December 28, 2019

"One can apply a prodigious intellect in the service of prosaic things — formulating a war plan, for instance, or constructing a ship.... Jewish genius operates differently."

"It is prone to question the premise and rethink the concept; to ask why (or why not?) as often as how; to see the absurd in the mundane and the sublime in the absurd. Ashkenazi Jews might have a marginal advantage over their gentile peers when it comes to thinking better. Where their advantage more often lies is in thinking different. Where do these habits of mind come from? There is a religious tradition that, unlike some others, asks the believer not only to observe and obey but also to discuss and disagree. There is the never-quite-comfortable status of Jews in places where they are the minority — intimately familiar with the customs of the country while maintaining a critical distance from them. There is a moral belief, 'incarnate in the Jewish people' according to Einstein, that 'the life of the individual only has value [insofar] as it aids in making the life of every living thing nobler and more beautiful.' And there is the understanding, born of repeated exile, that everything that seems solid and valuable is ultimately perishable, while everything that is intangible — knowledge most of all — is potentially everlasting."

From "The Secrets of Jewish Genius/It’s not about having higher I.Q.s." by Bret Stephens (NYT).

To answer the question is Stephens Jewish, here's Wikipedia: "Bret Stephens was born in New York City, the son of Xenia and Charles J. Stephens, a former vice president of General Products, a chemical company in Mexico. Both his parents were secular Jews. His paternal grandfather, Louis Ehrlich, was born in Kishenev (today Chișinău, Moldova) in 1901; he fled with his family to New York after a pogrom."

At Wikipedia, Stephens has 1 item under the heading "Controversy":
In August 2019, Stephens sent a complaint to a George Washington University professor and the university's provost about a tweet in which the professor called Stephens a "bedbug." The topic of Stephens's next column was the "rhetoric of infestation" used by authoritarian regimes such as Nazi Germany. The column was interpreted as criticism of the GWU professor and other critics of Stephens.
Just yesterday, I posted on another Bret Stephens column. He had written that Trump’s presidency should be seen is "an unsightly pimple" or "something bad" that needed to be washed off the hands with "soap." I said, sarcastically:
Talking about a human being as filth or disease... I thought we weren't doing that anymore. I thought you could get canceled for that....
In the comments, HoodlumDoodlum brought up the old "bedbug" controversy:
Basically a GWU professor called Stephens a bedbug and sent a complaint to the university provost and wrote a full column on how comparing people to bugs is something Nazis do, etc.

When HE says someone is filth that should be washed away, though, it's different. Why? Well...it just is, and anyone who questions that is probably a Nazi!
I wonder what provoked Stephens to write this new column on the "genius" of Jews. The comments section over at the Times is not at all happy with it. The top-rated comment is:
As a Christian woman who was married to a Jew for nearly 60 years, I find this column incredibly unsettling. The idea of labeling an entire religion (or race or gender) as this or that leads to nothing good...and often to things that are very bad. Where do we take this? Jews are smarter and therefore a bigger threat? Groups that have not won many Nobel prizes are stupid? And since when have we decided that IQ test scores are true measures of intelligence - a trait difficult to define in any case. When my husband was a boy, he was often chased down the street by neighboring children yelling "Christ Killer" at him. "Smarter" is just another label. I am amazed that the Times published this.
Another high-rated comment:
This is baffling. It is hard to picture a corresponding column being written about whatever ethnic group has the lowest average “IQ” and why they are prone to mediocrity, so I’m not sure I agree this angle is acceptable even in its positive light. I think we would collectively be quick to dismiss the reverse as problematic, at best. And how interesting that the author is so careful to clarify Ashkenazi rather than Sephardic or other Jewish sects. I’m interested to hear about cultural teachings that may lead to excellence, but this seems... really off the mark.
ADDED: So, according to Stephens, there are the people who can build things and do things in the real world. They can perform feats of engineering or devise military strategy. But those things are "prosaic," and — in Stephens blunt view — not what Jews do with their "prodigious intellect." Jews — in Stephens view — stand apart from these practical things and "question the premise and rethink the concept," they "ask why (or why not?)," they see absurdities and "maintain[] a critical distance." It may be good to value different kinds of intelligence and to roughly opine that there are the people who do things in the real world and people who stand back and observe and critique everything, but it's a big problem to put a group — even your own group — in the second category.

115 comments:

exhelodrvr1 said...

It's simply an observation that different cultures/ethnicities have different characteristics, and looking for an explanation why.

Unfortunately, it's only OK to do that when the observation/explanation works in favor of a subset of the world's cultures/ethnicities.

Mr. Forward said...

Is there some etymological explanation for the awkward inclusion of “...nazi” in Ashkenazi?

Christy said...

Good grief. Why this article? Why now? Is it ever a good idea remind the rest of us that you are Dad's favorite?

rhhardin said...

Ashkenazi jews are smarter even than Asians. Typically it's rated as a high verbal intelligence. With that plus a tendency to whine you can be a tiresome group.

The Chinese encounter a lot of the same hostility as Jews do when the Chinese move in a shopkeepers in lower IQ Asian cultures.

The feeling is apparently that the group that on the average does noticeably better than the lower IQ natives must be somehow screwing them over.

You notice it with blacks and whites here.

IQ is designed to measure probable success, so almost everything is an IQ test of a sort after the fact, and gets the same results. It's not that people don't distinguish kinds of intelligence. It's that kinds of intelligence are already folded in when success is taken as the arbiter in the first place.

Anonymous said...

I don’t see the problem. The unwritten rule for public discussion that singles out a specific ethnic or religious group by name makes it impermissible only if it fails to flatter them in comparison with white Christian men. It’s the general case of Althouse’s Law.

rhhardin said...

Jordan Peterson somewhere has a seminar on the armed forces equivalent of the IQ test, and its significance. The armed forces want everybody they can train to do something useful but have a cutoff at the low end, people who are useless to them, even with every motivation to get people. That's justification of tests as useful.

Making it a group thing doesn't come up there, but in doing social policy averages do come up all over, when you look at where does a problem come from and what should we do about it. It's bad to get that wrong to serve political correctness. It makes things worse.

Lewis Wetzel said...

There is no special Jewish "genius."
Stephens hates Trump, and Trump, no Jew, is all about "question the premise and rethink the concept" about the things that Stephens thinks are settled matters. Trump also sees absurdities and maintains a critical existence. Trump is an outsider; it is his blessing and curse as it is the Jews' blessing and curse.
If there is common thread in Jewish thought, it is "dissatisfaction," but of course there are plenty of non-Jews who view existence with the thought that things will never be as they should be. Perhaps the most Jewish belief of all is things are not right, and never will be right, but they have to try and fail to make them right anyhow.

Guildofcannonballs said...

https://linhdinhphotos.blogspot.com/2019/10/jewish-genius.html

Like the rabbi in Hail, Caesar! says "I have no opinion."

https://youtu.be/KJEiDRi4Itc

gilbar said...

you know, when i want to know about "Jewish"

the Two people i consider listening too, are Einstein and Brat Stevens
Because, Who would want to listen to a religious Jew? What with the fur hats and all?
</disgust

rhhardin said...

There is no special Jewish "genius."

Check out Emanuel Levinas "Nine Talumdic Readings" and "Difficult Freedom" specifically on how Judaism encounters language.

gilbar said...

oh! wait! i have it!

i heard that a lot a males, Jewish Males, were being killed; and i almost thought...

Lewis Wetzel said...

Stefan Zweig (an Austrian Jew), in "The World of Yesterday (1942)," wrote this of the genius of the Jews (at least the Austrian Jews):


It is generally accepted that getting rich is the only and typical goal of the Jew. Nothing could be further from the truth. Riches are to him merely a stepping stone, a means to the true end, and in no sense the real goal. The real determination of the Jew is to rise to a higher cultural plane in the intellectual world. Even in the case of Eastern orthodox Jewry, where the weaknesses as well as the merits of the whole race are more intensely manifested, this supremacy of the will to the spiritual over the mere material finds plastic expression. The holy man, the Bible student is a thousand times more esteemed within the community than the rich man; even the wealthiest man will prefer to give his daughter in marriage to the poorest intellectual than to a merchant. This elevation of the intellectual to the highest rank is common to all classes; the poorest beggar who drags his pack through wind and rain will try to single out at least one son to study, no matter at how great a sacrifice, and it is counted a title of honor for the entire family to have someone in their midst, a professor, a savant, or a musician, who plays a role in the intellectual world, as if through his achievements he ennobled them all.
And that is why among Jews the impulse to wealth is exhausted in two, or at most three, generations within one family, and the mightiest dynasties find their sons unwilling to take over the banks, the factories, the established and secure businesses of their fathers. It is not chance that a Lord Rothschild became an ornithologist, a Warburg an art historian, a Cassirer a philosopher, a Sassoon a poet. They all obey the same subconscious impulse, to free themselves of cold money making, that thing that confines Jewry; and perhaps it expresses a secret longing to resolve the merely Jewish – through flight into the intellectual – into humanity at large.

Tina Trent said...

Ah yes, the tired old "we read our religious texts in ways that anticipated literary deconstruction" chestnut.

I wouldn't brag about it.

Narayanan said...

Is Bret Stephens proposing / claiming "cruel neutrality" comes easy to Jewish genius?

Gunner said...

The Jews and Non-Jews who write for the Times will continue to be the most dumb.

Phil 314 said...

This opinion piece is triggering for the “anti-elitists”

Ann Althouse said...

OED on the etymology of "genius":

"Etymology: < classical Latin genius male spirit of a family, existing in the head of the family and subsequently in the divine or spiritual part of each individual, personification of a person's natural appetites, spirit or personality of an emperor regarded as an object of worship, spirit of a place, spirit of a corporation, (in literature) talent, inspiration, person endowed with talent, also demon or spiritual being in general (2nd cent. a.d.), a formation in -ius (suffix chiefly forming adjectives) on a base ultimately related to that of gignere to beget (see genital adj.)."

Lewis Wetzel said...

"Blogger Phil 314 said...
This opinion piece is triggering for the “anti-elitists”"
You may be right. I have no problem with Jews being God's Chosen People. What I have a problem with is the idea that Jews are a special kind of human because of the way that they (and not non-Jews) think.

Ann Althouse said...

One of the OED's definitions of "genius": "With reference to a group of people, a nation, period of time, etc.: prevalent feeling, opinion, sentiment, or taste; distinctive character or spirit. Also: a personification of this."

Example: "1803 W. Tennant Indian Recreations II. 162 Operations requiring no effort..and on that account peculiarly suited to the genius of the indolent Bengalese." And: "1701 J. Swift Disc. Contests Nobles & Commons v. 50 The People of England are of a Genius and Temper, never to admit Slavery among them."

Another meaning for "genius" is: "Natural ability or capacity; quality of mind; attributes which suit a person for his or her peculiar work. Also: an instance of this."

Example: "1729 B. Franklin Modest Enq. 17 Different Men have Genius's adapted to Variety of different Arts and Manufactures."

Then there's the meaning we tend to assume: " An exceptionally intelligent or talented person, or one with exceptional skill in a particular area of art, science, etc.; a person having genius (sense A. 9). Now also in weakened or ironic use."

Example: "1962 D. Berry Moontrap xix. 302 ‘Wonderful,’ Monday said. ‘You're a real genius, now.’ ‘Don't get smart, Monday,’ Thurston said."

rhhardin said...

You can't put the genius back in the botle.

Fernandinande said...

It’s not about having higher I.Q.s.

Well, yes it is about having higher IQ because high IQs are necessary, but obviously not sufficient.

Ashkenazi Jews might have a marginal advantage

That statement shows that the author doesn't understand IQ distributions.

Via Sailer, and from "Jews and the New American Scene"

"During the last three decades, Jews have made up 50% of the top two hundred intellectuals, 40 percent of American Nobel Prize Winners in science and economics, 20 percent of professors at the leading universities, 21 percent of high level civil servants, 40 percent of partners in the leading law firms in New York and Washington, 26% of the reporters, editors, and executives of the major print and broadcast media, 59 percent of the directors, writers, and producers of the fifty top-grossing motion pictures from 1965 to 1982, and 58 percent of directors, writers, and producers in two or more primetime television series."

...and about 2% of the US population.

rhhardin said...

Oxford Latin Dictionary
genius ~ii m. 1. The male spirit of a gens existing during his lifetime in the head of the family, and subsequently in the divine or spiritual part of each individual. 1b. the personification of one's natural appetites 1c. (applied by a parasite to his patron) 1d. (ancient definitions, etc.)
2. (attributed to gods). 2b. the genius of an emperor, regarded as an object of worship
3. (attributed to places, corporations, and other things); (in writings) talent, inspiration.

Josephbleau said...

From Wikipedia:

“Planet Mars
"The Martians" was a term used to refer to a group of prominent Hungarian scientists (mostly, but not exclusively, physicists and mathematicians) who emigrated to the United States in the early half of the 20th century. [1]

Leó Szilárd, who jokingly suggested that Hungary was a front for aliens from Mars, used this term. In an answer to the question of why there is no evidence of intelligent life beyond earth despite the high probability of it existing, Szilárd responded: "They are already here among us – they just call themselves Hungarians." This account is featured in György Marx's book The Martians.

Paul Erdős, Paul Halmos, Theodore von Kármán, John G. Kemeny, John von Neumann, George Pólya, Leó Szilárd, Edward Teller, and Eugene Wigner are included in this group.

Dennis Gabor, Ervin Bauer, Róbert Bárány, George de Hevesy, Nicholas Kurti, George Klein, Eva Klein, Michael Polanyi and Marcel Riesz are also sometimes named[weasel words], though they did not emigrate to the United States.

Loránd Eötvös, Kálmán Tihanyi, Zoltán Lajos Bay, Victor Szebehely, Albert Szent-Györgyi, Georg von Békésy and Maria Telkes are often mentioned[weasel words] in connection.

Elizabeth Róna, a Hungarian nuclear chemist who emigrated to the United States in 1941 to work on the Manhattan Project and discovered Uranium-Y, is not often included.“

These Hungarian Jews from a small place created the Atomic bomb and the basis for our advanced post war tech world. Oppenheimer was a good planner, Israeli Jews fight wars, I don’t think that Jewish intellectual activity is limited in scope. Stephens seems uninformed.

Bob Boyd said...

the life of the individual only has value [insofar] as it aids in making the life of every living thing nobler and more beautiful.

Who gets to decide?

Josephbleau said...

As an aside, regarding Stephen’s fathers occupation, I am pretty reasonable, but would not like to be within 5 miles of a Mexican chemical plant. Good thing that they profited from it from remote New York.

Craig Howard said...

In my opinion, the genius of the Jews has manifested itself in Israel: a high-tech, democratic oasis in the desiccated wastelands of the Middle East.

Eddie Jetson said...

rhhardin

Jordan Peterson is asked about this topic a lot because he spent quite a bit of his clinical studies on the question of I.Q.

There are a few videos of Peterson discussing an awkward topic for him. He doesn't enjoy talking about it.

Here's one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h02w5E7FGlY

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

It may be good to value different kinds of intelligence and to roughly opine that there are the people who do things in the real world and people who stand back and observe and critique everything, but it's a big problem to put a group — even your own group — in the second category.

And at the risk of sounding, er, Jewish, why is that?

LOL. Is that why you divorced a Jew? ;-)

You do realize of course that your commenter audience of committed trolls does nothing but that! Or at least they try to. Only they do it in the service of demeaning anything someone committed to knowledge or morality or social accomplishment ever achieved, and for the purpose of promoting ignorance or indecency or bigotry or some other vulgar, "conservative" impulse.

As for engineering or other conventional, physical achievements, Israelis have plenty of those. Often ahead of their time in how they innovatively made use of scarce water or other resources.

Regarding hygiene and social demonization, keep in mind that Trump is a germaphobe clean freak who has this expressed need to "cleanse" his country of people who are nowhere near as bad as he makes them out to be. Also, he's half-German. Brett Stephens OTOH has never expressed a desire to cleanse countries of people made to seem undesirable on the basis of some goofy "anti-national" characteristic that the genocidal maniacs of history have always hyped up. And neither has any other of Trump's many, many detractors. Unlike Trump and his followers themselves.

rhhardin said...

You might want to cleanse the country of aliens who don't want to go along with the Constitution.

Fernandinande said...

but would not like to be within 5 miles of a Mexican chemical plant. Good thing that they profited from it from remote New York.

I know a guy whose dad was a chemist/VP for Dupont in Mexico and another whose dad was an engineer/VP of Tupperware in Mexico (Jewish!), and they all lived in Mexico and the dads actually worked in the Mexican facilities.

General Products, a chemical company in Mexico

"General Product's[sic] It is a 100% latin american Company founded in 1990 by Mr. Elpidio Medina, he saw the necessity to create a company that could give response to the service intensive processes applied in the graphic arts industry."

Earnest Prole said...

Like Jews aren’t also brilliant at building things in the real world.

Josephbleau said...

Regarding Mexican industry I stand rebuked for my generality, but I have spent time in Mexican industry, and know that in many cases safety, waste handling, and process control are not priorities. I should have stood mute on the subject.

Automatic_Wing said...

It may be good to value different kinds of intelligence and to roughly opine that there are the people who do things in the real world and people who stand back and observe and critique everything, but it's a big problem to put a group — even your own group — in the second category.

This idea of his is reminiscent of Kevin McDonald's Culture of Critique thesis, which I don't think Bret would approve of.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture_of_Critique_series

rcocean said...

Burt Stephens likes to boast about himself. First, it was Immigrants (like him) are better than native born Americans (who are trash). Now its, "Hey aren't Jews wonderful". Like most of the NYT op-ed he's unreadable.

rcocean said...

Next week, everyone will be writing about Burt Stephens like he was a Yankee Doodle Dandy just looking after the good ol' USA. A patriot. Really, its amazing how stupid people are.

rcocean said...

NYT Op-ed: IQ tests are meaningless.
NYT Op-ed: Leftists and Jews have higher IQ's than anyone. Woo Hoo!

rcocean said...

Just in case anyone forgets, Carlos Slim is a Mexican and it the majority stockholder in the NYT's along with the Sulzberger Family. So, don't look for much objective reporting on Mexico or Mexicans there.

Anonymous said...

Nothing Stephens describes here (inlcuding "to ask why (or why not?) as often as how; to see the absurd in the mundane and the sublime in the absurd") is peculiar to Jews. The very high relative average IQ, on the other hand, is a distinguishing feature.

"It is prone to question the premise and rethink the concept...There is a religious tradition that, unlike some others, asks the believer not only to observe and obey but also to discuss and disagree. There is the never-quite-comfortable status of Jews in places where they are the minority — intimately familiar with the customs of the country while maintaining a critical distance from them."

Hey Stephens, when all your questioning of the premise and rethinking the concept gets directed to the premises and concepts of the other guys...you've stopped questioning the premise and rethinking the concept and have started to do something else.

"There is a moral belief, 'incarnate in the Jewish people' according to Einstein, that 'the life of the individual only has value [insofar] as it aids in making the life of every living thing nobler and more beautiful.'"

Sorry, this is self-flattering schmaltz. As with the following...

'And there is the understanding, born of repeated exile, that everything that seems solid and valuable is ultimately perishable, while everything that is intangible — knowledge most of all — is potentially everlasting."'

...such notions find expression among many peoples. It's hardly as if Jews are the only people who've had tragic histories and meditated upon the fleeing nature of possessions and existence and the search for things of more durable value.

Spiros Pappas said...

I think the race science people are now using "g factor" instead of IQ.

Also Ashkenazi Jews are indistinguishable from central and southern European Whites. It's impossible to tell the difference between a Romanian or a Bulgarian or a White Turk and most Jews.

Fernandinande said...

Regarding Mexican industry I stand rebuked for my generality,

Well, I wouldn't want to live within 5 miles of a Mexican chemical plant, or any chemical plant, and I would be happy to bet that Mexicans are far more careless than USians about pollution and such.

Jordan Peterson somewhere has a seminar on the armed forces equivalent of the IQ test, and its significance.

They discovered that (Eddie Jetson link) "If you had an IQ of 83 or less there wasn't anything you could be trained to do in the military that wasn't positively counterproductive."
--> therefore -->
"In a complex society like ours, there isn't anything[useful] for 10%** of the population to do."

** Actually, by that criterion, about 16% of the US population is too dumb to be useful. (M98, SD15).

Fernandinande said...

Also Ashkenazi Jews are indistinguishable from central and southern European Whites.

Not genetically.

A genome-wide genetic signature of Jewish ancestry perfectly separates individuals with and without full Jewish ancestry in a large random sample of European Americans

Amadeus 48 said...

Unlike Bret Stephens, I am not going anywhere near this topic.

M Jordan said...

Many of the people I argue with I am sure have a higher IQ than me yet somehow they seem dumber than me. They likely think, correctly, they’re smarter than me but I can tell they’re dissatisfied after we clash wits unsure why they didn’t “win” the argument. They blame it on my dogmatism but they’re wrong. Their problem is that they think in cliches, cliches formed in tribal settings. They rarely step outside the tribe in a meaningful way (the argument with me is the exception) and thus they are unequipped to face another viewpoint.

Me, I’m a conservative, a Trumper, an evangelical Christian who has spent most of his secular life in settings that devalue all those things. I spent 35 years in academia: every day I was outside the tribal wisdom. And that’s why I feel smarter than the others and it’s also why I think conservatives down the line are smarter than liberals. In times and places where conservative thought was the ruling tribe, this would not have been true but today in the West there are no such places.

So that’s a long way to say I agree with Bret Stephens to a degree on genius, or intellect: living in a world contrary to your naturals views does make you smarter. Isn’t that what gave Moses his advantage? He was raised in Pharoah’s courts but he never forgot he was a Hebrew.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Depends what kind of calipers you use, Spiros. I think Stephens' calipers are cultural.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

European Jewish maternal lines are "southern European," but the daddies came from Canaan.

Then again, so did the Palestinians'.

Lurker21 said...

President Toilet Paper Shoe's Perfect Phone Call said...

...

Regarding hygiene and social demonization, keep in mind that Trump is a germaphobe clean freak who has this expressed need to "cleanse" his country of people who are nowhere near as bad as he makes them out to be. Also, he's half-German. Brett Stephens OTOH has never expressed a desire to cleanse countries of people made to seem undesirable on the basis of some goofy "anti-national" characteristic that the genocidal maniacs of history have always hyped up.


Several million Palestinians would probably disagree.

If we apply language as loosely as you do to Stephens as well as to Trump, there's no reason to condemn one and absolve the other.

I don't think Trump uses the language of "cleansing," Bret Stephens does: "Nearly three years into Donald Trump’s presidency, America needs a hard scrub and a deep cleanse."

Lurker21 said...

Those who are marginal to a given society can see things and understand things that those in the majority culture don't see or understand. They are also drawn to critique and oppose things that members of the majority culture unquestioningly accept.

When members of a group can write of themselves and think of themselves as Stephens does, are they really still marginal? Old polarities and antagonisms persist but now that the wider culture has had the time to assimilate Marx, Freud and the rest, comfortable American Jews may not be the kind of creative, insightful marginal group that they were both here and in Europe a century ago.

Richard Holbrooke's biography came out a few months ago. True, his parents gave up Judaism when they changed the family name, but when one can move through the power structure as well as he did, it doesn't leave one much time or room for critical or creative thought.

Spiros Pappas said...

Yes, genetically. After several dozen generations and thousands of years of mixing with Europeans, there's no difference. Even in Roman times, the vast majority of Jews were living in modern day Italy, Greece and Turkey. Judea had, maybe, a 100,000 Jews.

And even though there is a small middle eastern component in Jewish DNA, it's still only 20% of the total. And that is limited to the Y chromosome, is relatively modern in origin and still Caucasian. All the matrimonial stuff is European.

They look exactly like Europeans for a reason.

Gahrie said...

Jordan Peterson is asked about this topic a lot because he spent quite a bit of his clinical studies on the question of I.Q.

There are a few videos of Peterson discussing an awkward topic for him. He doesn't enjoy talking about it.


That's because there are disturbing implications inherent in the conversation that cannot be dismissed or easily solved, and merely discussing them is enough to get you labeled a racist.

Lewis Wetzel said...

"Blogger M Jordan said...
Their problem is that they think in cliches, cliches formed in tribal settings. They rarely step outside the tribe in a meaningful way (the argument with me is the exception) and thus they are unequipped to face another viewpoint."
Exactly. That's how you get people who believe Trump is a germophobe who fucks random hookers.

rhhardin said...

merely discussing them is enough to get you labeled a racist

You are in fact a racist. Just not the southern redneck variety. You're a what should the public policy be racist, so that everybody fits in.

Teaching good character would work. That works at any IQ level.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I don't think Trump uses the language of "cleansing," Bret Stephens does: "Nearly three years into Donald Trump’s presidency, America needs a hard scrub and a deep cleanse."

This is ridiculous. Trump seeks to engage the mob-like love of targeting populations of people within America, and this Stephens guy talks about scrubbing clean a mindset. Any comparison is nonsense - unless you're limited to only making sense of simple words rather than the ideas into which they are used to form actual meaning.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

"Also Ashkenazi Jews are indistinguishable from central and southern European Whites."

I'm sure that's why Allen Dershowitz is often mistaken for a Spaniard, and why Woody Allen is said to have fathered a half-Italian son with an English-Irish-American woman.

Michael K said...

The difference between Trump and Stephens= Trump's grandchildren are Jewish.

For a discussion of the effect of evolution on IQ, read "The 10,000 Year Explosion."

Lurker21 said...

President Toilet Paper Shoe's Perfect Phone Call said...

This is ridiculous. Trump seeks to engage the mob-like love of targeting populations of people within America, and this Stephens guy talks about scrubbing clean a mindset. Any comparison is nonsense - unless you're limited to only making sense of simple words rather than the ideas into which they are used to form actual meaning.


You need to get up to speed. Left-wing blogs routinely accuse Stephens of supporting ethnic cleansing in the Middle East. Is it a valid criticism? It's a complicated question, but Israel pushing out Palestinians appears to be fine with him. In Trump's case it's a question of border control and enforcing existing laws, not of deporting people who have roots here. It's also not so very different from what most American politicians and people would have said not so long ago. Trump speaks freely and Stephens is very guarded about what he write and what he doesn't write, but the contrast between the two of them on this question isn't necessarily to Stephens's advantage.

Automatic_Wing said...

And even though there is a small middle eastern component in Jewish DNA, it's still only 20% of the total. And that is limited to the Y chromosome, is relatively modern in origin and still Caucasian. All the matrimonial stuff is European.

Look, 20% is a big number in genetics. But the real issue isn't the Middle Eastern component per se, it's the genetic bottleneck that occurred after the Middle Eastern men and Italian women came together to form the Ashkenazi Jewish people.

And yes, Ashkenazi Jews are genetically distinct from gentile Europeans - hence Tay-Sachs, Gaucher Disease, etc.

tcrosse said...

Too bad about the Hungarians, losing their half of the empire, being on the losing side in two world wars, and having their supply of Jews cut off. But they lived in a rough neigborhood.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Funny that a book called How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution is being touted by a guy like Michael K. who has no use for civilization or evolution.

Temujin said...

Interesting post and interesting comments here. As an Ashkenazi Jew I personally worry more about how collectivism works, and how it has not been a good way of operating in this world for Ashkenazi Jews historically. I like to think we're all individuals, and that in every group there are clusters of greatness and clusters of lunkheads. I like to think that. But empirically, there does seem to be more intelligence in some gene pools than others. That said, gene pools change over time. Marry in and marry out of your group for a few generations. You'll start to get new gene pools, new traits- some better, some more lunkheadish.

The one thing you can count on, though- is that when one of these articles hits the street, the pushback is hard and immediate. And I get it. This is dangerous stuff. Less than 100 years ago this was the stuff of genocide. I suspect the world has not changed that much in 84 years.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

You need to get up to speed. Left-wing blogs routinely accuse Stephens of supporting ethnic cleansing in the Middle East. Is it a valid criticism? It's a complicated question, but Israel pushing out Palestinians appears to be fine with him. In Trump's case it's a question of border control and enforcing existing laws, not of deporting people who have roots here. It's also not so very different from what most American politicians and people would have said not so long ago. Trump speaks freely and Stephens is very guarded about what he write and what he doesn't write, but the contrast between the two of them on this question isn't necessarily to Stephens's advantage.

1. Most Americans care more what happens in their own country than in others. Rightly so.
2. "Not so long ago" takes us to an era run by those who did not win WWII and create a less isolationist, more successful and largely American-run world order.
3. Where was Judge Gonzalo Curiel born? Trump's attacks on him were not only different from how you whitewash his attacks but are part of his regular assaults on rule of law.
4. Good that left-wing blogs are as critical of Stephens as you say. Contrast this to how much right-wing blogs welcome and ushered in Trump's fanaticisms.

Other than that, you make a good case for why some writer should be castigated in terms as strong as the POTUS is. Or not, really. But apparently it must have served some purpose or another.

chuck said...

Some Jews do have a sense of racial supremacy, although they wouldn't recognize it as such. And why not? The 20'th century was notable for its high achieving Jews. Of course, one could make a similar argument about Western civilization in general, or even Germans. And what about those Athenians back in 5'th century BC? The rash of genius that turns up in certain places and times is a curious phenomenon, but its episodic nature argues against it being primarily due to IQ, which is probably not all that variable in the population.

hombre said...

Oh yes. We see the genius of secular Jews every day in their leftist work product in the mass media and on election days when they stand in line to vote for anti-Semitic Democrat morons.

Lurker21 said...

President Toilet Paper Shoe's Perfect Phone Call said...

Good that left-wing blogs are as critical of Stephens as you say. Contrast this to how much right-wing blogs welcome and ushered in Trump's fanaticisms.


You still need to get up to speed. Stephens isn't a left-winger. He just seems like one because he attacks Trump. Plenty of "right-wing" blogs have "welcomed and ushered in" his views, just as plenty of them attacked Trump. So it's not like leftists are being critical of one of their own and rightists aren't.

Other than that, you make a good case for why some writer should be castigated in terms as strong as the POTUS is. Or not, really. But apparently it must have served some purpose or another.

I take the snideness as a sign that you've learned something but don't want to admit it. Next you can consider whether your own posts serve some purpose, or whether they're just the usual venting of hot air.

Hubert the Infant said...

My theory is that intelligence is cultural rather than genetic, and I am willing to accept that Judaism historically has fostered a culture that has valued education, academic success, Talmudic-type debate, and other qualities that result in great than average intelligence. This also explains why, these days, liberal Jews seem to be among the dimmest bulbs around. They have largely disavowed their religion -- I don't accept the concept that one can be "culturally Jewish" -- so they are no longer exposed to Judaism's beneficial effects. Israel is an exception tho this phenomenon, as even secular Jews there are immersed in Judaism. My hope is that many Jews in the U.K. have rediscovered their religion due to Corbynism. I am less sanguine when it comes to the U.S.

Anonymous said...

Ashkenazi jews are smarter even than Asians.

Basic Darwin. The dumb ones didn't survive the pogroms.

narciso said...

yes its much more about culture, like south Asians and those farther east, genetics seems to be a slippery slope,

dreams said...

Well, I know Jews are smart but they can be so incredibly stupid such as voting overwhelmingly for the corrupt democrats. One reason for that, maybe, is their strong historical attempt to be an accepted part of their country.

Fernandinande said...

As an Ashkenazi Jew I personally worry more about how collectivism works, and how it has not been a good way of operating in this world for Ashkenazi Jews historically.

I would think that "we're successful because we're smart (and work hard, etc)" is more acceptable to the masses than "we're successful because we work together to screw over other people"; although the latter is the perverse leftist version of how "white men" succeed.

++

I asked him why he was doing this himself rather than leaving it to his employees. He shrugged, tapped his forehead, and said, "Goyishe kop," a term of condescension that literally means "gentile head."

He wasn't exactly serious, but he wasn't exactly not serious either.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Some Jews do have a sense of racial supremacy, although they wouldn't recognize it as such. And why not?

Because they don't bar others from converting to their "race." Contrast that to any other race that adulates itself in biological terms.

They do require a strong sense of commitment, however. Which is a problem for most. Especially the blood and soil conservatives in America who care for nothing more than their own capricious emotional satisfactions at every turn.

Mark said...

Many of the people I argue with I am sure have a higher IQ than me yet somehow they seem dumber than me.

It is often true that stupidity is learned.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Stephens isn't a left-winger.

Irrelevant to the point - the failings of the right.

I take the snideness...

I could be charitable and complete that with... "a sign that you did not make your point." Assuming it's even clear what that point is.

Oh yes. Bret Stephens is as bad as Trump. No, he's not. A number of points in what I said that you can't rebut still stand in attesting to that.

hombre said...

Ritmo President wrote: “Where was Judge Gonzalo Curiel born? Trump's attacks on him were not only different from how you whitewash his attacks but are part of his regular assaults on rule of law.”

Trump’s concerns about Judge Curiel were the exception, not the rule. Perhaps his concerns were fueled by the Mexican nationalism displayed by Mexican Americans demonstrating in the streets of Los Angeles, waving Mexican flags, demanding open borders and, in some cases, “return” of California to Mexico. Regardless, Trump has since stated that his concerns were unfounded as evidenced by Curiel’s performance. His concerns about illegal entry and support for it by those of Mexican descent in the US are not, however, unfounded.

Trump was not the first person, nor will he be the last, whose impressions of a group is affected by the actions of some in the group. You know, like the way you generalize about commenters here.

Rusty said...

Fernandistein.
Don't discount persistence and hard work. I've met many people with 140 plus IQs that are lazy as fuck and many more middling people that became successful through hard work and persistence. So there is hope for ritmo if he applies himself.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Trump was not the first person, nor will he be the last, whose impressions of a group is affected by the actions of some in the group.

He is however one of the first of an elite group of 45 to avowedly do so, however. We call them "American presidents" - an elite group that started with one proclaiming "to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance," and thereby setting a high standard that none of his successors sought to debase so completely as Trump has done. A standard that was the world's envy - setting America as a unique example for defying the same histories and enmities that comsumed them and to which Trump has now descended.

It's hard not to generalize about anyone so shallow as to need a guy like that to lead them to a sense of political and national purpose.

Lurker21 said...

President Toilet Paper Shoe's Perfect Phone Call said...

Irrelevant to the point - the failings of the right.


That may be your point, but it's not anybody else's. NeverTrumpers like Stephens considered themselves to be part of the right and they hated Trump. Others either liked Trump or thought him the lesser of evils. The right, like the left, is a large, amorphous group and generalizations rarely catch what is actually going on.

You look at everything through your own narrow focus and are too emotionally invested in the "Orange Man Bad" scenario to be worth having a discussion with.

Le Stain du Poop said...

I am a Harvard Law School graduate (gentile) with a genius i.q. who has been at various large law firms for more than 20 years. My experience has led me to conclude that while Jews tend to believe they are more intelligent than you are, it really comes down to coming from a culture that is obsessed with the material and with "prestige" occupations. Being raised in such an environment, with education and "success" being highly valued, tends to lead to advanced degrees and "success," shockingly enough. Not that there is anything wrong with that......

chuck said...

The dumb ones didn't survive the pogroms.

IIRC, the current thinking is that the European Ashkenazi Jews originated somewhere in the Caucasus and underwent a severe bottleneck when the population is estimated to have been ~600 or so. The population exploded after that, but the bottleneck and inbreeding would explain why a genetic variation did not become quickly diluted. Breeding works :)

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

That may be your point, but it's not anybody else's.

What about anyone else? This started with you addressing my point, not me or anyone else addressing anyone else's. Who else's point is supposed to matter in a sidebar started your attack of mine?

You look at everything through your own narrow focus and are too emotionally invested in the "Orange Man Bad" scenario to be worth having a discussion with.

He is orange. He does many bad things. Whether or not he himself is bad is not really a productive consideration, but he is very empty and so are most of his followers. We can discuss how rational people came to support him since there are some of those (or at least a few thousand in four states out of tens of millions in 50), but I'm pretty sure you're more interested in supporting him for emotional or partisan needs yourself - which there's no reason for me to address rationally.

Fernandinande said...

Well, I know Jews are smart but they can be so incredibly stupid such as voting overwhelmingly for the corrupt democrats.

That is a very weird phenom. Asians do the same damned thing.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

"Well, I know Jews are smart but they can be so incredibly stupid such as voting overwhelmingly for the corrupt democrats."

That is a very weird phenom. Asians do the same damned thing.


People identifying as average at best blustering themselves into declaring what is the smart thing to do and how the smart people supposedly don't do it. Hilarious.

No way Trump or any Republican will ever be as great or lead America to anywhere near as much greatness as FDR. Just no way in heck. Their vision is way too narrow. America is not that narrow.

It creates identity disorders among the right who now think they're pro-working class but jettisoning our posterity like there's no tomorrow just for the sake of buying some billionaire love.

frenchie said...

Every culture and subculture believes it is superior to all others.

Fernandinande said...

People identifying as average at best blustering themselves into declaring what is the smart thing to do and how the smart people supposedly don't do it. Hilarious.

I almost always instinctively and automatically skip your posts for reasons made obvious in that post, but accidentally read part of that one. Here's a data point for you: I'm smarter than most Jews and most Asians, and you're not.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I almost instinctively and automatically skip posts that are obviously stupid enough to proclaim their own brilliance in words rather than in points made, but accidentally not part of the one by Fernandistein above.

Because engineers and others working in "technology" are usually too thick to know a damn thing about people, and comfort themselves in their familiarity with the machines and motherboards that in all their social stupidity and ineptitude they would prefer to replace people with.

You're a brilliant guy, Rain Man. What a pity that the people don't realize your value to society in being nothing more than the same jumble of numbers that you would seek to replace humanity with. In your own mind, your social handicaps are an asset. Just not to your species.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

"President Trump on Wednesday boasted the results of a new poll from a Jewish magazine showing him having strong support among Orthodox Jews.

AMI Magazine reported it polled more than 700 Orthodox Jews across 15 states and found that Trump had a whopping 89 percent approval rating while only five percent disapproved. Six percent were undecided.

On the question of whether Trump should be impeached, only five percent said he should be impeached while 91 percent of Orthodox Jews said he shouldn't."

Secular Jews (most American Jews) vote Dem because progressivism has replaced Judaism as their religion. They don't even feel any great attachment to Israel.

YoungHegelian said...

The problem with Stephens' hypothesis that the massive intellectual achievements of the past two hundred years or so of Ashkenazi Jews comes from some aspect of Jewish culture is that the question then becomes "Well, what about the Sephardim? Don't they have pretty much the same Jewish culture?".

Now, don't get me wrong. The Sephardim have been in no ways slackers, but they aren't up there with the Ashkenazi Jews for the last 200 years. And, what's weird, is that, even within the rabbinic tradition itself, the 200 years or so before Jewish Emancipation in the various countries of Europe were not some glorious outburst of Rabbinic brilliance from the Ashkenazim. Matter of fact, the greatest cultural events out of the Jewish community from the 16th to 18th C. were the "discovery" of the Kabbalah by Isaac Luria (a Spanish Sephardic Jew) and the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza (a Portuguese Sephardic Jew). Clearly, the Ashkenazim were biding their time for the right moment to spring their brilliance on the world.

The first Ashkenazi Jew to hit The Big Time was Moses Mendelssohn. From then on, it's impossible to write a history of European civilization without oodles of Jews in it.

While I lean heavily towards a genetic explanation (an explanation not liked by the modern mostly lefty Jewish community for obvious reasons), even a genetic explanation has Big Problems, such as the one I mention above --- where was the evidence of Ashkenazi brilliance within their own community before Emancipation? This objection applies as much to a cultural explanation such as Stephens' as much as it does to a genetic one.

So, what happened? Was there some magic confluence of genetic & cultural factors that combined to become both the carrot & the stick for the Ashkenazim about 200 years ago to do their Big Breakout? Did the Elders of Zion finally get the machinery in place to move the Jews up the ladder (I keed, I keed)? Did God finally redeem some promise to His Chosen People?

I honestly have no idea. But, it's still a fascinating historical phenomenon.

Temujin said...

Chuck said: The 20'th century was notable for its high achieving Jews.

Funny. There are plenty of high achieving Jews in the 19th, 18th, etc. as well. To me the 20th century is more notable for wiping out 2/3 of all European Jews. That's not even taking into account Stalin's work on the Jews in the Soviet Union (you know...Bernie's favorite place).

Today Europe is picking up where 1930's Germany left off. But unlike the 30's and 40's today Jews are not waiting for the next shoe to drop. They are leaving Europe in droves. They are moving to Israel, Canada, Australia, and the US. And with them goes their knowledge, capabilities, community work, and money. Their replacements have come from the Middle East and North Africa. See how Europe does without it's Jews and with the Christian population aging and not replacing.

effinayright said...

Ritmo babbled on:

He is however one of the first of an elite group of 45 to avowedly do so, however. We call them "American presidents" - an elite group that started with one proclaiming "to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance
**********************

Perhaps you should read up on the notorious racist Woodrow Wilson, who re-segregated the military and federal civil service, and regarded the Constitution as a bunch of "Fourth of July pieties.".

Or the subtle racist FDR who locked up hundreds of thousand of Japanese-American citizens...

Or the sexual predator JFK, who screwed every female he could get his hands on, including interns..

Or the corrupt and sleazy LBJ, who vowed never "to be out-N-worded again....", and managed to become a multi-millionaire while being in Washington government for over forty years....

Curious, innit, that they were all Democrats who portrayed themselves as high-minded champions of the little man.


Leora said...

While people with IQs below 83 may be useless to the army, I have encountered cleaning people and grocery store baggers who are useful to me and others despite their significant handicaps. Our army is distinguished in requiring soldiers with the ability to act without direct supervision.

n.n said...

Perhaps it's their religion (i.e. behavioral protocol) that normalizes functional choices. Perhaps it's their traditions that unify family and community. Perhaps it's their faith that encourages them to persevere through diversity and adversity.

n.n said...

Perhaps it's the advice of their philosopher who advises them to separate logical domains, which makes them strive for both religious/moral and secular achievement.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

See how Europe does without it's Jews and with the Christian population aging and not replacing.

12/28/19, 1:13 PM

British author Douglas Murray gave a talk in Stockholm recently and spoke of visiting Vienna. He said it was beautiful - but strangely quiet. As a native Londoner, Murray found it unnerving. "It felt like being in a mausoleum." Where were the crowds, the infectious energy that comes from being in a great city?

Then Murray remembered. "They killed all the Jews."

The Viennese Jews played a huge role in driving the culture of 19th and early 20th century Vienna, much to the disgust of a certain frustrated Austrian artist who lived there prior to WWI. He got rid of them.

Like Murray, I too felt the same ghost town vibe in Vienna when I visited there.

Bilwick said...

As a libertarian and Gentile "Friend of the Tribe" I can vouch for the habit of questioning and challenging as a "tribe" characteristic--except when it comes to their "liberalism." No matter what stupid stuff "liberal" Democrats do or say, the Jews I know fall in lockstep behind whoever is the stupidest statist running for office. How Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand, Heyek and Henry Hazlitt managed to avoid that kind of brainwashing is a question worth studying.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Temujin, I have met quite a few Germans, both online and in real life, who firmly believe that Germany has a duty to take in as many Middle Eastern and African "refugees" as possible as penance for the Holocaust. Not one seemed to grasp that permitting masses of uneducated immigrants from an Islamic culture which is notably hostile to Jews is a very odd way of trying to atone for murdering Jews. Apparently, pointing that out is bigotry.

YoungHegelian said...

@Exiled,

who firmly believe that Germany has a duty to take in as many Middle Eastern and African "refugees" as possible as penance for the Holocaust.

Yes, modern Germany has a very strange notion of a "national conscience". Strangely enough, that conscience never seems to call for actually, you know, putting themselves on the line to defend with their blood & treasure their NATO allies to the East that also suffered great harm from the Third Reich.

I would think that it would be a more obvious mark of German conscience to "Hug a Pole today" than to import Muslim refugees, but, hey, wadda I know?

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

YoungHegelian, good question. Could it be because prior to Emancipation, a brilliant Ashkenazi Jew became a Talmudic scholar, beloved and respected in his little community, but with no impact outside of it?

I got the idea (mainly from reading "The Chosen" when I was a teenager) that there are many Talmudic scholars famous among the Hasidim who were unknown to the world at large. Take young Moshe, the rabbi's son, and send him to a Western European university and you end up with a scientist or artist or mathematician instead of a rabbi.

One highly un-PC explanation for high Jewish IQs I read years ago was that for hundreds of years, many of the smartest and most educated European gentiles entered the priesthood and did not marry (although some of them certainly fathered children.) In contrast, brilliant rabbis were considered prime marriage material and tended to have very large families.

narciso said...

curious isn't it:


https://twitter.com/page88/status/1211008472378163201

YoungHegelian said...

@Exiled,

Could it be because prior to Emancipation, a brilliant Ashkenazi Jew became a Talmudic scholar, beloved and respected in his little community, but with no impact outside of it?

But, then there should be a flourishing of Rabbinic brilliance from the Ashkenazim in the couple of centuries prior to Emancipation, when, let's postulate, the genotype was set but not yet outside of the Ashkenazi community. But, there isn't. Matter of fact. movements such as Hasidism were strongly influenced by the gnostic mysticism of the Kabbalah & were strongly anti-intellectual & populist in tone.

narciso said...

the distinction between the scribes, which stephens is one, and builders and war planners, paging moshe dayan, I'm assuming ariel Sharon, was probably of Sephardim origins,

narciso said...

fwiw:

https://americanmilitarynews.com/2019/12/report-trump-held-private-enlisted-only-afghanistan-war-meetings-no-generals-or-officers-only-enlisted-guys-that-have-been-there/

chuck said...

@narcison Ariel Sharon was ashkenazi. So was the greatest of them all, John Monash.

narciso said...

well that punctuates my point, honestly I don't know what's stephens point, it's not to win adherents, exiles do feel a certain inpermanence of things, sojourners in our current domain, ask Sebastian gorka who has lived in the uk and now the us, hirsi ali who has lived in Holland and then the us,

narciso said...

consider this bout of category error,


https://twitter.com/davereaboi/status/1211011664100900864

Unknown said...

There is a persuasive explanation of the high IQ of the Ashkenazim here:

https://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2/archives2mail/mail264.html#smarts

Quick summary: a) During the centuries when a high proportion of Ashkenazim practiced professions where success depended heavily on financial calculations and negotiating transactions, those with certain intellectual gifts were much more likely to have a large number of children. b) during those same centuries they were in "reproductive isolation."

It is my impression that to a great extent both these conditions were created by the attitudes and policies of the surrounding Gentiles.

rcocean said...

I'm trying to figure out what the "Burt Stephens Jews" who work at the WaPo and NYT's are "questioning" and using their "powerful intellects" to criticize. From what I can tell, their "questioning" seems to take the form of attacking anyone who pushes back against the status quo. Which sounds more like reactionary oppression than "questioning".

rcocean said...

Non-Burt Stephens related. I'm always amazed how the people who actually invent and discover or pioneer things rarely reap the most benefits. Instead, its someone who comes in AFTER and sees the Business opportunity. For example, the Winchester Family, didn't invent the repeating rifle or how to to make it. They came in AFTER Spenser had invented it and was producing it, and then Winchester bought him out and changed the name from the Spenser Repeating Rifle to the "The Winchester Repeating Rifle".

Similarly. all the South Africa Gold & Diamond mine owners who've gotten rich for 100 years weren't the men who discovered the gold and Diamonds and dug the original mines. No, they're the guys who came AFTER that, and bought everyone one out.

rcocean said...

Similarly, the guys who invented the television and radio and figured out how to make it all work properly made little $$, compared Sarnoff and Paley who figured out how to USE the invention to make $$ through commercial programming and advertising. Or you can look at the internet. Who's the billionaires? Google and facebook, both these companies came in AFTER the internet was up and working and figured out a way to make huge amounts of $$$ in advertising. Zuckerberg didn't even come out with the "facebook" idea!

Daniel Jackson said...

As a Jew, I am offended by such bullshit. The "cool kids" in college were Jewish and bragged about their superiority over non-Jewish cultures and their classmates. My estranged wife's reason for converting was based on this sort of nonsense--she wanted to be among the "cool kids."

As an individual, my success or failure in the "professional" world is based on my own performance and willingness to refuse to participate in unethical practices (correspondingly).

In my experience, this sort of argument is implicitly (if not explicitly) based on the following reasoning: I am a member of this group; this group excels in everything they do; therefore, I excel in everything I do.

So, I recommend to my fellow group member, Bret: give this crap a rest, go to shul more regularly, learn some of the texts, and, for God's sake, quit the New York Times.

Matt said...

They don't call it the Jew York Times for nothing.

Didn't read the article - does he talk about the genius it takes for one nation to sink the ship of an ally, with the hope of blaming a common enemy, in order to draw the allied nation into war on the original nation's behalf?

Those Jews, man. Flawless. Greatest people ever.

Just ask them.

Lewis Wetzel said...

" Blogger Unknown said...
There is a persuasive explanation of the high IQ of the Ashkenazim here:
https://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2/archives2mail/mail264.html#smarts"
This is a just-so story. Pournelle should have known better, it's like the "Jews who survived the pogroms were smarter & bred smarter Jews" just-so story.
If that was true, Russia would be full of the genius children of the essentially random people who were sent to the gulag, and the heights of the American intellectual class would be populated by the descendants of slaves.
It is not true that "that which does not kill us makes us stronger." That which does not kill us makes us weaker.

Lewis Wetzel said...

My last name is German (it's not really Wetzel). I have about 1/4 to 1/2 German DNA in the blood that runs through these veins. The Germans are a people of high genius, in all of the arts and the sciences. Yet it would be tacky and distasteful for me to run around saying "what a glorious tribe I have arisen from!," in part because neither I nor my ancestors have any special genius. As far as I can tell, most of my German ancestors spent their days staring at the south end of a north-bound mule.
People are incentivized to justify their social privilege, and Stephens is a person of high social privilege. Apparently he feels that much of it is unearned. A person can no more choose the culture they were raised in than they can choose their parents. It's not his fault that he is a snob who looks down his nose at his countrymen.

Unknown said...

Lewis Wetzel said:

>> If that was true, Russia would be full of the genius children of the essentially random people who were sent to the gulag,
>> and the heights of the American intellectual class would be populated by the descendants of slaves. It is not true that
>> "that which does >> not kill us makes us stronger."

I recommend you take a closer look at the Cochran piece cited by Pournelle. He explicitly rejects what he calls the "winnowing through persecution" theory, and his own hypothesis is very different. He explains how the varying IQ-elasticities of occupations causes more pronounced natural selection in some occupations than in others; how for that natural selection to have an appreciable impact in 10-20 generations, a large proportion of the population must be in those IQ-elastic occupations and the gene pool must also be isolated from outside influence. The theory accounts for why only the Ashkenazim (not the Sephardim or the Oriental Jews) developed measurably higher mean IQs, since the Jews' occupational distribution was much less concentrated on finance in the other Jewish groups.

Here's the link again, for anyone interested:

https://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2/archives2mail/mail264.html#smarts

StephenFearby said...


Lewis Wetzel said...
" Blogger Unknown said...
There is a persuasive explanation of the high IQ of the Ashkenazim here:
https://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2/archives2mail/mail264.html#smarts"

"This is a just-so story. Pournelle should have known better..."

You might have noticed that Pournelle didn't either write or endorse this analysis, which was written by someone else:

Pournelle
And a new essay by Greg Cochran:

How the Ashkenazi Got Their Smarts
Gregory Cochran

Pournelle
A good bit to think about here, and we'll get back to it

Comments below

https://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2/archives2mail/mail264.html#smarts2
David Philips, PE

Sunday, July 6, 2003
Greg Cochran replies to comment [of Dave Philips]

"I doubt if breeding for scholarship was a very important part of the selection for IQ among the Ashkenazi, but I could be wrong..."

https://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2/archives2mail/mail264.html#smarts3

I started reading Jerry's articles back in 1982 when he wrote for Byte Magazine. Saved my ass for a job I had to do by recommending the Compupro S100 microcomputer with 8" floppy drives. After attaching a 5mb(!) Seagate hard drive and using the incredibly flexible Forumua IV database program, I was able to create complex analytical programs on the fly.

A few months before Jerry passed away in 2017, he wrote this prescient piece:

Jun 10, 2017
Deep Government and the Constitution; Trump and establishment rules; climate; and more


'...Mr. Comey had spent months “investigating” the Russian question without finding anything to prosecute. It consumed time, distracted from proper government, and to what purpose? Was the President improper for asking when this very expensive and distracting investigation would end? Do we want the FBI “investigating” whomever it wants to, subject to no elected authority?

As to the President not being subject to the norms, rules, and traditions of the Presidency, is there a person in America who thought this president would be? Was it not clear from the moment of his announcing his candidacy on the escalator in Trump Tower that he was not going to be subject to the rules, norms, and traditions of the Establishment? He made all that very clear throughout his campaign, and only a ninny could believe otherwise; indeed, he was denounced for it right up to the election. Yet he was elected.

A Republic’s government must be responsible to SOMEONE. There is no Monarch to be the fountain of justice. The President must take care that the laws are faithfully enforced. And the Establishment may insist on norms, rules and traditions all it likes, but they are not laws, and elections count.

Mr. Obama had a pen and he had a phone, and guess what, he won.

Mrs. Clinton was his designated successor. She did not win.'

https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/deep-government-trump-and-establishment-rules-climate-and-more/

Sebastian said...

""The Secrets of Jewish Genius/It’s not about having higher I.Q.s." by Bret Stephens (NYT)"

The secret to prog misunderstanding of the world is that it is mostly about having higher/lower IQs after all.

Lewis Wetzel said...

It is not falsifiable. It is not science. It is (yet another) just-so story from the corrupt world of anthropology, along the lines of "people like mixed grassland with water features because we evolved on the Serengeti!" bullshit. It's just crap made up after the fact to explain phenomenon that is otherwise unexplained, like Jared Diamonds geography-driven historical stories. This is why the fields of anthropology and history were so easily taken over by Marxists, it's not science, it is story-telling.
Once you start coming up with crazy just-so stories about how the Ashkenazi Jews were bred by nature (or history) for intelligence, the next just-so story will be about how other people were bred for strength and stupidity, and that is why so many of them make great menials, or that is why so many of this other group of people are thieves.
Human beings create history. DNA does not. Human beings are not greyhounds.


Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

As a libertarian and Gentile "Friend of the Tribe" I can vouch for the habit of questioning and challenging as a "tribe" characteristic--except when it comes to their "liberalism."

It shouldn't be so surprising why that is. They once wrote this book called "The Bible," and it was liked by so many people around the world that starting with the Greeks they just named it, as translated, "The Book." In this book there are incredibly liberal and progressive ideas - like not murdering children, not visiting retribution on an entire city on the assumption that one innocent might have been murdered along with them, helping the poor, the stranger, and all kinds of other liberal progressive stuff.

There was conservative stuff in there too, what with all the talk of retribution and wiping out other nations but hey, no one's perfect. But for the time and taken as a whole it was generally very liberal, progressive and revolutionary stuff.

No matter what stupid stuff "liberal" Democrats do or say, the Jews I know fall in lockstep behind whoever is the stupidest statist running for office.

Well, again - the Bible was always very anti-monarchy so you're talking about a people who understand and support the intrinsic superiority of republics (i.e. "states") over kings and their cults of personality.