Wednesday, October 21, 2020

What Makes Someone a Holocaust Denier?


Some of the statements in this article are debatable. But nonetheless a good overview.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
What makes someone a Holocaust
denier?

By Christopher Beam

Posted Friday, Feb. 6, 2009

Ultraconservative Catholic bishop Richard Williamson apologized to the pope this week for his "imprudent remarks" concerning the Holocaust but did not recant. The bishop accepts that some Jews died in concentration camps but claims that fewer than 300,000 were killed, rather than 6 million, and he denies that the Nazis used gas chambers. To be a Holocaust denier, do you have to deny the whole thing?

No. There's no single definition of Holocaust denial or "revisionism," but scholars generally agree that it means claiming that the Nazis had no official policy to exterminate Jews, that the gas chambers are a myth, or that the figure of 6 million murdered Jews is a gross exaggeration. At the extreme, denial can mean hiding or suppressing evidence of the Holocaust by destroying gas chambers, as the Nazis did at the end of World War II, or by burning documents. But denial can also take the form of relativization—saying that, yes, the Nazis killed Jews, but the killings of Gypsies,
Poles, and Jehovah's Witnesses were just as bad.

That said, there are plenty of aspects of the Holocaust that are still hotly debated by historians without charges of denial being tossed around. One is the exact number of Jews killed. Most historians agree it was somewhere between 5 million and 7 million. (Solid documentary evidence exists for about 5.3 million deaths.) But the numbers vary because of the circumstances under which some of the killings occurred. For example, no one knows precisely how many Jews were evacuated when the Soviet army retreated from the western regions of the USSR under German attack, or whether they were killed. Legitimate debate also continues over how widespread Jewish resistance was against the Nazis.

The closest thing to a codified definition of Holocaust denial is found in European law. Thirteen countries have laws banning Holocaust denial, including Austria, Germany, France, Israel, and Switzerland. (Other countries, like Canada, prohibit hate speech against any "identifiable group," including Jews, but don't refer specifically to the Holocaust.) Most of the laws are broad, like the Czech Republic's law punishing the "person who publicly denies, puts in doubt, approves or tries to justify Nazi or Communist genocide or other crimes of Nazis or Communists." In Israel, any
published statement of "praise or sympathy for or identification with" the Nazis is a crime. Germany requires that the statement be part of a "public incitement." Those found guilty of Holocaust denial might get jail time—from six months to five years—or a hefty fine.

Anti-denial laws have resulted in some high-profile trials. In 2006, British historian David Irving was sentenced by an Austrian court to three years in prison for denying the existence of gas chambers in a 1989 speech. (He pleaded guilty and told the court he had changed his views.) In 2007, denier Ernst Zundel was convicted on 14 counts in Germany and sentenced to five years in jail. German neo-Nazi Horst Mahler was sentenced to prison in 2006 for denying the Holocaust. He gave a Sieg Heil upon arriving at the prison, for which he was put on a trial again in 2007.

He also gave an interview to Vanity Fair in which he said "the systematic extermination of Jews in Auschwitz is a lie." The German interviewer brought charges.

Christopher Beam is a Slate political
reporter.

The Secular Religion of "the Holocaust", a Tainted Product of Consumer Society


For those who have the intellectual fortitude and integrity to read and think outside of the box without reverting to your pre-programmed bias and hysteria, here is a thought-provoking article from Robert Faurisson who has, incidentally been physically beaten, professionally persecuted, fined and convicted for writing and speaking about his ideas. Apparently this is easier for his adversaries than confronting his presented facts and arguments with counter-facts and counter-arguments.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday, August 7, 2008
The secular religion of “the Holocaust”, a
tainted product of consumer society
By Robert Faurisson

The religion of “the Holocaust” is a secular one: it belongs to the lay world; it is profane; in actuality, it has at its disposal the secular arm, that is a temporal authority with dreaded power. It has its dogma, its commandments, its decrees, its prophets and its high priests. As one revisionist has observed, it has its circle of saints, male and female, amongst whom, for example, Saint Anne (Frank), Saint Simon (Wiesenthal) and Saint Elie (Wiesel). It has its holy places, its rituals and its pilgrimages. It has its sacred (and macabre) buildings and its relics (in the form of cakes of soap, shoes, toothbrushes, …). It has its martyrs, its heroes, its miracles and its miraculous survivors (in the millions), its golden legend and its righteous ones.

Auschwitz is its Golgotha. For it, God is called Yahweh, protector of his chosen people, who, as said in one of the psalms of David (number 120), recently invoked by a female public prosecutor, Anne de Fontette, during the trial in Paris of a French revisionist, punishes “lying lips” (by, incidentally, sending them the “sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals of juniper”). For this religion, Satan is called Hitler, condemned, like Jesus in the Talmud, to boil for eternity in excrement. It knows neither mercy, nor forgiveness, nor clemency but only the duty of vengeance. It amasses fortunes through blackmail and extortion and acquires unheard-of privileges. It dictates its law to the nations. Its heart beats in Jerusalem, at the Yad Vashem monument, in a land taken over from the natives; in the shelter of a 26-foot high wall built to protect a people who are the salt of the earth, the companions of the “Holocaust” faith rule over the goy with a system that is the purest expression of militarism, racism and colonialism.

A quite recent religion whose growth has been meteoric

Although it is largely an avatar of the Hebraic religion, the new religion is quite recent and has exhibited meteoric growth. For the historian, the phenomenon is exceptional. Most often a religion of universal scope has its origins in remote and obscure times, a fact that makes the task of historians of religious ideas and institutions rather arduous. However, as luck would have it for that type of historian, in the space of fifty-odd years (1945-2000), right before our eyes, a new religion, that of “the Holocaust”, has suddenly come into being and proceeded to develop with astonishing speed, spreading nearly everywhere. It has conquered the West and intends to impose itself on the rest of the world. Any researcher interested in the historical phenomenon made up by the birth, life and death of religions ought therefore to seize the occasion, never so much as hoped for, thus offered to study from up close the birth and life of this new religion, then calculate its chances of survival and the possibility of its demise. Any specialist of war watching out for
indications of a coming conflagration would owe it to himself to survey the risks of a warlike crusade such as the one into which this conquering religion may take us.

A religion that embraces consumerism

As a rule, consumer society places religions and ideologies in difficulty or danger. Each year, growth in both industrial production and business activity creates in peoples’ minds new needs and desires, truly concrete ones, lessening their thirst for the absolute or their aspiration towards an ideal, factors that religions and ideologies feed on. Besides, the progress of scientific thinking makes people more and more sceptical as to the truth of religion’s stories and the promises it gives them. Paradoxically, the only religion to prosper today is the “Holocaust” religion, ruling, so to speak, supreme and having those sceptics who are openly active cast out from the rest of mankind: it labels them “deniers”, whilst they call themselves “revisionists”.

These days the ideas of homeland, nationalism or race, as well as those of communism or even socialism, are in crisis or even on their way to extinction. Equally in crisis are the religions of the Western world, including the Jewish religion, and in their turn but in a less visible manner, so are the non-Western religions, themselves confronted by consumerism’s force of attraction; whatever one may think, the Moslem religion is no exception: the bazaar
attracts bigger crowds than the mosque and, in certain oil-rich kingdoms, consumerism in its most outlandish forms poses an ever more insolent challenge to the rules for living laid down by Islam.

Roman Catholicism, for its part, is stricken with anaemia: to use Céline’s phrase, it has become “christianaemic”. Amongst the Catholics whom Benedict XVI addresses, how many still believe in the virginity of Mary, the miracles of Jesus, the physical resurrection of the dead, everlasting life, in heaven, purgatory and hell? The churchmen’s talk is usually limited to trotting out the word that “God is love”. The Protestant religions and those akin to them are diluted, along with their doctrines, in an infinity of sects and variants. The Jewish religion sees its members, more and more reluctant to observe so many peculiar rules and prohibitions, deserting the synagogue and, in ever greater numbers, marrying outside the community.

But whereas Western beliefs or convictions have lost much of their substance, faith in “the Holocaust” has strengthened; it has ended up creating a link – a religion, according to standard etymology at any rate, is a link (religat religio) – that enables disparate sets of communities and nations to share a common faith. All in all, Christians and Jews today cooperate heartily in propagating the holocaustic faith. Even a fair number of agnostics or atheists can be seen lining up with enthusiasm under the “Holocaust” banner. “Auschwitz” is achieving the union of all.

The fact is that this new religion, born in the era where consumerism expanded so rapidly, bears all the hallmarks of consumerism. It has its vigour, cleverness and inventiveness. It exploits all the resources of marketing and communication. The vilest products of Shoah Business are but the secondary effects of a religion that, intrinsically, is itself a sheer fabrication. From a few scraps of a given historical reality, things that were, after all, commonplace in wartime (like the internment of a good part of the European Jews in ghettos or camps), its promoters have built a gigantic historical imposture: the imposture, all at once, of the alleged extermination of the Jews of Europe, of camps allegedly equipped with homicidal gas chambers and, finally, of an alleged six million Jewish victims.

A religion that seems to have found the
solution to the Jewish question

Throughout the millennia, the Jews, at first generally well received in the lands that have taken them in, have ended up arousing a phenomenon of rejection leading to their expulsion but, quite often, after leaving through one door, they have re-entered through another door. In several nations of continental Europe, in the late 19th and early 20th century, the phenomenon appeared once more. “The Jewish question” was especially put in Russia, Poland, Romania, Austria-Hungary, Germany and France. Everyone, beginning with the Jews themselves, then set about looking for “a solution” to this “Jewish question”. For the Zionists, long a minority amongst their coreligionists, the solution could only be territorial. The thing to do was to find, with the accord of the imperial powers, a territory that Jewish colonists could settle. This colony might be located, for example, in Palestine, Madagascar, Uganda, South America, Siberia, … Poland and France envisaged the Madagascar solution whilst the Soviet Union created
in southern Siberia the autonomous Jewish sector of Birobijan. As for National Socialist Germany, she was to study the possibility of settling the Jews in Palestine but wound up realising, from 1937, the unrealistic nature of the idea and the great wrong to the Palestinians that such a project would entail. Subsequently the 3rd Reich wanted to create a Jewish colony in a part of Poland (the Judenreservat of Nisko,
south of Lublin), then in its turn, in 1940, it seriously considered creating a colony in Madagascar (the Madagascar Projekt). Two years later, beset by the necessities of a war to wage on land, sea and in the air and taken up with the more and more distressing concerns of having to save German cities from a deluge of fire, to safeguard the very life of his people, to keep the economy of a whole continent running, a continent so poor in raw materials, Chancellor Hitler made it known to his entourage, notably in the presence of Reichsminister and head of the Reichskanzlerei Hans-Heinrich Lammers, that he intended to “put off solving the Jewish question till after the war”. Constituting within her a population necessarily hostile to a Germany at war, the Jews – in any case a large portion of them – had to be deported and interned. Those able to work were made to do so, the others were confined in concentration camps or transit camps. Never did Hitler either desire or authorise the massacre of Jews and his courts martial went so far as to order the death penalty, even in Soviet territory, for soldiers found guilty of excesses against Jews. Never did the German State envisage anything else, as concerned the Jews, than “a final
territorial solution of the Jewish question” (eine territoriale Endlösung der Judenfrage) and it takes all the dishonesty of our orthodox historians to evoke incessantly “the final solution of the Jewish question” and deliberately evade the adjective “territorial”, so
important here. Up to the end of the war, Germany kept on offering to deliver interned Jews to the western Allies, but on condition that they then stay in Britain, for example, and not go and invade Palestine to torment “the noble and valiant Arab people”. There was nothing exceptional about the fate of Europe’s Jews in the general blaze of war. It would have deserved just a mention in the great book of Second World War history. One may therefore quite rightly be astonished that today the fate of the Jews should be considered the essential feature of that war.

After the war it was in the land of Palestine and to the detriment of the Palestinians that the upholders of the “Holocaust” religion found – or believed they’d found – the final territorial solution to the Jewish question.

A religion that, previously, groped along with its sales methods (Raul Hilberg’s recantation)

I suggest that sociologists undertake a history of the new religion by examining the extremely varied techniques in line with which this “product” was created, launched and sold over the years 1945-2000. They can thus measure the distance between the often clumsy procedures of the beginning and the sophistication, at the end, of the packagings designed by our present-day spin doctors (crooked “com” experts) for their presentations of “the Holocaust”, henceforth a compulsory and kosher mass-consumer product.

In 1961, Raul Hilberg, first of the “Holocaust” historians, “the pope” of exterminationist science, published the first version of his major work, The Destruction of the European Jews. He expressed in doctoral manner the following thesis: Hitler had given orders for an organised massacre of the Jews and all was explained as somehow coming of those orders. This way ofdisplaying the merchandise was to end in
a fiasco. With the revisionists asking to see the Hitler orders, Hilberg was compelled to admit that they had never existed. From 1982 to 1985, under the pressure of the same revisionists asking to see just what the magical homicidal gas chambers, in technical reality, looked like, he was led to revise his presentation of the holocaustic product. In 1985, in the “revised and definitive” edition of the same book, instead of taking an assertive, curt stance with the reader-customer, he sought to get round him with all sorts of convoluted phrases, appealing to a supposed taste for the mysteries of parapsychology or the paranormal. He expounded on the history of the destruction of the European Jews without in the least bringing up any order, from Hitler or anyone else, to exterminate the said Jews. He explained everything by a kind of diabolical mystery through which, spontaneously, the German bureaucrats told themselves to kill the Jews to the very last.“Countless decision makers in a far-flung bureaucratic machine” took part in the extermination enterprise by virtue of a “mechanism”, and did so without any “basic plan” (p.53); these bureaucrats “created an atmosphere in which the formal, written word could gradually be abandoned as a modus operandi” (p. 54); there were “basic understandings of officials resulting in decisions not requiring orders or explanations”; “it was a matter of spirit, of shared comprehension, of consonance and synchronization”; “no one agency was charged with the whole operation”; “no single organization directed or coordinated the entire process” (p. 55). In short, according to Hilberg, this concerted extermination had indeed taken place but there was no possibility of actually demonstrating it with the aid of specific documents. Two years previously, in February 1983, during a conference at Avery Fischer Hall in New York, he had presented this strange and woolly thesis as follows: “What began in 1941 was a process of destruction not planned in advance, not organized centrally by any agency. There was no blueprint and there was no budget for destructive measures. They were taken step by step, one step at a time. Thus came about not so much a plan being carried out, but an incredible meeting of minds, a consensus-mind reading by a far-flung bureaucracy”. To sum up, that vast project of destruction was executed, magically, by telepathy and by the diabolical workings of the
“Nazi” bureaucratic genius. It can be said that with Hilberg, historical science has thus turned cabalistic or religious.

Serge and Beate Klarsfeld, at their end, wanted to set off on the same road of fake science when they called upon French pharmacist Jean-Claude Pressac for assistance. For several years the poor Pressac strove to sell the tainted product in a pseudo-scientific form but, realising the imposture, in 1995 he did a complete turnaround and admitted that, all things considered, the dossier of “the Holocaust” was “rotten” and fit only “for the rubbish bins of history”; such were his own words. The news of his change of heart was to be kept hidden for five years, emerging only in 2000 at the end of a long book by Valérie Igounet, another Shoah peddler, entitled Histoire du négationnisme en France (Seuil, p. 652).

A religion that has at last discovered the
up to date sales techniques

It was then that the spin doctors came onto the scene. What with the product having become suspect and potential customers starting to ask questions, the “Holocaust” religion’s management had to steer an altogether different course and give up defending the merchandise with ostensibly scientific arguments: their new approach would be a resolutely “modern” one. It was decided to set only the very least store by efforts at logical argumentation and to replace serious research with appeals to sentiment and emotion, in other words with art: the cinema, theatre, historical novels, shows, story telling (the contemporary art of throwing together an account or framing a “testimony”), the media circus, stage designs in museums, public ceremonies, pilgrimages, worshiping of (false) relics and (false) symbols (symbolic gas chambers, symbolic numbers, symbolic witnesses), incantations, music and even kitsch, the whole thing matched with assorted ways of forcing people to buy it, including various kinds of threats. The filmmaker Steven Spielberg, a specialist in dishevelled and extraterrestrial fiction, has become the leading instigator for holocaustic films as well as for the casting of 50,000 witnesses. In order to sell their tainted product better in the long term, our fake historians and real junk dealers have sought and obtained the primary school “franchise”, with which they instil a taste for “the Holocaust” in the very youngest clientele: for it’s in the earliest years that appetites are acquired, making so that, later on, the customer need hardly be enticed: he’ll demand on his own what he enjoyed as a child, be it sweets or poison. Thus has it come to be that no one involved could care less about history: all serve the sole cause of a certain Remembrance, that is a jumble of legends and slanders that give the public the pleasure of feeling good andrighteous, ready tosing the virtues of the poor Jew and curse the intrinsically wicked “Nazis”, to call for vengeance and spit on the graves of the defeated. At the end it only remains to collect a flood of cold hard cash and receive new privileges. Pierre Vidal-Naquet was but an amateur: in 1979, he had shown himself from the outset to be too basic, too rough in his “Holocaust” promotion. For example, when asked by the revisionists to explain how in blazes, after a gassing operation with hydrogen cyanide (the active ingredient in the insecticide “Zyklon B”), a squad of Jews (Sonderkommando) could enter unharmed into a room still full of that terrible gas, then handle and remove up to a few thousand corpses infused with poison, he, along with 33 other academics, replied that he simply need not provide any explanation. Spielberg, a more skilful man, was to show in a screen drama a “gas chamber” wherein, for once, “by a miracle”, the showerheads sprayed… water and not gas. Subsequently, in his turn, Vidal-Naquet had, quite awkwardly, attempted to answer the revisionists on the scientific level and made a fool of himself. Claude Lanzmann, for his part, in the film Shoah, sought to produce testimonies or confessions, but his result was clumsy, inept and hardly convincing; that said, at least he’d grasped that the main point was to “make movies” and occupy the public forum. Today there is no longer a single “historian” of “the Holocaust” who makes it his business to prove the reality of “the Holocaust” and its magical gas chambers. All of them do like Saul Friedländer in his latest book (L’Allemagne nazie et les juifs / Les années d’extermination, Seuil, 2008): they leave it as understood that it all existed. With them history becomes axiomatic, although their axioms aren’t even drawn up. These new historians proceed with such self-assurance that the reader, taken aback, doesn’t realise the trick being played on him: the smooth talkers go on endlessly about an event whose reality they haven’t established in the first place. And so it is that the customer, believing that he’s bought some goods, has actually bought the smooth talk of the one giving him the sales pitch. Today’s world champion of holocaustic bluff is a shabbos goy, Father Patrick Desbois, one hell of a trickster whose various productions dedicated to “the
Holocaust by bullets”, notably in the Ukraine, seem to have reached the very peaks of Judeo-Christian media hype.

A success story of the great powers

A veritable success story in the art of selling, the holocaustic enterprise has acquired the status of an international lobby. This lobby has blended with the American Jewish lobby (whose flagship organisation is the AIPAC) which itself defends, tooth and nail, the interests of the State of Israel, of which “the Holocaust” is the sword and shield. The mightiest nations in the world can hardly allow themselves to annoy such a network of pressure groups which, under a religious veneer, was at first a commercial concern only to become later on military-commercial, constantly pushing for new military adventures. It follows that if other countries, called “emerging”, want to be in good graces with a certain more powerful one, then they would be well advised to bend to its wishes. Without necessarily professing their faith in “the Holocaust”, they will contribute, if need be, to the propagation of “the Holocaust” and to the repression of those who dispute its reality. The Chinese, for example, although they have no use at all for such nonsense themselves, keep well away from any calling into question of the “Jewish Holocaust”; this enables them to pose as the “Jews” of the Japanese during the last war and so point out that they too have been victims of genocide, a formula which, they think, may open the way to financial reparations and political profits, as it has done for the Jews.

A particularly mortal religion

The future trouble for the religion of “the Holocaust” lies in the fact that it is too secular. Here one may well think of the Papacy, which, in centuries past, drew its political and military strength from a temporal power that, in the final analysis, ended up causing its downfall. The new religion is hand in glove with, all together, the State of Israel, the United States, the
European Union, NATO, Russia, the big banks (which, as in the case of the Swiss banks, it can force to knuckle under if they show unwillingness to pay out), international racketeering and the arms merchants’ lobbies. This being the case, who can guarantee it a solid base in the future? It has made itself vulnerable by endorsing, de facto, the policies of nations or groups with inordinate appetites, whose spirit of worldwide crusade, as may be particularly noted in the Near and Middle East, has become adventurist.

It has come to pass that religions disappear with the empires where they used to reign. This is because religions, like civilisations, are mortal. That of “the Holocaust” is doubly mortal: it spurs countries to go on warlike crusades and it is rushing to its doom. It will rush to its doom even if, in the last instance, the
Jewish State vanishes from the land of Palestine. The Jews then dispersed throughout the world will have only one last resort, that of bewailing this “Second Holocaust”.

***

Translator’s note: The italicised English
words are in English in the original.

NB: Already in 1980, in my book Mémoire en défense contre ceux qui m’accusent de falsifier l’histoire (“Statement of case against those who accuse me of falsifying history”, La Vieille Taupe, Paris), I dealt with “the new religion” of “the Holocaust” (p. 261-263). In 2006 I wrote two articles on the subject: “La ‘Mémoire juive’ contre l’Histoire ou l’aversion juive pour toute recherche approfondie sur la Shoah” (“‘Jewish Remembrance’ versus History, or the Jewish aversion to any thorough research on the Shoah”) and “Le prétendu ‘Holocauste’ des juifs se révèle de plus en plus dangereux” (“The Alleged ‘Holocaust’ of the Jews is proving ever more dangerous”).

Whatever Happened to Eugenics?

Whatever Happened to Eugenics? Glayde Whitney Florida State University, Tallahassee

Review of:

Heredity and Humanity: Race, Eugenics and Modern Science Roger Pearson Scott-Townsend Publishers, Washington D.C., 1996 ISBN 1-878465-15-5 162 pps.

“Most of those who have sought to suppress human knowledge about heredity have done so with kindly intentions, but sound policies can never be constructed on bad science or unsound data. Any society that sets itself against the immutable causal laws of biology and evolution will ultimately bring about its own demise” (Pearson, p. 140).

Whatever happened to Eugenics? How is it that the prevention of human suffering came to be considered as the greater evil? In this delightful little book Roger Pearson takes us on an excursion through history, science and ideologies.

In so doing he illuminates the origins of great concepts and names the heroes and the villains in a saga that is not yet complete. In recommending this book to a Seminar in Evolutionary Psychology I told the graduate students that it is “an anti-PC, anti-egalitarian, historical polemic, well referenced and worth reading this is not the story you got in cultural anthropology class.” This is a story well-told that needs wide telling, and serious pondering by all who are concerned for the welfare of our civilization.

The opening chapter (The Concept of Heredity in the Ancient World) serves to remind the reader that heredity has been considered important since before the beginning of recorded history, and at least until earlier in the twentieth century. Unfortunately, these observations will be new to many students who have suffered a modern deconstructed education. Pearson announces his agenda in that the opening chapter “illustrates the deep belief in the importance of heredity and race which prevailed from the earliest times until roughly the end of the nineteenth century. Subsequent chapters document the rise of politically-motivated egalitarian ideology which, heavily supported by the media, eventually succeeded in making the idea of biological inequality taboo. Despite the fact that there is today a rapidly developing body of scientific research which validates the age-old
comprehension of the role of heredity in shaping human abilities, too many people are unaware of the mechanics behind the swing toward the notion of the biological equality of mankind” (p. 9).

The mechanics of the swing will be well understood by the readers of this book. Pearson reasonably speculates that an appreciation of heredity probably existed at least as early as the Neolithic origins of agriculture and animal husbandry. It is well documented with ample quotes (Plato, the Odyssey, Theognis, etc.) that the ancient Greeks had a keen appreciation of hereditary contributions to both physical and mental traits. Unlike the matrilineal and patrilineal clan systems of many other peoples, the ancient Germanic “kindred” acknowledged the actual degrees of genetic relatedness on both paternal and maternal sides. This Germanic kindred is the basic traditional approach to family shared today by most North Americans of European descent.

Multicultural egalitarianism reared its civilization destroying head in the ancient world. Early on, freeborn Romans could only marry among certain stocks under the system of connubium. But with military and bureaucratic successes the empire grew to become a “multicultural giant”, “ripe for the rise of egalitarian political ideologies” (p.13):

The coming of Christianity plunged logic and classical philosophy into centuries of near-oblivion and clashed with the established and ancient European belief in the inequality of men. Spreading first among the slaves and lowest classes of the Roman empire, Christianity came to teach that all men were equal in the eyes of a universal Creator God, an idea that was totally alien to older European thought which had recognized a hierarchy of competence among men -and even among the gods. Opposing the traditions of classical philosophy and scientific enquiry, Christianity introduced into Europe the concept of a single omnipotent `God of History’ who controlled all the phenomena of the universe - with men and women being creations of that God. Since all men and women were the `children of God’, all were equal before their Divine Maker! Faith in the church’s interpretation of supposedly prophetic revelations became more important than scientific or philosophical enquiry; and to question the church’s view of reality came to be perceived as sinful. …. Christianity carried the anti-intellectualism of the Middle Eastern prophets to its extreme (p. 14).

And the weakened, multicultural egalitarian Roman Empire soon fell “before the onslaught of the smaller, more homogeneous, Germanic nations, which still retained a sense of group identity” (p.13).

Across the centuries of church domination the notions of hereditary differences among men were discouraged in the service of Church power. The “divine right” to rule, given by God, became quite different from the earlier concept of hereditarily noble ruling lineages. Stripped by the Church of belief in the importance of human heredity and of the notion of the state as a kinship unit - “a family writ large” (p.16), believing instead in the essential equality of all God’s children, the stage was set for the development of egalitarian-espousing secular political movements:

Such was the case of the Levellers who fought alongside the Parliamentarians in seventeenth century Britain; of the Jacobins, who decimated the accomplished aristocracy of eighteenth century France; and of the Bolsheviks who wrought genocidal slaughter among the more successful members of Czarist Russian society …. In recent times, calls for political revolution have frequently invoked attacks on `genetic determinism’ in favor of the alternate, wildly illogical, philosophy of `biological egalitarianism’…. The suggestion that one individual might be inherently more creative or productive than another was unlikely to fuel the feelings of resentment necessary to incite the masses to revolutionary action (p. 17).

After more than a thousand years of intellectual suppression, there eventually was a renaissance. By the eighteenth century thinking people were well aware of inherited differences among individuals and races. Thomas Jefferson certainly did not confuse rule of law [ …. all men are created equal ….] and hereditary reality. In a letter to John Adams, Jefferson states that “I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents. …. For experience proves, that the moral and physical qualities of man, whether good or evil, are transmissible in a certain degree from father to son” (Jefferson, at Monticello, October 28, 1813). Jefferson’s view concerning the profound inherited
differences between the black and white races are well known, and are documented in his “Notes on the State of Virginia” and elsewhere throughout his writings.

In the chapter “The Discovery of Evolution: Eugenics and the Pioneers of Modern Science” Roger Pearson presents the scientific heroes of early eugenics. The topmost trinity are Charles Darwin, Sir Francis Galton, and Karl Pearson. By all accounts a kind and gentle man, Charles Darwin delayed over twenty years between formulating his theory of evolution by natural selection and its publication (Desmond & Moore, 1991). His feeling for his wife’s religious sensitivities, and a reluctance to be excoriated by correct society, contributed to the delay.

Were it not for Alfred Russel Wallace, Darwin may well have traveled the road of such luminaries as Copernicus and Descartes and not published until beyond the reach of disapprobation. However, Darwin received instant acclaim among important scientists when appeared in 1859 his masterpiece The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.

Among those profoundly influenced was Darwin’s half-cousin (same grandfather - Erasmus Darwin -different grandmother) Francis Galton. Already an eminent scientist, explorer, and inventor in his own right, Galton later wrote to Darwin:

"I always think of you in the same way as converts from barbarism think of the teacher who first relieved them from the intolerable burden of their superstition.….the appearance of your Origin of Species formed a real crisis in my life; your book drove away the constraint of
my old superstition as if it had been a nightmare and was the first to give me
freedom of thought”. (from Karl Pearson,
1924).

It was Galton who immediately took up the scientific study of human diversity, human ability, and the evolution of civilizational capacity. By 1865 Galton published two important articles which shared the title “Hereditary Talent and Character”, in 1869 he published Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry into Its Laws and Consequences. From the beginning Galton’s work on heredity combined science (which later developed as human genetics) with notions of applications for the benefit of humanity. Galton founded, and then in 1883 named, the new science, eugenics. The term was from the Greek eugenes (”well born”), and Roger Pearson tells us:

In Galton’s own words, the purpose of genetic science was “to give the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable."(p. 19).

The humanitarian goal of eugenics was summarized by Galton in 1908:

"Man is gifted with pity and other kindly feelings; he has also the power of preventing many kinds of suffering. I conceive it to fall well within his province to replace Natural Selection by other processes that are more merciful and not less effective. …. Natural Selection rests
upon excessive production and wholesale destruction; Eugenics on bringing no more individuals into the world than can be properly cared for, and those only of the best stock." (Galton,1908, p.323).

Heartened by Galton’s applications of evolution to humanity, and by his investigations into the laws of heredity, Darwin was encouraged to prepare his own notes and thoughts concerning human evolution, and, in 1871 published The Descent of Man. In light of what came after it is important to emphasize that neither Galton nor Darwin, nor I dare say any competent scientist, doubted that the races differed profoundly in hereditary characteristics. As illustration
Roger Pearson provides the following excerpt from chapter seven of The Descent of Man:

” …. the various races, when carefully compared and measured, differ much from each other - as in the texture of hair, the relative proportions of all parts of the body, the capacity of the lungs, the form and capacity of the skull, and even the
convolutions of the brain. But it would be an endless task to specify the numerous points of difference. The races differ also in constitution, in acclimatization and in liability to certain diseases. Their mental characteristics are likewise very distinct; chiefly as it would appear in their emotion, but partly in their intellectual
faculties. Everyone who has had the opportunity of comparison, must have been struck by the contrast between taciturn, even morose aborigines of S. America and the light-hearted talkative negroes" (p. 20).

In order to study heredity Galton revolutionized methods, becoming “The Father” of modern statistics. The younger applied mathematician and social activist Karl Pearson [later to be Galton’s major biographer] became an important colleague. Karl Pearson generalized the mathematical foundations of Galtonian statistical concepts, and further developed statistics in his quest of eugenical science. He was one of the most influential scientists at the turn-of-the-century, and emphasized eugenics in books with titles such as National Life from the Standpoint of Science (1901), and Nature and Nurture: The Problem of the Future (1910). Karl Pearson had deep concerns for the welfare of the British Empire, he feared that current conditions were having dysgenic consequences such that the quantity of qualified persons would be insufficient to maintain the Empire. Judging from the changes to the British Empire over the century from 1896 to 1996, there is certainly nothing apparent that contradicts his concerns. At one point he lamented “We have placed our money on environment, when heredity wins in a canter."

Roger Pearson makes abundantly clear with extensive documentation and fascinating text that the period up until approximately 1930 saw the flowering of eugenics in science, society and law. Many humanitarians of both the left and the right were united in an enthusiasm to improve human stock and prevent human suffering, rather than to only treat suffering after the fact. Eugenic ideals were embraced by such luminaries as George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, Havelock Ellis, A. J. Balfour and Winston Churchill, to list but a few in Britain. In the United States such influential people as Henry Ford, Madison Grant, Margaret Sanger and Theodore Roosevelt were enthusiastic. The Carnegie Institute of Washington established, with Harriman family funds, the Cold Spring Harbor Eugenics Record Office under the leadership of the geneticist Charles Davenport.

Organizations such as The Galton Society and The Race Betterment Foundation were founded with ample scientific and social support. Writing for a majority (only one justice dissented) of the United States Supreme Court in 1927, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., noted:

"It is better for all the world if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. ….. Three generations of imbeciles is enough" (Buck v. Bell, 1927).

With such widespread support eugenics might have continued to develop as a major component of progressive society. Alas, such was not to be. Within the movement, R. Pearson points out, there developed schisms between those interested in race betterment and those more interested in prevention of specific
genetic diseases - a breach between positive and negative eugenics. At the same time the “eugenic ideal - the desire to engineer a healthy genetic heritage for future generations - came under increasing attack from those who were ideologically committed to egalitarianism. The latter refused to see the eugenic ideal in any light other than as an hierarchical concept implying superiority and inferiority - the precise pattern of thought they sought to eliminate from social consciousness. They, too, sought to engage in social engineering, though engineering of a political nature which would have unanticipated dysgenic consequences, and the stage was set for the intense emotional struggle which today dominates both academia and the media, about the political correctness of permitting research into behavioral genetics, as well as the right to propagate information about the role of heredity in shaping the limits of human abilities and behavior.” (pp. 52 - 53).

The arch villain on the academic front, instrumental in supplanting and then demonizing eugenics was Franz Boas, aided by a large entourage of students and fellow-travelers. One of the main take-home messages is that honest empirical science does not fare well, at least in the short run, when up against
ideologically inspired polemics in which almost anything goes in the service of a greater good [the end justifies the means]. In Chapter V (Radical Egalitarianism Penetrates Academe), and the following few chapters, Roger Pearson exposes the players and the agenda promoting the egalitarian fallacy. It is a fascinating expose of names, dates, and events, too rich to be dealt with adequately in even a lengthy review. The reader is reminded of the Verona files, recently released documentation of the extensive infiltration of American government and society by communist agents. In very important respects Joe McCarthy was neither paranoid nor mistaken. Roger Pearson here makes clear that the academic and anthropological/psychobiological scientific fronts were not immune from the same intellectual infestations.

Born of a pair of politically radical socialists who were active in the 1870-71 wave of revolutionary movements across Europe, Franz Boas emigrated to the United States in 1886. In coming to America he was following Abraham Jacobi, an uncle by marriage, who came after being released from prison for armed violence in the Cologne revolution of 1848. Jacobi was active in the revolutionary socialist movement in the United States, and was in a good position to provide influential contacts for his kinsman. Boas “became the head of a department of anthropology established at Columbia University, where he trained and awarded doctoral degrees to numerous selected students. Equipped with the earliest American doctorates specifically designated as being in the field of anthropology, his students by default became the leaders and prime builders of academic anthropology in the United States, rapidly establishing themselves as the arbiters of anthropological research, publishing and teaching in American universities.

Interestingly, as late as 1911, in his book The Mind of Primitive Man, Boas had admitted that: “[d]ifferences of structure must be accompanied by differences of
function, physiological as well as psychological; and, as we found clear evidence of differences of structure between races, so we must anticipate that differences in mental characteristics will be found.”

However, Boas was shortly to reverse this position when he realized that the recognition of genetic forces conflicted with the goals of his egalitarian and internationalist ideology, which sought to demolish the unity and coherence of national units. Instead he began a massive campaign to undermine national
and ethnic consciousness and `combat racism’ in whatever form it might find expression. In particular, his [books] were devoted to downplaying the concept of heredity and undermining the eugenic ideal. …. The spread of Boasian doctrines was further facilitated by the position of world dominance then enjoyed by the Western nations. Spurred by an ethical desire to shoulder `the white man’s burden’ in a shrinking world, many academics came to believe that Mankind should now abandon the Darwinian struggle and treat the diverse subspecies of mankind as members of a single, international gene pool. This …. was an ethical concept not shared by the non-Western nations, who adhered to more functional, self-promoting, competitive patterns of behavior. …. the desire that biological egalitarianism should be true gained strength as human altruism was redirected away from the immediate group ..[to].. an ideology which favored overall sapiens homogenization. The new radicals in U.S. social science found it convenient to downplay heritability; and Boas’s earlier acknowledgment of human biological disparities was edited out of his 1938 edition …. . Those to whom Boas awarded doctoral degrees in anthropology generally shared his ideologies and became prime disciples of egalitarian universalism” (pp. 57 - 59).

Among his many students were Margaret Mead, the “mother of American anthropology”, eventually exposed as a hoaxster and communist propagandist, and Israel Ehrenburg (A.K.A. Ashley Montagu) whose “entire career was built around a bitter crusade against the work of respected scholars such as Carleton Coon, who recognized race as a vital product of human evolution” (p. 62). Others too numerous to even list are exposed in their infamy.

Many world events contributed to the growth of anti-eugenic egalitarianism, not least among which was the suffering associated with the world-wide depression which followed World War I. The growth of Nazism and the outcome of W.W.II provided an unfortunate boost to anti-eugenic sentiment. It was a propaganda coup of tremendous proportions to be able to paint eugenics with the tar brush of Nazi anti Semitism. Never mind that it makes no more sense than to condemn all of pharmaceutical science or medical surgery because German science and applications were well developed in those fields. The propaganda damage was done, and it became unacceptable to even mention the possibility of race differences in behavior at the same time that Lysenkoism, condemning all genetics, was taking hold in the Soviet Union.

Biological egalitarianism became the only ‘politically correct’ doctrine among Marxists throughout the world, and ….permeated Western [universities] through the teachings of faculty members who were ideologically attracted to egalitarianism but were balefully ignorant of even elementary biology.” (p. 71).

The Science for the People movement sprang up as part of the counter-culture protests in the era of the Vietnam War; “The political left-wing had now achieved ascendancy in the universities of the Western world. Indeed, many contemporary evolutionary scientists still seem to wish to be perceived as believing in equality, …. in a degree of malleability of human nature that does not exist. ..[Pee-Cee evolutionists focus] their writings on the ‘panhuman’ traits shared by all living hominids” (p.73). They attempt to deny any genetic diversity among living races. Indeed, some even deny the existence of races. A sickly accurate joke has it that “It takes a Ph.D. in biology from Harvard to not be able to discern any difference between an Eskimo and a Hottentot”!

The second half of the book deals in fascinating depth with essentially current happenings, both in eugenical science [genetics], and in ideological countermoves to empirical science. On the one had, DNA fingerprinting can now establish, from a drop of saliva or dried blood, the race of origin to a probability of error of less than one-in-a-hundred-million. Incredibly, at the same time popular media and scientific publications stridently proclaim that biological [genetic] races do not exist. We are now in critical times, a race is occurring around us between humanitarian applications of modern genetic science (eugenics, that is) and the suppression of knowledge by PeeCee ideologues. The media, by-and-large trained by egalitarians, know no better than to attack as “racist”, “repellent”, or “repugnant” almost any admission of information concerning behavior and genetic diversity among human races. Yet at the same time the human genome project in combination with a wide variety of research in the neurosciences [brain science] and behavioral medicine and genetics in general, is quickly taking us beyond the point where race differences can be obfuscated or denied. So? It is ominous that there is a proliferation of ‘hate crime’ and ‘hate speech’ laws being considered or already in existence in various European countries, Australia, and Canada. While in the United States, under the umbrella of first amendment freedom-of-speech protection, academic tenure is under wide-spread attack and previously respectable academic publishers are censuring authors and censoring their book lists, even withdrawing from publication a title deemed “repellent” for including mention of race differences.

Whatever happened to eugenics? In China it is alive and well. The “Maternal and Infantile Health Care Law” went into effect on 1 June 1995. A media mention states “The official Xinhua News Agency reported that China currently has more than 10 million disabled people whose births could have been prevented if such a law had been in effect” (Tallahassee
Democrat, 1994).

Meanwhile, in the West, eugenics continues to encounter politically motivated attempts to suppress. As the scientific advances continue at an accelerating pace, it remains to be seen if rational humanitarian applications of sound genetic knowledge can be implemented for the benefit of mankind, or if we will slip into another era of anti-intellectual totalitarianism. Anyone concerned for the future of mankind should carefully read this book. It is not the story you were told in cultural anthropology class.

… there is now no reasonable excuse for refusing to face the fact that nothing but …. eugenics ….. can save our civilization from the fate that has overtaken all previous civilizations” (p. 136).

References

Buck v. Bell.

1927 274 U.S., pp 201-208.

Desmond, A., & J. Moore.

1991 Darwin. London: Penguin Books

Galton, F.

1908 Memories of My Life. London:
Methuen (3rd. ed., April 1909).

Galton, F.

1996 Essays in Eugenics. With
biographical introduction by Roger

Pearson. Washington D.C.: Scott-Townsend.

Jefferson, T.

1813 Letter to John Adams, October 28,
1813. Reprinted in: Peterson, M.D. (ed.)
1975 The Portable Thomas Jefferson.
New York: Penguin Books, pp 533-539.

Pearson, K.

1924 The Life, Letters and Labours of
Francis Galton. vol. 1, London:
Cambridge University Press.

Pearson, R.

1991 Race, Intelligence and Bias in
Academe. Washington D.C.: Scott-

Townsend.

Rushton, J. P.

1995 Race, Evolution, and Behavior. New
Brunswick NJ: Transaction.

Tallahassee Democrat

1994 China: Lawmakers approve
eugenics law. 28 October. Tallahassee
FL: Democrat news service.

Will Durant - What is Civilization?

                          
Civilization is social order promoting cultural creation. Four elements constitute it: economic provision, political organization, moral traditions and the pursuit of knowledge and the arts. It begins where chaos and insecurity end. For when fear is overcome, curiosity and constructiveness are free, and man passes by natural impulse towards the understanding and embellishment of life.

Physical and biological conditions are only prerequisites to civilization; they do not constitute or generate it. Subtle psychological factors must enter into play. There must be political order, even if it be so near to chaos as in Renaissance Florence or Rome; men must feel, by and large, that they need not look for death or taxes at every turn. There must be some
unity of language to serve as medium of mental exchange. Through church, or family, or school, or otherwise, there must be a unifying moral code, some
rules of the game of life acknowledged even by those who violate them, and giving to conduct some order and regularity, some direction and stimulus. Perhaps there must also be some unity of basic belief, some faith -- supernatural or utopian -- that lifts morality from calculation to devotion, and gives life nobility and significance despite our mortal brevity. And finally there must be education -- some technique, however
primitive, for the transmission of culture. Whether through imitation, initiation or instruction, whether through father or mother, teacher or priest, the lore and heritage of the tribe -- its language and knowledge, its morals and manners, its technology and arts -- must be handed down to the young, as the very instrument through which they are turned from animals into men.

The disappearance of these conditions --sometimes of even one of them -- may destroy a civilization. A geological cataclysm or a profound climatic change;
an uncontrolled epidemic like that which wiped out half the population of the Roman Empire under the Antonines, or the Black Death that helped to end the
Feudal Age; the exhaustion of the land or the ruin of agriculture through the exploitation of the country by the town, resulting in a precarious dependence upon foreign food supplies; the failure of natural resources, either of fuels or of raw materials; a change in trade routes, leaving a nation off the main line of the world's commerce; mental or moral decay from the strains, stimuli and contacts of urban life, from the breakdown of traditional sources of social discipline and the inability to replace them; the weakening of the stock
by a disorderly sexual life, or by an epicurean, pessimist, or quietist philosophy; the decay of leadership through the infertility of the able, and the
relative smallness of the families that might bequeath most fully the cultural inheritance of the race; a pathological concentration of wealth, leading to class
wars, disruptive revolutions, and financial exhaustion: these are some of the ways in which a civilization may die.

For civilization is not something inborn or imperishable; it must be acquired anew by every generation, and any serious interruption in its financing or its transmission may bring it to an end. Man differs from the beast only by education, which may be defined as the technique of transmitting civilization.

Civilizations are the generations of the racial soul. As family-rearing, and then writing, bound the generations together, handing down the lore of the dying to the young, so print and commerce and a
thousand ways of communication may bind the civilizations together, and preserve for future cultures all that is of value for them in our own.

Let us, before we die, gather up our heritage, and offer it to our children.

Friday, October 2, 2020

Socrates Versus The Bugmen

                        By Nicholas R. Jeelvy 

         


I’ve mentioned before on this site and elsewhere that being part of the Dissident Right is an initiatory experience, as far as I’m concerned. Even though there’s a good deal of new information to be assimilated, none of it is exactly obscure. Any normie can read Kevin MacDonald or watch a Stefan Molyneux video. We don’t have any exclusive knowledge about the world. And yet we are very different. This, I believe, is firstly due to a fundamental transformation – spiritual and physical – that the average guy has to undergo in order to become /ourguy/. Secondly, the aforementioned normie must have within him the kernel of that thing which makes our guys /ourguy/. We can wax scientific about the heritability of character traits and political beliefs, and the literature on that is pretty strong (see Steve Sailer, hbd Chick, and Audacious Epigone), but suffice to say for the moment that it’s so.

We can try to discern this transformation and its precursors, or we can indulge our laziness and read an obscure book, in which the ancients have already done that for us. Stashed in Book II of Xenophon’s Memorabilia, there is an exchange related by Xenophon in which Socrates has a discussion with a wayward student, one Aristippus of Cyrene, about the wisdom of indulging in physical pleasure. Our lad Aristippus, of course, here plays the part of the hedonist who overeats, overdrinks, oversleeps, avoids labor, and is overly amorous in his disposition.

The way Socrates goes about attacking the hedonist position is very interesting. The go-to response to hedonism in our movement is “x is degenerate.” Now, while that may be true, many things, including some of the things we do ourselves, are “degenerate” in the Spenglerian, if not the colloquial, sense, and then we go into the fun world of nuance and whether a vice is still degenerate if practiced in moderation, or if vilified by our enemies. For example, is being a womanizer degenerate? If so, why is womanizing demonized by the most obviously degenerate Leftists? And furthermore, “x is degenerate” is only half a step removed from the EvangeloCon’s risible “x makes baby Jesus cry.” That aside, “x is degenerate” is a valid expression within the confines of the movement – as esoteric speech to the already initiated. However, when one faces a normie, the normie is likely to ask, “Why is x degenerate?” And here Socrates gives us some great arguments.

His argument to Aristippus is this: Imagine you were tasked with educating two children, one to be raised to be a ruler, and another not. Which one, Socrates asks, would Aristippus teach to abstain from overeating, drink, lechery, laziness, and other vices? Aristippus responds that of course the child who shall rule must be taught to abstain from vice, and for good reason. Not only does vice distract from the business of governance (or war, or farming, or other noble professions that Socrates mentions), but it can serve as bait for hostile forces to entrap the ruler – Socrates specifically mentions quails and partridges lured to their deaths by the call of a hen-bird. Can you say honeytrap? Can you say blackmail? For the longest time, the most sensible governments forbade homosexuals from serving in office – not because of some sort of “homophobia” against gay cooties, but because a homosexual can be blackmailed, especially if one is married. The same goes for adulterers, gamblers, debtors, alcoholics, and drug abusers. Developing a vice and incurring debt (which are the same thing) are actions which invite blackmail and entrapment. God knows how many tales of treachery begin with a busty Russian woman saying – in that enigmatically attractive accent – “If you betray your country, KGB will make your debts go poof.”

As an aside, it’s good to mention Socrates’ view on comfort. As we mentioned before, Socrates considers war and farming noble professions. Both, as he explains, are practiced outdoors, as are “more than half the rest” – at least in his time. And yet, men are not trained to endure heat and cold. I write this in a heated office, sitting in an ergonomic chair, but I’ve predicted the collapse of the current global political system in almost every article I’ve ever published. One day, we’ll have to fight, farm, and toil in scorching heat and bitter cold. This fragile and fragilizing edifice of Epicurean delights will be gone. And not only climate control, but other comforts will be gone, too. Stop taking painkillers, even mild analgesics. Do not get used to anything that’s likely to be gone after the collapse. Listen to the wise philosopher, and get used to it early, friends.

Aristippus concedes that it’s better for a ruler to be free of vice and unaccustomed to comfort, and concedes that if a child were to be put in his care and that child was meant to become a ruler, he’d teach it to shun vice and comfort. And yet for himself, he reserves the right to enjoy vice and comfort because he doesn’t seek power. We are treated to a speech by Aristippus on the thanklessness of leadership which is best described as “sour grapes on steroids.” A ruler, according to Aristippus, is he who is treated by the state in the manner that a man treats his servants. He is expected to do everything and get nothing in return. If he does something as natural as appoint his nephew Minister of Justice, he is called corrupt, and there’s even a special word for appointing your nephew – nepotism, complete with that scary “ism” on the end. A ruler is, in this sense, a slave of the state.

Socrates shoots this down quite easily by pointing out that the rulers always and everywhere live better lives than the ruled. In a manner that is especially poignant and relevant to our contemporary woes in the deracinated West, where we are enslaved by a foreign and hostile elite, Socrates brings up many examples of entire peoples being ruled by foreigners: the Syrians, Phrygians, and Lydians by the Persians, the Maeotians by the Scythians, the Libyans by the Carthaginians, and so on. Aristippus claims that he doesn’t belong to that class of people who are ruled, but rather takes a middle path, a path of freedom which leads to happiness. And here, we get to the meat of what Aristippus is. He’s not just a guy who wants to get his rocks off and is unable to restrain himself. He belongs to a very specific and repugnant type of man, sadly abundant both in our age and that of Socrates. But let us read on and see if we can get a more complete image of the esteemed Athenian’s interlocutor.

Socrates, again, points out the obvious: that as long as Aristippus goes among the people, there’s no way he’d be neither ruler nor ruled, as rule is merely the application of power. Strength and bravery dominate over weakness and cowardice, and the strong subjugate the weak. The weak have no freedom, no happiness, and everything that they build can be taken from them by force.

This, I believe, is one initiation that libertarianism cannot survive. My own personal journey through the libertarian milieu and into the Dissident Right pipeline began with reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb. He considers it very important to have “fuck-you money,” so that one may be independent and pursue one’s appetites and interests without being in thrall to a boss, a career, and a reputation. I agree with this wholeheartedly and encourage everyone who reads this to obtain fuck-you money. But say there’s a mean ole government who has it in for you. They’ve got all the guns, whereas you have none (or a peashooter which you can only use at the range). They’ll take your fuck-you money, fine you for saying “fuck you” to them, and tell you to go fuck yourself – while fucking you. Or, as our friends in the criminal-American community would put it, “Damn, it feels good to be a gangsta.”

The solution, mes amis? Either put this idea of being “free” to rest and make a life for yourself in the shadow of the state – which isn’t that bad once you consider the alternative – or obtain fuck-you power, which is to say a private army, and not one whose loyalty is based on money. Mercs are shifty, and the government has more money than you. In other words, be a baron, which, circling back to the discussion between Socrates and his pupil, means becoming a ruler. And that, my friends, is how your esteemed author resolved to renounce libertarianism.

Now, whereas a modern-day libertarian would violate the non-aggression principle (NAP) by raping our ears with incessant tirades on the subject of the NAP, Aristippus immediately concedes that indeed, the strong and brave dominate the weak and cowardly. He, however, isn’t constrained by such trifles, because, you see, he is a citizen of the world, living everywhere as a foreigner. By not belonging to any particular polis, he is free to move whenever he feels tyrannized.

Here we understand that we are dealing with someone who is not your average hedonist, but an international globetrotter, rootless and consuming. I am reminded of Jeffrey Tucker’s cringeworthy and embarrassing plug of McDonald’s mozzarella sticks as the pinnacle of human achievement. Yay, capitalism; yay, open borders; yay, buttsex! These are not your misguided – though honorable – Hoppeans looking to enforce covenant communities based on race and ethnicity. Tumbling out of the clown car with weed decals are the freaks, degenerates, drug addicts, gluttons, lechers, morons, pop-culture consumers, and fig-leaf intellectuals with their lips surgically attached to the Koch brothers’ rear ends which comprise the Libertarian Party and Reason magazine’s readership.

Socrates then delivers yet another cold shower of ruthless reality. The foreigner is always and everywhere of low status – excluded, and not quite as safe as the citizen. Even in our feminized, fragilizing society, tourists are always the ones getting ripped off, and one has only to haunt the pubs nearest the hostels for an easy lay.

Aristippus attempts one final rhetorical flourish by attempting to equate the self-denial of Socrates’ ruler-to-be with the privations of the poor and downtrodden. However, Socrates won’t be fooled. Much like how the hunter derives pleasure from the toil, the thrill of the hunt, so the man denying himself comfort and vice gains pleasure from this denial and toil – virtue is in many ways its own reward, but more than that, they who toil for their friends, their family, their nation, their country – they all look to higher rewards than comfort or freedom from pain. It’s rather comfortable to spend your nights playing video games and eating junk food, whereas being a father, a son, a soldier, a statesman, and a friend isn’t. But one category of being brings the highest pleasure, whereas the other brings emptiness on an existential level.

Aristrippus here acts as an Iron Age bugman who is content with being nowhere in life – in having no roots, no home, and pretending to eschew power, while having very little hope of actually holding it. The reader is well advised to read this dialogue. Aristrippus’ little diatribe on why power is bad is laughable to anyone who’s ever been near power, or offered real power. It feels good – viscerally good – to be in charge, even though you may be overworked, sleep-deprived, and lonely. But more importantly, power is a means to an end, to achieve something great, something good.

And here I come at last to discerning between the types of guys who have the potential for greatness – for being /ourguy/ – as opposed to being just another part of the teeming masses. As for the two children in Socrates’ analogy, sure, we may try to teach them one way or another, but I suspect that the propensity for leadership is inborn. Thus, he who would be king, will be king, and he who wouldn’t, wouldn’t. Raising men to shun vice and comfort will not turn them into rulers, but raising rulers to love vice and comfort will turn them into corrupt rulers, easily manipulated by enemies both foreign and domestic. I think, however, we can sniff out potential /ourguys/ by measuring their response to the fundamental nature of power. If a man reacts with hysterical shaking and repetitions of “muh NAP” when faced with the fact that men with guns will eventually show up to take that for which he toiled, he’s probably got no potential for further growth; or in initiatory terms, he cannot proceed to the next degree in the lodge.

He who accepts the nature of power can either resolve to live in its shadow, or take the tremendous task of seizing power for himself, in order to ultimately be free – have fuck-you power, so to speak. These two categories of men are /ourguys/: the first to follow and build our new world, the second to lead and guide it. But both must experience a transformation – a physical, mental, and spiritual transformation. Both types of man must achieve physical fitness, deny themselves the petty comforts of modernity, and shun its vices. To build a new tomorrow, they must become new men, better men, stronger men, men who take responsibility; those who don’t fear either leading or following, and who reject the lie of equality and the lure of hedonism. The sublime pleasure of discipline, of knowing one is above the lures of the flesh, that one has rejected today’s poisons and lies, and the one who has serenity of purpose and the fire of determination – these are the rewards for he who resolves to be great and stares down the beast.

The Proud Boys' Lesson

By Robert Hampton

The brawl between the Proud Boys and the Antifa in New York on October 12.



The Proud Boys could only have arisen in the Trump era. A multi-racial fraternity dedicated to “Western chauvinism” and brawling with the Antifa is not something the Tea Party could have produced.

There’s always been an element of the ridiculous in the Proud Boys. They have a distinctive uniform consisting of a black-and-yellow Fred Perry polo shirt with a MAGA hat. Their initiation rite requires potential members to take a beating until they can name five brands of cereal. And even though “Western chauvinist” sounds like a more polite way of saying white supremacist, the Proud Boys boast more racial diversity than the Antifa. And the music video for the group is . . . something else:

https://youtu.be/dXpffMXUcAg

The Proud Boys represents the absurdity that is “Trumpism” shorn of racialism. The group’s ideology is amorphous, and often resembles libertarian talking points – for example, “glorifying the entrepreneur.” The Proud Boys’ only two clear principles are support for Trump and a desire to fight the Antifa. That appeared to be enough to attract members, but that second quality has proven to be the group’s undoing.

One fight in New York City led to criminal charges for several members and a leadership crisis within the group. Gavin McInnes resigned as leader following reports(that turned out to be inaccurate) that the FBI had classified the Proud Boys as an extremist group. Milo Yiannopoulos followed suit and publicly disassociated himself from the group. A new chief, Jason Lee Van Dyke, was selected, and then quickly departed, adding to the group’s turmoil. On top of all this, the group has been kicked off nearly every social media platform and payment processor due to its numerous brawls.

McInnes is now suing the Southern Poverty Law Center over its designation of the Proud Boys as a hate group. McInnes claims in his lawsuit that the designation has cost him business and amounted to “tortious interference.” This Alt Lite figure also wants the SPLC to stop connecting him to hate groups, while also wanting the “anti-hate” smear operation to cease which claims that the Proud Boys are violent. It’s unclear whether this lawsuit will succeed or not. What is clear is that it shows the present disarray of the group and how it’s trying to clean up its image.

A lot of folks on the Dissident Right have reveled in the Proud Boys’ misery because of the group’s cuckery. Some have even argued that their cucking is why the group is in decline. If only they had stood by White Nationalists and not insisted on their opposition to the Alt Right, the argument goes, they would be in better shape right now.

That’s a silly argument. The real reason the Proud Boys are in decline is because of their dedication to street violence – the quality which both attracted support as well as the attention of law enforcement. Of course, much of their violence was in self-defense against the Antifa’s aggression and wouldn’t be prosecuted by a sane system. But nevertheless, it was a group primarily based on violence, which is hazardous for the Right. Every group dedicated to violence will face law enforcement scrutiny and brutal coverage from the press. The Proud Boys seemed unable to overcome those challenges.

The Antifa can engage in political violence at will thanks to the support of the media and cultural elites, as well as deep-pocketed legal defense funds. The Right cannot hope for such support at present. Many normie conservatives loved to watch videos of the Proud Boys knocking out the Antifa, but that is in no way comparable to the Left’s moral imperative to “punch Nazis.” Major outlets such as CNN have run glowing profiles of the Antifa and their commitment to “civil rights.” Even the Antifa’s numerous attacks on journalists have not convinced the cultural elites to drop their admiration for the black-clad anarchists. This is a double standard that is unjust, and yet we cannot change it.

Meanwhile, Right-wing groups that engage in violence can expect to face the full force of the law and media condemnation. The Proud Boys’ brawl in New York City last October well illustrates this point. Ten Proud Boys were charged in connection with a fight that broke out following a speech by Gavin McInnes. Two Proud Boys approached a group of Antifa demonstrators, which prompted one of the anarchists to throw a water bottle at the Trump supporters. A brawl ensued, and the Proud Boys emerged victorious.

But footage of the fight went viral on the Internet and the media demanded harsh justice. As a result, the victorious Proud Boys were rounded up and charged with rioting and attempted assault. The members face stiff sentences if found guilty. Interestingly, authorities are prosecuting these Proud Boys without the cooperation of their supposed victims, who refuse to identify themselves to police. The state wants punishment more than the Antifa does.

As a side note, a fact from the case that highlights the non-racialist character of the Proud Boys is that one of their members who was charged is a Latino skinhead. Another one is a white man who is married to a black woman. That man was – hilariously – labelled a white supremacist in the press.

All of this hoopla is over one single Saturday night fight. Additionally, the Proud Boys are having trouble getting the funds together to pay for the legal defense of their indicted brothers. The Antifa would never have this problem, as they have the National Lawyers Guild on their side and ready to help them in their legal troubles.

The lesson from all this is that it’s foolhardy for Right-wing groups to dedicate themselves to political violence. The Proud Boys are trying to learn from this lesson, and no longer encourage their members to participate in street brawls. But the damage to the group is already done and it’s unlikely it will recover from its present troubles.

Violence committed by the Left will either be ignored or justified by the media, as well as all “respectable” liberals. At the same time, violence committed by the Right will be condemned by everyone, including by most Right-wingers. Liberals have the power to wield the state against the Right, and violence gives them the pretext to do so. As seen by the Department of Justice’s inaction on the Antifa, conservatives are incapable of forcing the state to do the same against violent Leftists.

The Proud Boys managed to get a wide range of support for their brawls that White Nationalists could never receive, and yet that goodwill has not enabled them to raise sufficient legal funds nor get the charges against them dismissed. Yes, Right-wingers will always get the blame for street brawls, regardless of who started it. But actively seeking such brawls is just asking to get your group deplatformed and sent to jail. Every Right-wing group will suffer censorship, attacks, and press scrutiny. It’s just part of the deal.

The thirst for violence adds state pressure to the list of troubles. The Proud Boys could stand up to press smears, but withered under pressure from law enforcement. As most groups would. Very few people will stick around while your group is being swarmed by feds, and only a fraction are willing to go to jail for the cause. It’s hard enough for Right-wing groups to attract support without the possibility of jail time.

Self-defense is never wrong, but that’s different from basing your group’s entire existence upon brawling with the Antifa. In America’s current climate, the Right only stands to lose if it embraces political violence.

The Feds Just Don't Get It

                             By Beau Albrecht

         


In the wake of the recent round of BLM / Antifa riots, some of the government agencies which should be handling this can’t figure out who is really Public Enemy Number One. This would be comic relief from all the vibrancy, except that they mean it. A memo by the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the National Counterterrorism Center describes threats for violent unrest. Now take a wild guess at who they think the number one troublemakers are! An ABC News article, “Intelligence bulletin warning of protest-related violence makes little mention of ‘Antifa,'” (June 10, 2019), begins:

Despite repeated Trump administration assertions that the Antifa movement has hijacked the ongoing protests around the country sparked by the police killing of George Floyd, a new federal intelligence bulletin points to white supremacists and other would-be domestic terrorists as the main problem lurking behind potentially lethal violence.

Although ABC News is as MSM as it gets, the original article correctly identifies the major problem with The Narrative: The bulletin does mention anarchists, but Antifa is only a footnote. The article quotes the government’s statement on who they think the worst problem is:

“Based upon current information, we assess the greatest threat of lethal violence continues to emanate from lone offenders with racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist ideologies and [domestic violent extremists] with personalized ideologies,” according to the bulletin, which was obtained by ABC News.

It would be helpful if ABC made available a copy of the document in its entirety. However, the article is honest, so I’m not complaining.

Anyway, who are the “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists” that this refers to here? Could it perchance mean the mobs of blacks looting stores, burning dozens of cities, and shooting cops? How about the Leftist radicals participating in and encouraging this? Maybe it’s even the tricky outfits providing funding, coordination, and pallets of bricks left at convenient locations? Nuh uh! Apparently the overpaid bureaucrats want to point fingers at someone else entirely.

It says would-be domestic terrorists “including militia extremists and [groups] who advocate a belief in the superiority of the white race have sought to bring about a second civil war, often referred to as a ‘Boogaloo,’ by intentionally instigating violence at First Amendment-protected activities. Racially charged events, coupled with the accompanying widespread media attention, and the rapid dissemination of violent online rhetoric by [extremists], are likely to remain contributing factors to potentially ideologically motivated violence.”

Who has been torching cities during the last two weeks? Which tricky foundations and institutions fanned the flames? Who has been setting up stupid anarchist communes on property that they don’t own, like it’s still the freaking 1970s, and shaking down the locals? (Hint: it’s not “militia extremists.”) For the constellation of alphabet soup agencies that produced the report, it’s literally their job to figure out things like that. Better yet, with all the police state resources and special powers available to them, they could start going after the instigators. Why not — do they have other priorities?

How could the report get it so glaringly wrong? Surely the data went through the usual Narrative Filter and produced a PC answer. The only other explanation that makes sense involves bureaucrats with 45 chromosomes. Either way, it’s not worth an extra dog biscuit. How is that report any kind of valuable intel for law enforcement agencies down the transmission belt? This “blame whitey” stuff is starting to get tiresome.

Now, who foots most of the bill to support these alphabet soup agencies? That’s right — it’s decent, productive, white working stiffs — the backbone of the country — who pay most of the taxes that keep the lights on in Washington. Well then, who’s your daddy? As an American citizen, I am profoundly embarrassed at this staggering incompetence. Can I get a refund? I’m old school, so this makes me long for the days of government waste like $800 hammers, $1200 toilet seats, elephant poop art, and all that.

Again, quoting from ABC’s quote:

“As protests continue, the threat of potential violence created by [domestic extremists] towards civilians, law enforcement, and other targets will likely remain,” the document says. “The FBI, DHS, and NCTC assess [domestic extremists] will likely continue to seek to exploit First Amendment-protected activity by using violence and/or encouraging others on social media and messaging applications to use violence. We are also concerned other [extremists] may mobilize in response to the current civil unrest to conduct ambushes or attacks on law enforcement or civilians outside the context of First Amendment-protected activities.”

The beginning is a doozy: “As protests continue. . .” After hordes of blacks set all those neighborhoods ablaze, did someone in Washington mistake it for a candlelight vigil? Then the rest conveniently points fingers at the wrong people again. It’s wonderful that someone is hiring the mentally challenged, but federal agencies are the wrong place for them.

What exactly is a “white supremacist”?

While we’re on the subject, there’s been a lot of discussion of these “white supremacist” boogeymen. I get sick of the term frequently being used as a devil word, so let’s stipulate what we’re talking about here. The term does have a real meaning to it, even if it’s been loaded down with a lot of baggage. It’s time to add clarity through some analogies.

Do you think that it was right for Gandhi to reassert independence (Swaraj) for India? If so, then congratulations, you’re an Indian supremacist!

Do you think it’s proper for Chinese to rule China for the benefit of the Chinese, for Japanese to rule Japan for the benefit of the Japanese, and for Koreans to rule Korea for the benefit of the Koreans? That makes you an Asian supremacist!

Would you consider it wrong for a small minority of Jehovah’s Witnesses to rise to very high places in the economy of Turkey, and then use their influence to manipulate society for their benefit and exploit the Turks? If so, you’d be a Turkish supremacist.

Do you think that the descendants of those who founded the USA “for ourselves and our posterity” have a right to retain control over their own destiny, have a country that looks like the one they grew up in, and leave a permanent living space to their children?

Well, guess what that makes you.

Saturday, June 27, 2020

The Sexes: Complementary, Not "Equal"

By F. Roger Devlin

Peter Paul Rubens, Venus and Mars, between 1632 and 1635




A key component of the ideology currently dominant in the West is the “equality” of the sexes and the consequent struggle to eliminate “discrimination” between them. If this doctrine seems plausible to many people, it is because it appeals to the basic principle of fairness that like cases ought to be treated alike. If women are no different from men, it cannot be fair to treat them differently. The whole issue, then, comes down to whether or not women and men are in fact like cases, whether or not there are important natural differences between the sexes that may justify different treatment in at least some situations.

A large part of feminist literature is, therefore, devoted to denying or minimizing natural differences between the sexes. Feminists differ in how far they are willing to go in this effort. To deny the existence of two distinct sexes outright, of course, would not only harm their credibility, but impugn their sanity. Most content themselves with attempting to demonstrate that women and men are functionally equivalent (“equal”) in particular kinds of situations: within the family, in the workplace, in sporting competitions, even in combat. Much antifeminist literature, accordingly, is devoted to observing and measuring differences in men and women, from cognitive abilities and personality differences to athletic performance and upper body strength. Many such differences can be shown to exist, and we shall discuss some of them below.

Sexual Differentiation: What It Is and Why It Exists

But before beginning this survey, let us go straight to the heart of the matter and give an account of what sexual differentiation is. As we know from high school biology, some primitive organisms are asexual, reproducing through binary fission, or budding, or by sending off spores, or in a number of other ways. Such simple organisms do not undergo evolution in the proper sense. They can change only through random mutation, often remaining essentially unchanged for millions of years.

Sexual reproduction makes evolution possible by allowing favorable mutations to spread quickly through a population. It requires the fusing of two special cells known as gametes, each of which contains half the genetic material of the parent organism, and transmits this half to the offspring during fertilization.

It is a logical possibility for all parent organisms to produce the same number of gametes. But some differences must have appeared early, if only by chance. And once such differences appeared, they had a tendency to become ever-greater, in a self-reinforcing process.

This is because there are strategic advantages both to producing more gametes and to producing fewer. More gametes mean, all other things being equal, greater odds that one of them will successfully fuse with another. And fewer gametes mean, all other things being equal, that each of one’s own is more valuable, with more gametes from other organisms competing to fuse with them (in reproduction, as in economics, scarcity raises the price). Over time, each strategy—success through numbers and success through scarcity—capitalizes on its own advantages by becoming, in the one case, ever more numerous, in the other, ever scarcer and more valuable.

These different strategies of gamete production are the origin of the two sexes. They also define the sexes: in any species, whichever sex produces more gametes is said to be “male,” while the sex which produces fewer is said to be “female.” This is how biologists distinguish the sexes when confronted with exotic creatures whose sexual identity is not intuitively obvious.

There are limits to how far the two sexual strategies can be taken: no male can produce an infinite number of sperm, and if a female were to produce no eggs at all, she would lose the advantages that come with scarcity. Still, in complex animals the differences can be enormous. In humans, the female produces about four hundred eggs over the course of a lifetime, while the male produces around twelve million sperm per hour.

The two sexes are equally important to reproduction in the sense that each instance of reproduction requires both a sperm and an egg. But considered individually, females are far more valuable than males. Think of it this way: a society of a thousand men and one woman would be doomed, unable to produce enough offspring from a single mother. But in a society of a thousand women and one man, while the fellow would have his work cut out for him, he might eventually produce enough offspring for life to go on. In other words, women are the limiting factor in reproduction. In the language of economics, they have greater marginal value than men.

This, by the way, explains why men are expected to risk their lives to defend women rather than the other way around, and why women rather than men filled the Titanic’s lifeboats. As writer Warren Farrell has put it, men are the expendable sex.

The function of evolution is the perpetuate and spread of favorable mutations, which are rare, and the elimination of harmful mutations, which are common. Because most mutations are harmful, experimenting with them is a dangerous business. Nature does not squander valuable females on such a task; they must be kept safe to perpetuate the species. With the less valuable males, however, nature can afford to experiment and lose a few—or even most of them.

Dangerous mutations are isolated from females in various ways. The most obvious is to put them directly on the male, or Y, chromosome; but this is uncommon because the Y chromosome is so small. Somewhat counterintuitively, mutations can also be isolated from females when they occur on the female (X) chromosome—as long as they are recessive. In that case, the mutation will be expressed in males but usually unexpressed in females. This is why sex-linked disorders such as Hemophilia and certain forms of Muscular Dystrophy overwhelmingly affect men rather than women.

Most mutations, of course, occur on one of the other 22 pairs of human chromosomes. What happens in this case is that such mutations are more exposed to the process of natural and sexual selection in males than in females. Through competition, men test their own limits in ways that reveal any weakness, or any unusual strengths, in their genetic makeup. In primitive societies, male competition may take the form of hunting and fighting, and as many as half of all males may not even reach adulthood. In the modern world, competition is more likely to be directed toward economic or social success, with unsuccessful males stuck watching porn rather than being killed. In either case, the underlying reality is the same. Success in intra-male competition is the basis of female mate choice. Women are sensitive to even slight differences in genetic fitness, which can translate into big differences in male reproductive success. This is especially obvious in a polygamous society, but the same effect occurs in a more muted way under a system of monogamy, with males perceived as fit tending to marry earlier with (on average) younger, healthier, more fertile females.

Equipped with just this very basic understanding of sex, we can begin to grasp the full insanity of feminist ideology. Consider only the demand that women be integrated into the armed forces. It might be possible for an ideological dictatorship to impose such a policy, backing it up with severe punishments for officers and enlisted men who “discriminate” between their male and female fellow-soldiers. But this would do nothing to diminish the higher reproductive value of women. No legislative or police action by the state is capable of making eggs as common as sperm. For this reason, it would be irrational for any society to employ women in combat—even if (contrary to fact) they could be proven as effective in combat as men.

Fetal Hormonalization and Inborn Sex Differences

But the greater marginal reproductive value of women is only the beginning of the story of sexual differentiation. A host of physical, behavioral and psychological differences between men and women have evolved around this original and fundamental difference. In general, women are stronger in areas where men are weaker and vice-versa; the sexes complement one another rather than being equivalent.

During the first six weeks of human gestation, there is little to distinguish a male from a female embryo. But at around six or seven weeks, male brains are subjected to a “testosterone bath” similar to the hormonal surge which occurs at puberty. Testosterone levels at this period are about four times what they are during infancy and childhood, and this changes the way the male’s neural networks are laid out. In the absence of such a testosterone bath, the brain develops according to the female pattern.

Fetal hormonalization is a complex process, and many things can go wrong. Experiments with laboratory animals suggest that departures from sexual norms such as homosexuality and tomboyism may be rooted in abnormal dosages of sex hormones at the fetal stage; the feminist movement may even represent in part an effort by exceptionally masculized women to optimize society in accordance with their interests. Unfortunately, irregularities in fetal hormonalization cannot usually be counteracted by hormone treatments at a later time.

Sex differences in behavior are observable almost from birth: newborn girls are more interested than boys in people and faces, while boys can be just as interested in inanimate objects. As they grow, boys reveal a disposition to explore the physical world around them. They enjoy taking things apart to find out how they work. Girls, however, learn to speak earlier than boys, their brains being more efficiently organized for language. Girls are interested mainly in the social world.

By age four, boys and girls usually prefer to play apart. Boys enjoy competitive rough-and-tumble play resulting in clearly defined winners and losers. Girls’ play is often cooperative; any competition tends to be indirect, involving turn-taking and methodically defined stages. Hopscotch, e.g., is a quintessential girls’ game.

During childhood, boys and girls have the same kinds and levels of hormones circulating in their bodies; behavioral differences are the result of earlier fetal hormonalization. At puberty, a second rush of hormones enhances sexual differences. Puberty can be thought of as switching on the male and female circuitry laid down at the fetal stage. Boys’ testosterone levels rise to twenty times those of girls, resulting in a growth spurt, more red blood cells, and a higher bodily protein-to-fat ration: 40% vs. 15% in boys, 23% vs. 25% in girls. A boy’s temperament becomes more assertive and self-confident, while a girl’s tends to become less so.

While hormone levels remain fairly constant in men, they fluctuate wildly in women, resulting in mood swings over the course of her ovulatory cycle. During the first half of the cycle, under the effects of estrogen, a woman experiences elevated, positive moods. She feels more alert and her brain is better able to process more new information. She is more sexually receptive at this stage.

Following ovulation, estrogen levels sink and progesterone levels increase. Less oxygen reaches the brain and the woman’s temperament becomes calm or even sluggish. She may grow tired or become depressed easily. Due to the calming effects of progesterone, however, she is not normally hostile or aggressive.

If the woman becomes pregnant, progesterone continues to be produced. But during the least four or five days of months in which no fertilization occurs, both estrogen and progesterone levels sink dramatically. Regardless of her environment, a woman can become highly irritable or tearful at this stage. In severe cases, she may experience uncontrollable anger and become physically violent.

An adult man is on average 7% taller than an adult woman, with about twice as much upper body strength. Women see better than men in the dark, have better peripheral vision and can more easily distinguish between colors at the red end of the spectrum. Men see better than women in bright light. Women have more sensitive senses of hearing, smell and touch. As regards taste, men are better at discerning salty flavors, where women are more sensitive to bitterness.

Among the most important sex differences are those in cognitive functioning. Adult men have a three-to-five-point advantage over women in average IQ. Male intelligence is also more variable, with more men at both the highest and lowest levels, and women tending to bunch in the middle. Female intelligence also relies more heavily on verbal ability than that of men, while men have greater mathematical ability and much greater visuospatial ability. Together, these differences explain the enormous overrepresentation of men among high achievers in scientific and technical fields.

Male brains on the whole are 8-10 percent larger than female brains, and controlling for body size does not eliminate the difference. One area, the inferior parietal lobe implicated in tool use, is 25 percent larger in males. Male brains have proportionally less grey matter than female, but significantly more white matter and about 15-16 percent more neurons. An exception to this pattern is the corpus callosum, which connects the two hemispheres of the cerebrum. Females have more white matter in this particular region than males, making for better communication between hemispheres.

Testosterone promotes interconnectivity between areas of the brain, but the lower connectivity between hemispheres in the male brain means that the effects of testosterone are largely limited to promoting interconnectivity within each hemisphere separately. So the overall pattern is more connectivity between hemispheres in women, and more within hemispheres in men.

Male brains are also more specialized by region, with particular functions often strongly associated with well-defined areas, usually within a single hemisphere; in female brains, a single function may involve multiple brain areas in both hemispheres, and a single area may be involved in several functions. These differences in brain pattern underlie an observable sexual polarization in what might be termed cognitive style, that between reasoning and perception. Women are equipped to receive a wider range of sensory information and can connect and relate that information more easily; men are better at not letting themselves be distracted by irrelevant information while trying to solve problems.

In our environment of evolutionary adaptation, men specialized in hunting and women in gathering. Gathering requires an ability to detect edible plants barely distinguishable from their surroundings. This requires perceptiveness, but little reasoning ability. Tending to the needs of small children unable to communicate verbally also requires an ability to interpret subtle cues which sometimes do not even reach the threshold of conscious perception. This ability has traditionally been described by men as “women’s intuition,” for men find it hard to understand how women can know certain things without going through any process of reasoning.

Hunting wild animals, on the other hand, is a problem which requires analysis and reasoning ability. Reasoning involves abstracting the essential elements of a problem from the various irrelevancies in which it is embedded in the real world—nearly the opposite of what is involved in perceiving subtle differences. Here again, the sexes can be seen as complementing one another.

Given everything that is now reliably known about inborn sex differences, the continued respectability of feminism within the academy is nothing short of scandalous.

Feminism Comes Home: The Failure of Androgynous Marriage and Parenting

The feminist program of equivalency between the sexes requires the equal sharing of housework and child care between both parents, if only to leave women free to pursue paid careers outside the home. Articles in the popular press sometimes make it appear that modern society is shifting in this direction, but Prof. Steven Rhoads of the University of Virginia has demonstrated that this is simply untrue. The following information comes from his book Taking Sex Differences Seriously.

Researchers have found that both men and women find marriage easier when the wife’s career is less successful than the husband’s. Husbands feel better about themselves as spouses when their earnings increase, but “the greater a wife’s earnings relative to her husband, the worse she feels about herself as a spouse.” Couples will go to great lengths to conceal a high-earning wife’s income to protect the husband’s status as primary provider, and there appears to be a sound reason for this: overt and prolonged role reversal can be fatal to marriage.

Feminist Liz Gallese came across what appeared to be a happy female-provider marriage: the wife’s career was more successful than the husband’s, so he began looking after their child to let her focus on work (the economically rational thing to do). The woman seemed proud of her accomplishments and happy with the arrangement. The truth came to light only when Gallese began speaking to the husband; it turns out that the couple had entirely ceased having sexual relations. Armed with this new information, Gallese probed more deeply into the wife’s sentiments. The woman eventually admitted she wanted another child, but — not by her husband. “I absolutely refuse to sleep with that man,” she declared; “I’ll never have sex with him again.” Instead, she was now flirting with other successful businessmen. She did not intend to divorce her husband, however; he was too useful as a nanny for the child.

Prof. Rhoads initiated a study of the parenting practices of 184 young academics of both sexes. Majorities of both sexes agreed with the statement that “Families usually do best if the husband and wife share equally in child care, household work, and paid work;” in short, they were on board with the feminist project. Yet their parenting practices did not reflect these beliefs. The investigators distinguished twenty-five childcare related tasks and found that the female academics performed all of them far more often than male academics. This is probably in part because they enjoy doing so: many mothers report enjoying even such unlikely aspects of the job as changing their babies’ diapers, a taste seldom shared by fathers.

One researcher did manage to find a father who was careful to spend the exact same amount of time as his wife looking after their infant son because of his ideological commitment to feminism. The researcher found that he came up with “tricks” for getting through extended contact with his son [such as] “toys and events which kept the baby distracted, and thus decreased the father’s level of attention.” The father told about trying “to get things done.” He couldn’t stand the crying and fussing. Sometimes he would “go pound his fist in the wall.”

The reality seems to be that families sometimes resort to androgyny or outright role reversal under conditions of stress (e.g., loss of the father’s job or the prolonged illness of the mother), or occasionally as a direct result of ideological commitment, but that they show a strong tendency to return to natural norms over time. One study of non-traditional families “found on follow-up, just two years later, that only one-quarter of [the families] were maintaining their nontraditional ways.”

Male provisioning seems to have evolved as a response to the harsher climates early humans encountered when they wandered out of Africa, and a couple generations of feminist influence have proven insufficient to drive it out of our nature—even in cases where women are equally capable of doing the jobs men have traditionally done. Both men and women are likely to be happier where law and custom take account of their evolved sex-specific preferences rather than warring against them.

Bibliography

Donovan, Jack, The Way of Men (2012) explains how the traditional masculine virtues are rooted in the human environment of evolutionary adaptation of small, competing hunter-gatherer bands.

Ellis, Lee et al., Sex Differences: Summarizing More Than a Century of Scientific Research(2008). A reference work which condenses the results of over 18,000 studies related to sex differences into 990 pages.

Goldberg, Steven, Why Men Rule: A Theory of Male Dominance (1993). Explains on the basis of neuro-endocrinological differences why the overwhelming number of upper positions in all human social hierarchies are held by men. An earlier version of this book, The Inevitability of Patriarchy (1973) held the world record for most rejected book manuscript in the history of publishing, having been rejected 69 times by 55 different publishers.

Kaine, Roderick, Smart and SeXy (2016) explains that genes expressed in the nervous system are overrepresented on the sex chromosomes by a factor of between three and seven, and offers a theory of why humans evolved this way. This sex linkage explains the many sex differences in cognitive functioning, including why males are overrepresented both among the retarded and among the very highest achievers in cognitively demanding fields.

Levin, Michael, Feminism and Freedom(1988) demonstrates that feminism is incompatible with free institutions.

Moir, Anne and Jessel, David, Brain Sex: The Real Difference between Men and Women(1989) is, despite its age, still the best one-volume introduction to the subject of sex differences in behavior, sense and cognition. For fuller and more up to date information, see Brizendine, Louann, The Female Brain(2007) and The Male Brain (2011).

Moxon, Steve, The Woman Racket (2008), explains why we, unlike moray eels and other exotic creatures, evolved to be unisexual, i.e., why we are assigned to one sex at conception and retain that sexual identity all our lives. Also explains why lower-status men, rather than women, are the most socially disfavored group.

Rhoads, Steven, Taking Sex Differences Seriously (2004), focuses on sex differences in sexual behavior, nurturing and competitiveness. Demonstrates that contemporary Western society is not progressing toward a more androgynous model of marriage and parenting.

Source: https://aussienationalistblog.com/2018/10/03/the-sexes-complementary-not-equal/