Kmac vs. Boas: Round III
Will he ever just let it go? A final word.
To avoid superfluity, this will be the last article on Kevin MacDonald’s misrepresentations of Boasian anthropology within The Culture of Critique and, now, without. Any subsequent developments to occur will likely be added here in future updates. The previous installments are parts one and two.
On January 6, Nathan Cofnas published what he calls his “magnum opus on the Jewish question and my final reply to” Kevin MacDonald. The paper, “Still No Evidence for a Jewish Group Evolutionary Strategy,” was released in the journal Evolutionary Psychological Science and is a rich contribution to the ongoing debate. It covers quite a lot of ground, mostly pressing further into key weaknesses in the CofC thesis that MacDonald has yet to relinquish:
In light of MacDonald’s reply, in this paper, I refine my previous arguments, address some popular misunderstandings, and discuss the root causes and consequences of anti-Semitism. I conclude that, contra the anti-Jewish narrative, Jews are not particularly ethnocentric, Jewish intellectuals do not typically advocate liberal multiculturalism for gentiles but not for Jews, Jews did not orchestrate the rise of liberalism or blank-slatism in the West, and anti-Semitism is not primarily a response to actual Jewish wrongdoing.
The point of this article is not to summarize Cofnas’ paper or assess the CofC debate in its entirety — that will be for another time — but it’s definitely recommended reading for any serious person interested in these kinds of things. One of its most interesting (and commented-upon) arguments to look for is the preeminent role of Italian Jewry in early fascism, a now-forgotten historical episode which presents a very compelling counterargument to MacDonald’s thesis and will be fleshed out in a later post.
But more relevant is that the paper also thoroughly dismantles MacDonald’s narrative about Franz Boas and his students and includes a number references to my original piece on the subject:
First, as Vivare (2022) points out, Boas did not marry within his ethnic group, and MacDonald’s reference for this assertion does not claim that he did. . . .
Second, neither Degler (1991) nor Stocking (1968) says anything to support the claim that “Boas was deeply alienated from and hostile toward gentile culture.” Degler (1991, p. 200) simply mentions Boas as one of the “scholars of Jewish descent who had long been held at a distance or excluded entirely from American colleges and universities [who] were now coming to the fore.” Stocking (1968, pp. 149–150) refers to Boas’ “profound identification with classical German culture,” though says that he was alienated from “the Germany of his day.” . . .
MacDonald (2022) again avoids mentioning the fact that Boas strongly identified as a German. As Glick (1982, p. 554) expounds . . .
Even after Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, Boas was still willing to declare that “I am of Jewish descent, but in my feelings and my thoughts I am German” (quoted in Vivare, 2022; Weiler, 2008, p. 69). Degler quotes Boas’ explicit statement about his motivations, which refer to his German identity. . . .
That being said, Boas’ concern about anti-Semitism was somewhat limited. On this point, Vivare (2022) identifies another rather shocking misrepresentation in The Culture of Critique. MacDonald (1998/2002, p. 23) attributes the following statement to Boas: “If we Jews had to choose to work only with Gentiles certified to be a hundred percent free of anti-Semitism, who could we ever really work with?” In fact, this was said by an unnamed anthropologist long after Boas had died (Chase, 1980, p. 632)! In 1942, the editor of a Jewish newspaper asked Boas to write an article condemning the notorious anti-Semite Father Coughlin and calling for his publication, Social Justice, to be banned. Boas replied: “In my opinion the only kind of protest that means anything is to attack the whole attitude of races toward one another. If you want a note in which I accuse at the same time the Jews for their anti-Negro attitude I will write it” (quoted in Lewis, 2001; Vivare, 2022). Not the words you would expect from a supposedly fanatical crusader against anti-Semitism.
Just two days after publication, sure enough, MacDonald Tweets notice of his revision of chapter two and his plans to actually reissue The Culture of Critique itself in the coming months to accommodate it.
Following the normal pattern, the revision is entirely unsatisfactory in light of the evidence and counterarguments offered in Cofnas’ work and mine.
Instead of conceding literally anything, his strategy instead was to employ the caution from “Jewish Assimilation?” as seen before — in fact, he copies almost this entire article into the beginning of the new chapter verbatim. Instead of admitting how there’s not nearly as much evidence for the strong Jewish identities of Boas or his students as he originally presented, and plenty that contradicts the notion, MacDonald instead ensures the reader from the get-go that they were strongly-identified Jews and that any insufficient evidence is merely the result of their own calculated deception. Then he proceeds to regurgitate all his claims about Boas’ “strong Jewish identification,” his being “deeply concerned about anti-Semitism” and “deeply alienated from and hostile toward gentile culture,” with apparently no novel evidence. All of this is coated in a style and tone strikingly different and less academic than the rest of the book, replete with off-topic quips about Jewish neocons and the “‘open border’ policy administered by Biden’s Jewish Secretary of Homeland Security.”
The other notable change was that he attempted to defend against a select number of critiques. One was Boas’ advocacy of Jewish genetic assimilation, which he correctly recognizes as existential to his thesis, encapsulated in the line “anti-Semitism will not disappear until the last vestige of the Jew as a Jew has disappeared.” He dismisses this by calling it “simply an allegation of fact,” as if Boas wasn’t actually interested in getting rid of antisemitism, or something. A second was Boas’ German patriotism, which MacDonald dismisses by narrowly focusing on Boas’ extreme support for Germany in WWI, and then saying that other Jews actually did the same because Germany’s opponent, Russia, was persecuting Jews — case closed!
A few days after, I managed to put together a response thread1 — he did ask for comments, after all — in which I address his remaining arguments in some detail, although Twitter is always a limiting medium for such things.
Now these points are, to be brutally honest, as stupid as they are disingenuous, but at least they put on full display MacDonald’s unyielding biases and pride.
But this much is understandable. After all, The Culture of Critique is his most important work, and the bulk of his life’s efforts have for the past few decades gone into expounding its ideas, ideas which have totally alienated him from polite society. When has anyone been in such a position and then, upon sober analysis, conceded that they were wrong? The costs of reality being reality by then are so great that it’s easiest to simply never submit to it. In his own words, “organisms are not designed to communicate truthfully with others but to persuade them,” and although he had Jews in mind, here, he might as well have been self-reflecting.
Doubtlessly he views what he does as righteous and imperative, and the topics of Boas and race are likely especially angering, as I wrote at the start of all this (if you can forgive such a Jewish attempt at psychoanalysis…):
In this chapter, especially in its second part, MacDonald is at great pains to document the errors of individual Jewish anti-racist scholars. Most of the time, this isn’t necessary and becomes superfluous to the claim that said scholar is biased. The reason for this behavior is likely the same as why MacDonald includes this chapter — the Jewish-led attack on race and evolution — first: since he works in this field, MacDonald likely feels personally assailed by this Jewish menace. As one reads the chapter, this impression is easy to notice and something personal between MacDonald and the Jews he criticizes does appear at work.
But we can’t fool ourselves into expecting him to be an honest scholar. To convince MacDonald the man, after all, is not the reason to engage with his writings. It is ironic, however, that among the new comments he’s placed into the chapter is the insistence that politically motivated research “has no place in real science.”
In the final analysis, MacDonald is dead wrong on each of the key points he sets out to prove in the original chapter and its revision. The requisites for a movement to be considered by the CofC thesis are as follows2:
It must have been dominated by Jews.
Said Jews “strongly identified as Jews.” (This may involve Jewish deception, but “for the most part it was quite easy and straightforward to find evidence.”)
Said Jews “thought of their involvement in the movement as advancing specific Jewish interests,” specifically as “attempts to alter Western societies in a manner that would end anti-Semitism and provide for Jewish group continuity.” (My emphasis.)
The movement as a whole was influential to the point of being a “necessary condition for” the “cultural transformations that have occurred in Western societies over the last 50 years.”
None of these criteria are met except for, perhaps, the first, although the numerical dominance of Jews (one of the few details to justify raising an eyebrow absent proper context) was a phenomenon that faded out over time and actually closely corresponds with the inordinate Jewish presence in the contemporary student body of Columbia University.
Overall, we can know with confidence that Boasianism was not driven primarily by Jews who had strong Jewish identities, were deeply motivated by antisemitism, and/or were hostile toward gentiles in any way. In fact, Boas and many of his students proudly self-identified with gentile German culture, repeatedly neglected Jewish concerns, and applied egalitarian principles consistently to Jews. Consider the words of Alexander Goldenweiser on the burgeoning Jewish nationalism in Palestine, typical of Boasians:
Here for once, the tables are reversed, and the Jew turns into a racial snob. . . . In the “democratic” organization of the new Jewish state, the Arab is outvoted and ruled against his will by the Jewish people with the assistance of foreign British police. . . . Those same Arabs . . . are regarded by the Jews as inferior, as a primitive race.
Goldenweiser, like Boas, was an advocate of Jewish assimilation into gentile society3. This fact alone invalidates the idea that their work was motivated by the continuity of the Jewish group, contra the CofC theory:
The best evidence that individuals have really ceased to have a Jewish identity is if they choose a political option that they perceive as clearly not in the interests of Jews as a group. (MacDonald 1998, 55–6)
The Boasian school must instead be seen as the injection of German (gentile and Jewish) liberalism via the post-1848 migrations into the context of the already growing egalitarianism in the American social sciences. Boas inherited his anthropological beliefs from the German milieu in which he was raised, from which he was taught (by the gentile liberals Virchow and Bastian), and which he predictably shared with contemporary ‘48ers like the gentile Alfred Kroeber. Boas proved the most successful at the time, but even here it was his gentile students Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict who did the most to advance tabula rasa ideology in the post-War American mind, especially in light of the organic disgust with all that associated with Nazism.
All reissuing the book, while keeping the same conclusions, will do is allow MacDonald to quietly remove the most demonstrable and embarrassing lies as a way to save face.
At this point, the subject of Boas is getting exhausted and boring. Hopefully, we can soon resolve the drama, but I wouldn’t put money on it.
Not only has MacDonald refused to let go of his faulty conclusions, he’s not actually acknowledged my criticisms many months after pledging to respond. (And his counter to Boas’ German pride is proof enough he’s finally read it.) Even the response thread given above was was conveniently missed, even after followers of mine attempted to follow up in his replies.
Regardless, nothing more will be accomplished by dwelling on these facts. Although busy, I’ve still been putting together a critical review of chapter three, “Jews And The Left,” and don’t plan on giving the wicked any rest, as they say. Other topics I’m looking to cover include Jews in Italian fascism; the causes of Jewish success; Jews and the Ivy League; Rabbinical Judaism; comments on Nick Fuentes and more recent dramas; and the Holocaust, National Socialism, WWII.
Until then.
Taken from the introduction to The Culture of Critique.
Otherwise, Goldenweiser was known to have advocated simply ignoring antisemitism.