The politeness of Mark Richardson

Posted by Fred Scrooby on July 02, 2005, 07:26 AM | #

“I know Eva well and words like ‘obese’ and ‘repulsive’ would probably have occurred to my mind.”  (—John)

Well ... uhh ... do “thick-skinned,” “incredibly magnanimous for a female,” “forgives and forgets easily,” or “never EVER goes near a computer” occur to your mind as well, John?  Because if they don’t, I’d say you can probably write off the friendship completely as of this moment ...

As for Mark’s not mentioning she’s Jewish and your implying it was omitted out of “politeness,” Mark’s no shrinking violet when it comes to speaking his mind, no matter whom it may upset.  He does it in a mild-mannered-yet-strong, polite way, far more polite than I for one ever manage to be—but he gets his points across fully.  I’d say he didn’t make explicit mention of her ethnicity in the text of the entry because he didn’t find it a prominent factor but considered her history of difficult relations with her father potentially more important.  Maybe you haven’t noticed, John, but at MR.com Mark has at least a few times that I’ve seen explicitly differed from other commenters regarding the extent of influence someone’s Jewish background had on their left-wing views of things, citing how for every person of Jewish backgound with such views there were X-number of gentiles with views equally wacko, for example, to back up his opinion that their Jewishness was less important than others might find.

My own view, which I’ve come to hold only over the past few months, is that, although you can’t affirm it as a factor in the leftism of any particular Jewish individual, Jews on average are made more leftist than others by something inborn, some sort of blindness to reality—sort of a cognitive birth defect that keeps a higher percentage of them than of other people from seeing certain things it’s necessary to see in order not to be attracted to leftism—seeing, for example, that there are innate differences between men and women, boys and girls.  A higher percentage of Jews than of other people seem simply unable to see that, and I suspect that Jewish blindness is at least partly inborn in them as a genetic trait.

Obviously, a person who lacks the ability to see that such differences between males and females exist will be less likely to doubt the claims of women’s lib.  In this and other ways, I think, a lack of certain inborn cognitive abilities makes Jews find leftism more attractive in many of its various aspects than gentiles do on average.

Posted by Fred Scrooby on July 02, 2005, 08:03 AM | #

I forgot to point out the most important thing:  Mark’s statement in his log entry, to the effect that:

“Most women don’t see a careerist competition with men for ‘power’ as the most important thing in their lives.”

There it is, the simple, pure, incontrovertible truth, in black-and-white.  Well said, Mark!  (Hey that would make a fantastic bumper sticker or T-shirt too!  No, wait—on second thought, better not ... if you showed that sentence anywhere as a motto, bumper sticker, or T-shirt, women’s libbers would probably get you hauled in to the Gedapo (the thought police) for “hate” or some damned thing ...)

Posted by jonjayray on July 02, 2005, 07:23 PM | #

“My own view, which I’ve come to hold only over the past few months, is that, although you can’t affirm it as a factor in the leftism of any particular Jewish individual, Jews on average are made more leftist than others by something inborn”

Scroob
You have come up with an interesting thought there.  Your being one of the Ashkenazim yourself may have helped with that insight.  I do think that a big ego has in the past had survival value and I don’t think there is much doubt that big egos are very Jewish.  They probably had to develop such egos to survive millennia of persecution.  And I have also agued that big egos are characteristically Leftist and there is plenty of evidence that both personality and politics are predominantly inherited so all the links your theory needs are in place.

Posted by Mark Richardson on July 02, 2005, 11:09 PM | #

Yes, I could have pursued the Jewish angle also, but I thought that the absent father connection was interesting enough to merit some attention.

So many leading feminists suffer from an absentee father that it must be at least one factor in creating the feminist type of woman.

Germaine Greer, for instance, actually wrote a book titled “Daddy, We Hardly Knew You”. And Gloria Steinem said of her father that he “was living in California. He didn’t ring up but I would get letters from him and saw him maybe twice a year.”

Having said that, it’s undoubtedly true that a high percentage of leading feminists are Jewish. It’s been that way since at least the early 1900s. For instance, the most famous Australian feminist of the early 1900s was Vida Goldstein, who was of Jewish/Irish ancestry (she has a Melbourne electorate named after her).

Similarly, in 1913 the British feminist Mary Sheepshanks made a political tour of Germany and reported that “the suffrage movement is very little supported in Germany, nearly all the men are dead against and nearly all the women indifferent ... the keenest and most intelligent are generally teachers and Jewesses.”

The question is how do you explain the leadership of Jewish women? I know that some commentators at this site believe that it’s a question of the pursuit of ethnic/genetic interests.

I agree that there are some Jews who do engage in politics with this motivation. However, for many Jews I believe there’s a different route into leftist/progressive politics.

Jews are a highly educated, intellectual group of people. Those Jews who lose an active connection to their religion almost inevitably as intellectuals seek out other forms of meaning in their lives.

Seeking meaning through political activism (advancing the cause of humanity) is a common substitute religion for intellectuals. Note how Eva Cox’s father was drawn away from his family by his desire to “save the world”.

Remember too that Jews will often not feel as close a connection to the mainstream culture and tradition and so will not be as “grounded” within the society they live in. This too leaves them vulnerable to liberal universalist politics.

Nathaniel Braden, a leading figure in the Randist movement, is an example of this. He once wrote,

“Living in the predominantly Anglo-Saxon city of Toronto, my parents were Russian Jewish immigrants who had never really assimilated themselves into Canadian culture. A sense of rootlessness and disorientation was present in our home from the beginnning. I had no sense of belonging, in Toronto or anywhere else, nor was I even aware of what a sense of belonging would mean. To me the void seemed normal.”

So whereas a gentile Anglo-Canadian intellectual could at least get part of his life satisfaction in his connection to the existing culture, it was more difficult for someone like Nathaniel Braden to feel the same way.

He had to escape the “void” - which he did by dedicating himself to a purist “right-liberal” political movement.

Ayn Rand, herself Jewish, once commented that “What matters is what you accept by choice, not what you are connected with through the accident of your ancestry.”

This is the basic idea of liberalism which has led both Jewish and gentile intellectuals to consider traditional ethnic nationalism to be illegitimate.

But you can see how much easier it would be for someone like Nathaniel Braden, already alienated from the existing national identity, to follow through with the logic of the principle.

(Fred, thanks for your comments above.)

Posted by jonjayray on July 03, 2005, 01:03 AM | #

Mark
That was an exceptionally sensible comment

Posted by Guessedworker on July 03, 2005, 04:45 AM | #

Those among us who are charmed by post-war second-wave libertarianism might profit from asking: what is this individual, anyway? 

If the answer is essentially negative - “it’s my life to live as I will, and I won’t be subject to any external will!” - that “individual” needs a lesson in the mechanicity of ordinary human consciousness.

The libertarian fetishism of the sovereign individual is founded on ignorance of the human condition.

As for the relentless tikun olam ambitions of so very many Jewish intellectuals, it makes little difference to me whether they are right or left, secular or religious, racially or individually based.  The effect upon our societies is always destructive.

We have our own interests.  We have our societies to protect.  We are not “individuals” free of such obligations.  That is the Jewish wet dream of the salad bowl.  Those of us who, having imbibed libertarian individualism, place themselves outside their own people and above obligation to it have in all particulars been converted to Jewish rootlessness ... and, probably, to use the Salterian expression, become extended Jewish phenotypes into the bargain.

Posted by ummjack on July 03, 2005, 03:14 PM | #

Hyoer-individualist feminism is caused by paternal abandonment plus high intelligence.

Dumb women who are abandoned by their fathers end up exploited by unscrupulous men, or occasionally rescued by men who enjoy exercising sexual benevolent despotism.

Intelligent women who were not abandoned by their fathers seek out relationships with more intelligent men and have the emotional stability and comfort in their own femininity to maintain those relationships.  A significant aspect to the ability to maintain a relationship with an adult man is the desire to mother.  A woman who does not have children is going to have a very hard time not driving away men by her incessant infantilizatin of them. 

Prominent feminists are very rarely stupid (there are exceptions, like Naomi Wolfe).  Paternal abandonment is only part of the equation.

Posted by Mark Richardson on July 03, 2005, 06:51 PM | #

Have to say I’ve found the contributions on this thread very interesting. Ummjack, an intelligently observed contribution.

Posted by Fred Scrooby on July 03, 2005, 08:09 PM | #

“A woman who does not have children is going to have a very hard time not driving away men by her incessant infantilization of them.”  (—ummjack)

Or by her incessant infantilization of the little dog she buys to replace the child she never had, which she treats like a human child, dresses in designer outfits for dogs complete with accessories such as dog collars studded with semi-precious gemstones, feeds human food to, and so on.  What some of these childless women turn into in later years is just a horror to behold:  they will keep from going insane by turning their husband or their dog into the child they never had.  Not all do it, of course—very far from it.  But the ones who do are really a sight to see, and that’s putting it mildly.