Jul 3, 2018 04:32 AM
(This post was last modified: Jul 3, 2018 04:33 AM by C C.)
https://undark.org/article/kevin-macdona...sychology/
EXCERPT: In the 20 years since the publication of his best-known book, “The Culture of Critique,” Kevin MacDonald [...] has complained that his work receives scant attention from academics — though there are reasons for the silence. The book, after all, has much in common with centuries-old anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, and, using the language of evolutionary psychology, MacDonald infamously argues that many Jews oppose the values of Western civilization in order to pursue insular group interests.
MacDonald complains, for example, of “a Jewish-dominated elite” that “has emerged to dominate intellectual and political debate,” even as it “almost instinctively loathes the traditional institutions of European-American culture. Indeed, intense hatred of perceived enemies appears to be an important psychological characteristic of Jews,” MacDonald writes.
Since the book’s publication in 1998, MacDonald has openly aligned himself with white nationalists [...] More recently, MacDonald’s work has become popular among the ascendant alt-right. [...]
With a few exceptions, though, mainstream evolutionary psychologists have long ignored MacDonald’s work — that is, until this year. In March, the journal *Human Nature* published a pointed but respectful rebuttal of the theories postulated in “The Culture of Critique.” Then, in early June, a full-throated defense of MacDonald’s work appeared in *Evolutionary Psychological Science*, a mainstream, peer-reviewed journal published by Springer Nature.
That paper, titled “Jewish Group Evolutionary Strategy Is the Most Plausible Hypothesis,” largely repeats MacDonald’s arguments. It claims that Jews have evolved to pursue strategies that “promote Jewish interests in the West,” and that Jews may be biologically wired to be more ethnocentric than other people.
As experts have pointed out, these arguments evoke a long history of anti-Semitic rhetoric. But more than that, they raise troubling questions in an era of shifting norms with regard to race, politics, and even science. Does bigoted academic work like MacDonald’s warrant a fair rebuttal, for example? Or does even a respectful critique have the effect of legitimizing it as part of mainstream discourse? After 20 years, why is Kevin MacDonald suddenly finding defenders in academia? And finally, why are ostensibly respectable, peer-reviewed journals — including one that counts intellectual luminaries like Harvard’s Steven Pinker and neuroscientist Sam Harris on its board — now publishing lavish defenses of what has been dismissed for decades as anti-Semitic pseudoscience?
As it turns out, the author of the criticism of MacDonald’s work, Nathan Cofnas, travels in the same intellectual circles as Edward Dutton, who wrote the pro-MacDonald response. [...] Alt-right figures [...] admire MacDonald’s work. Cofnas claims that some evolutionary psychologists do, too — albeit in secret, because the ideas are so charged. “A response was definitely warranted,” he said.
In his 21-page long response to MacDonald’s work, Cofnas argues that the theorist misuses sources, applies his theory differently to Jews and non-Jews, and chooses a complicated explanation for Jewish history when simpler ones would suffice. Cofnas wasn’t sure that a journal would even accept a rebuttal of MacDonald’s work, but the first journal he submitted a draft to, *Human Nature*, took the paper.
When we spoke, I asked Cofnas whether he was concerned that responding to MacDonald would legitimize his ideas. Why not say that the guy has a long track record of anti-Semitism, seems to be repeating old tropes, and leave it at that? “There’s nothing wrong, in my opinion, in principle, with trying to understand why any group behaves the way it does,” Cofnas said.
“I don’t think certain questions should be put off limits,” he continued, “because they remind us of a history that we don’t like. But it’s not necessary to dismiss MacDonald for that reason, because I think there are straightforward scientific reasons to reject him.”
MORE: https://undark.org/article/kevin-macdona...sychology/
EXCERPT: In the 20 years since the publication of his best-known book, “The Culture of Critique,” Kevin MacDonald [...] has complained that his work receives scant attention from academics — though there are reasons for the silence. The book, after all, has much in common with centuries-old anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, and, using the language of evolutionary psychology, MacDonald infamously argues that many Jews oppose the values of Western civilization in order to pursue insular group interests.
MacDonald complains, for example, of “a Jewish-dominated elite” that “has emerged to dominate intellectual and political debate,” even as it “almost instinctively loathes the traditional institutions of European-American culture. Indeed, intense hatred of perceived enemies appears to be an important psychological characteristic of Jews,” MacDonald writes.
Since the book’s publication in 1998, MacDonald has openly aligned himself with white nationalists [...] More recently, MacDonald’s work has become popular among the ascendant alt-right. [...]
With a few exceptions, though, mainstream evolutionary psychologists have long ignored MacDonald’s work — that is, until this year. In March, the journal *Human Nature* published a pointed but respectful rebuttal of the theories postulated in “The Culture of Critique.” Then, in early June, a full-throated defense of MacDonald’s work appeared in *Evolutionary Psychological Science*, a mainstream, peer-reviewed journal published by Springer Nature.
That paper, titled “Jewish Group Evolutionary Strategy Is the Most Plausible Hypothesis,” largely repeats MacDonald’s arguments. It claims that Jews have evolved to pursue strategies that “promote Jewish interests in the West,” and that Jews may be biologically wired to be more ethnocentric than other people.
As experts have pointed out, these arguments evoke a long history of anti-Semitic rhetoric. But more than that, they raise troubling questions in an era of shifting norms with regard to race, politics, and even science. Does bigoted academic work like MacDonald’s warrant a fair rebuttal, for example? Or does even a respectful critique have the effect of legitimizing it as part of mainstream discourse? After 20 years, why is Kevin MacDonald suddenly finding defenders in academia? And finally, why are ostensibly respectable, peer-reviewed journals — including one that counts intellectual luminaries like Harvard’s Steven Pinker and neuroscientist Sam Harris on its board — now publishing lavish defenses of what has been dismissed for decades as anti-Semitic pseudoscience?
As it turns out, the author of the criticism of MacDonald’s work, Nathan Cofnas, travels in the same intellectual circles as Edward Dutton, who wrote the pro-MacDonald response. [...] Alt-right figures [...] admire MacDonald’s work. Cofnas claims that some evolutionary psychologists do, too — albeit in secret, because the ideas are so charged. “A response was definitely warranted,” he said.
In his 21-page long response to MacDonald’s work, Cofnas argues that the theorist misuses sources, applies his theory differently to Jews and non-Jews, and chooses a complicated explanation for Jewish history when simpler ones would suffice. Cofnas wasn’t sure that a journal would even accept a rebuttal of MacDonald’s work, but the first journal he submitted a draft to, *Human Nature*, took the paper.
When we spoke, I asked Cofnas whether he was concerned that responding to MacDonald would legitimize his ideas. Why not say that the guy has a long track record of anti-Semitism, seems to be repeating old tropes, and leave it at that? “There’s nothing wrong, in my opinion, in principle, with trying to understand why any group behaves the way it does,” Cofnas said.
“I don’t think certain questions should be put off limits,” he continued, “because they remind us of a history that we don’t like. But it’s not necessary to dismiss MacDonald for that reason, because I think there are straightforward scientific reasons to reject him.”
MORE: https://undark.org/article/kevin-macdona...sychology/
