The Conservatism of Fools: A Response to John Derbyshire (1)
By Dr. Kevin MacDonald (2)
March, 2003
This is a response to a review by John Derbyshire of my book, The Culture of Critique, that appeared in The American Conservative. In an earlier article, Derbyshire described himself as philo-Semite who traces his attitudes on Jews to his pleasant childhood memories of a local Jewish family and “the numberless kindnesses that I have received at the hands of Jews, friendships I treasure and lessons I have learnt. I cherish those recollections.”3
I find myself now, in middle age, with complicated and sometimes self-contradictory feelings about the Jews. Those early impressions — culture, wit, intelligence, kindness, and hospitality — are still dominant, and I have read enough to know what a stupendous debt our civilization owes to the Jews. At the same time, there are aspects of distinctly Jewish ways of thinking that I dislike very much. The world-perfecting idealism, for example, that is rooted in the most fundamental premises of Judaism, has, it seems to me, done great harm in the modern age…. I also find the theories of Kevin Macdonald (The Culture of Critique) about the partly malign influence of Jews on modern American culture very persuasive — though this is not an endorsement of Macdonald’s theory of “group evolutionary strategies” which I do not understand. And like (I suppose) every other Gentile, I have often been irritated by Jewish sensibilities, and occasionally angered by them.4
These earlier comments on The Culture of Critique appeared in April, 2001. Derbyshire’s evaluation of the book (and its author) has changed a bit, perhaps because the edition reviewed in The American Conservative contains a new preface that tilts the balance in my writing even more on the side of the negative. (more…)




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