church was to suppress all other religions in Catholic majority countries. Thus the Jews opposed them, and the revolutionaries such as Oliver Cromwell and Napoleon freed the Jews. It's not that Jews have a conspiratorial plan, it's just that their natural interests ally them with liberal/left wing movements against identitarian ones. Stated this way, the conclusion is not surprising, although it does have implications for politics (if you're a right wing identitarian).

[Anonymous No.23032155]

>>23031888
They're just jealous of your wealth and success.

[Anonymous No.23032268]

>>23032036
Yeah I find Cofnas's explanation more compelling. You could go further and look at the historical success of Neo-Kantianism and it's cosmopolitan universalism in Jewish thought, and even grant that its success is in part because it gives a healthy place for Jews in the world, without needing the grander aspects of MacDonald's thesis.

What do you think about the concept of group evolutionary strategies in general? And how tightly do they need to be linked to actual genetic interests to be persuasive? I think MacDonald streches the concept in ways someone like E. O. Wilson wouldn't accept amongst other species. The first culture of critique book is very big on linking the strict policing around reproduction in Jewish law, which would link the laws of the group very tightly to the genetic stock of the group and hence establish a strong tie between the reproduction of the laws and the reproduction of the genes even when living amongst another society. But that link breaks down once the marriage and reproduction laws are no longer enforced, yet the same tight group strategy is supposed to hold despite the loss of the tight genetic link?

And then of course you look at actual Jewish history and the group evolutionary strategy isn't so flash in explanatory power even when the genetic ties are strong, and the whole thing starts to look like a biologist playing dilettante historian.

>>23032037
Interestingly the Jewish personality (Menasseh Ben Israel) who convinved* Cromwell to permit Jewish resettlement based his arguments on something we today would recognise as akin to Christian Zionism. The argument was that in order for the messiah to appear, Jews needed to be gathered to return to Israel from all nations, as in first Jews needed to be settled in all nations before they could be gathered up and returned to Israel to fulfil the necessary prophecies of the end times. Therefore England in expelling the Jews was slowing up the second coming of Christ (or rather the true Jewish messiah) by preventing the Jews being gathering up from all nations. He also makes a proto-Mormon claim that some of the American Indians were found to be Jews from the lost tribes, hence Jews were present in all nations bar tardy England.

*Well not convinced, he petitioned and it was determined there was no law against Jewish settlement in England, merely the royal decree of Edward expelling them, and there being no king, and no new decree from the lord protector, there was nothing barring Jews from resettling, no parliament had ever passed a law against Jewish settlement in England.

[Anonymous No.23032299]

>>23031878
>Their ethnic group is either German(ic) or Slavic
Ashkenazim are still closer to modern Palestinians than they are to Germans. They're about half middle eastern genetically, quarter southern Euro and quarter northern Euro.

[Anonymous No.23032344]

>>23032268
>What do you think about the concept of group evolutionary strategies in general?

In Cofnas's interview, they discuss briefly the German GES in the 1930s, which was essentially to purge Jews as a strategy to promote ethnic Germanic interests. That kind of example is probably valid, and can be observed to a greater or lesser degree in different periods and societies. The point about the breakdown of restrictions and the continuation of the GES is interesting, namely because as Cofnas mentions the intermarriage rate between Jews and gentiles in modern liberal societies is very high and seems to be rising (Orthodox Jews being the exception). Andrew Joyce in his rebuttal of Cofnas (Occidental Observer) points out that even if the rate of intermarriage is very high, overall it is still below what would be expected considering that Jews are such a tiny population meaning the likelihood of a Jew meeting another Jew of the opposite sex would be very low theoretically. MacDonald's rebuttal is that many Jews who strongly identify as such do marry gentiles but retain their ethnic self-interest, the example he returns to being Sacha Baron-Cohen, I think he also points to someone like Jared Kushner who furthers Jewish interests by marrying into a gentile family whose power could be manipulated in favour of Jews.

Personally I think the intermarriage rate is one of the major arguments in Cofnas's favour, the other being the success of Jews in non-nepotistic arenas (e.g., chess, physics). The argument that intermarriage is somewhat part of a wider strategy to increase the influence of Jews is weak imo.

[Anonymous No.23032345]

>>23032299
Are you the same guy that got BTFOd in the other thread posting the table about Jewish genetic distance to Germans being further than the distance between Italians and Germans while your very own table showed that Jews are genetically closer to Italians than Italians are to Irish, Swedes, or Russians thus completely destroying your whole narrative that Jews cannot be considered European due to insurmountable genetic barriers? I see you've conveniently started using another table which doesn't include that embarrassing truth, LOL!

By the way here was your table, totally smashes apart any idea that the "white race" is anything but an arbitrary sociopolitical construct which can include whomever you want it to include. If Jews are not to be considered European because of insurmountable genetic barriers, and yet Irish, Germans, Italians, and Russians are, then clearly the concept of "European" is not determined by genetic similarity.

[Anonymous No.23032351]

>>23032345
correction: Jewish genetic distance to Italians* not Germans. You confidently gloated "Jews are not southern European. Italians are closer to Germans than they are to Jews!" and then pooped your pants when your chart BTFOd you

[Anonymous No.23032424]

>>23032344
My contention is that when the abstract concept of the group breaks away from the concrete genetic essence of the group, then you have to also break away from strong theories of biological group selection, because the biological group (as a bundle of genetic interests) that's supposed to be driving the perpetuation of its genes through the cunning of group selection strategies, no longer exists/has meaning.

[Anonymous No.23032473]

>>23032268
Kind of interesting how English literary culture experienced its greatest and longest lasting flowering during the period of their absence, and practically immediately began to wither the moment Cromwell resettled them. By the early twentieth century, practically none of the greatest authors of the English language were from britain but rather from Ireland or the USA.

[Anonymous No.23033387]

>>23031781
>involves undermining the cohesion and identity of the nation which hosts them by gaining influential positions in mass media, immigration, psychoanalysis etc
Influential Jews like Roberta Kaplan and Alex Soros (speaking about his father) have said the same.
>This theory proposes that Jews are only in such positions of influence due to their higher than average IQ and their concentration in urban environments.
There's extreme over-representation even taking this into account, the elephant in the room is that the 2% vs. 60% numerical advantage of Whites would override the individual IQ advantage of Jews (e.g. there are more White geniuses than Jewish ones simply due to scale).