MacDonald develops a theory of anti-Semitism based on an evolutionary interpretation of social identity theory. Historical examples of anti-Semitism are analyzed as scientifically comprehensible gentile responses to a distinctive, segregated group. Anti-Semitism has historically been exacerbated by resource competition between Jews and gentiles. Jews have engaged in a wide range of strategies to try to combat it. These strategies include: crypsis, political activity, writing religious and intellectual apologia directed at both ingroup and outgroup members, and engaging in self-deception regarding both the nature of Judaism and gentile responses to Judaism.
This book attempts to understand an ancient people in terms of modern evolutionary biology. A basic idea is that Judaism is a group evolutionary strategy-what one might term an evolutionarily significant way for a group of people to get on in the world. The book documents several theoretically interesting aspects of group evolutionary strategies using Judaism as a case study. These topics include the theory of group evolutionary strategies, the genetic cohesion of Judaism, how Jews managed to erect and enforce barriers to gene flow between themselves and other peoples, resource competition between Jews and non-Jews, how Jews managed to have a high level of charity within their communities and at the same time prevented free-riding, how some groups of Jews came to have such high IQ's, and how Judaism developed in antiquity. This book was originally published in 1994 by Praeger Publishers. The Writers Club edition contains a new preface, Diaspora Peoples, describing several interesting group evolutionary strategies: The Gypsies, the Hutterites and Amish, the Calvinists and Puritans, and the Overseas Chinese.
MacDonald develops an evolutionary perspective on Judaism. Judaism is conceptualized as a group evolutionary strategy characterized by a high degree of endogamy and resistance to genetic and cultural assimilation. Data are provided to support the author's theory that Judaism is characterized by a high level of within-group altruism and competition with outgroups. Finally, MacDonald argues that Judaism has been characterized by eugenic practices aimed at high intelligence and high investment parenting. After outlining a theory of evolutionary group strategies, MacDonald discusses the evidence from modern studies showing population genetic differences between Jews and Gentiles. He then shows that Jewish religious writing points to a pronounced tendency toward idealizing endogamy and condemning exogamy, and he points to the ways religious ideology and practice have facilitated the genetic and cultural separation of Jews and Gentiles. He then reviews evidence for resource and reproductive competition and the importance of kin-based cooperation and altruism as well as assortative mating for intelligence and resource aquisition ability among Jews. This study is a highly original attempt to develop an evolutionary understanding of one of the world's great religions. As such, it will be of concern to scholars and researchers in the fields of sociobiology and religion as well as the general reading public.
In this book, Marta T. Topel utilizes anthropological research to analyze both macro and micro social processes among secular and Orthodox Jews in Israel. She covers such complex issues as the tensions between the two groups and the radicalization of Israeli Jewish Orthodoxy in the last thirty years. The book also delves into micro social processes such as the long and tortured journey of Israeli religious dissidents and the role of non-governmental organizations in helping these dissidents adapt to secular society. In addition, she discusses the symbolic and ritual paraphernalia that dissidents must become familiar with in order to be successful in their new lives as secular Jews. Jewish Orthodoxy and Its Discontents approaches the phenomenon of religious dissidence within the Jewish Israeli Orthodoxy through the lens of the inverse phenomenon: religious conversion to Jewish Orthodoxy. This outlook is based on theoretical ground as both events constitute a radical change of the ideology of both the social actors and the social structures they have abandoned.
Authoritative guide to contemporay debates and issues in the sociology of religion providing a clear examination of classical secularization And The post-secularization paradigm.
This book argues for the centrality of conflict in any notion of the political. In contrast to many of the attempts to re-think the political in the wake of the collapse of traditional leftist projects, it also argues for the logical and/or ontological primacy of violence over 'peace'. The notion of the political expounded here is explicitly 'realist' and anti-utopian - in large part because the author finds the consequences of attempting to think 'the good life' to be far more damaging than thinking 'the tolerable life'. The political is not thought of as a means to implement the good life; rather, the political exists because the good life does not. Indeed, if one sees 'globalization', with its emphasis on efficiency and economy, as a threat to the autonomy of the political, then one ought to be wary of political ideologies that reduce the political to species of moral or legal discourse. As laudable as the aims of human rights activists or political theorists like Rawls and Habermas may be, the consequences of their thought and actions further reduce the scope and possibility of political activity by, in effect, criminalizing political opposition. Once 'universal' norms are instantiated, political opposition becomes impossible. A fully legalized, moralized, and pacified universe is a thoroughly depoliticized one as well. Academics and advanced students researching and working in the areas of political theory, legal theory and international relations will find this book of great interest.
The first history of the deaccession of objects from museum collections that defends deaccession as an essential component of museum practice. Museums often stir controversy when they deaccession works—formally remove objects from permanent collections—with some critics accusing them of betraying civic virtue and the public trust. In fact, Martin Gammon argues in Deaccessioning and Its Discontents, deaccession has been an essential component of the museum experiment for centuries. Gammon offers the first critical history of deaccessioning by museums from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century, and exposes the hyperbolic extremes of “deaccession denial”—the assumption that deaccession is always wrong—and “deaccession apology”—when museums justify deaccession by finding some fault in the object—as symptoms of the same misunderstanding of the role of deaccessions in proper museum practice. He chronicles a series of deaccession events in Britain and the United States that range from the disastrous to the beneficial, and proposes a typology of principles to guide future deaccessions. Gammon describes the liquidation of the British Royal Collections after Charles I's execution—when masterworks were used as barter to pay the king's unpaid bills—as establishing a precedent for future deaccessions. He recounts, among other episodes, U.S. Civil War veterans who tried to reclaim their severed limbs from museum displays; the 1972 “Hoving affair,” when the Metropolitan Museum of Art sold a number of works to pay for a Velázquez portrait; and Brandeis University's decision (later reversed) to close its Rose Art Museum and sell its entire collection of contemporary art. An appendix provides the first extensive listing of notable deaccessions since the seventeenth century. Gammon ultimately argues that vibrant museums must evolve, embracing change, loss, and reinvention.
The Lost 13th Tribe: America in Prophecy by Dr. Marlin Kime is the first volume of a multi-volume work that, for the first time, answers the most important questions about America. Who are we in history? Where did we come from? What does the future hold for us? For the first century and a half of America's existence, it was invincible as it achieved unprecedented heights of power, wealth, and greatness. And it did all of this in the face of daunting, hopeless and impossible obstacles arrayed against it. These volumes show exactly how and why this was accomplished. Conversely, why was America able to achieve such overwhelming and incredible victories against its powerful Axis foes of World War II and yet fail miserably against the third rate Third World nations of Korea and Vietnam? These volumes thoroughly explain the hidden reasons behind these enigmas of history. Centuries ago, all of this was foretold in the most intricate, precise, and accurate detail in the pages of the ancient prophets of the Bible. What great purpose awaits America? Does the future hold the promise of an even greater destiny than ever before imagined for this nation? Or perhaps an ominous foreboding looms on the horizon?
