🚀 go-pugleaf

Irmin <Use-Author-Address-Header@[127.1]> wrote in message news:<20020322080016.2276.qmail@nym.alias.net>...
> Preface to Prof. Kevin MacDonald's paperback edition of _The 
> Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish 
> Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political 
> Movements_
>  
> Originally published in 1998 by Praeger Publishers, Westport, CT.
> 
> Kevin MacDonald
> November 2001
> 
> [...]
> 
> From the Culture of Critique to the Culture of the Holocaust
> 
> While CofC [_Culture of Critique_] describes the "culture of 
> critique" dominated by Jewish intellectual and political 
> movements, perhaps insufficient attention was given to the 
> critical elements of the new culture that has replaced the 
> traditional European cultural forms that dominated a century ago. 
> Central to the new culture is the elevation of Jewish experiences 
> of suffering during World War II, collectively referred to as 
> "the Holocaust", to the level of the pivotal historico-cultural 
> icon in Western societies. Since the publication of CofC, two 
> books have appeared on the political and cultural functions of 
> the Holocaust in contemporary life -- Peter Novick's _The 
> Holocaust in American Life_, and Norman Finkelstein's _The 
> Holocaust Industry_. Novick's book, the more scholarly of the 
> two, notes that the Holocaust has assumed a preeminent status as 
> a symbol of the consequences of ethnic conflict. He argues that 
> the importance of the Holocaust is not a spontaneous phenomenon 
> but stems from highly focused, well-funded efforts of Jewish 
> organizations and individual Jews with access to the major media:
> 
> **
> We are not just "the people of the book," but the people of the 
> Hollywood film and the television miniseries, of the magazine 
> article and the newspaper column, of the comic book and the 
> academic symposium. When a high level of concern with the 
> Holocaust became widespread in American Jewry, it was, given the 
> important role that Jews play in American media and 
> opinion-making elites, not only natural, but virtually inevitable 
> that it would spread* throughout the culture at large. (Novick 
> 1999, 12)

*(Spread like a fungus!)
> **
> 
> The Holocaust was originally promoted to rally support for Israel 
> following the 1967 and 1973 Arab-Israeli wars: "Jewish 
> organizations ... [portrayed] Israel's difficulties as stemming 
> from the world's having forgotten the Holocaust. The Holocaust 
> framework allowed one to put aside as irrelevant any legitimate 
> ground for criticizing Israel, to avoid even considering the 
> possibility that the rights and wrongs were complex" (Novick 
> 1999, 155). As the threat to Israel subsided, the Holocaust was 
> promoted as the main source of Jewish identity and in the effort 
> to combat assimilation and intermarriage among Jews. During this 
> period, the Holocaust was also promoted among gentiles as an 
> antidote to anti-Semitism. In recent years this has involved a 
> large scale educational effort (including mandated courses in the 
> public schools of several states) spearheaded by Jewish 
> organizations and staffed by thousands of Holocaust professionals 
> aimed at conveying the lesson that "tolerance and diversity [are] 
> good; hate [is] bad, the overall rubric [being] 'man's inhumanity 
> to man'" (pp. 258-259). The Holocaust has thus become an 
> instrument of Jewish ethnic interests not only as a symbol 
> intended to create moral revulsion at violence directed at 
> minority ethnic groups -- prototypically the Jews, but also as an 
> instrument to silence opponents of high levels of multi-ethnic 
> immigration into Western societies. As described in CofC, 
> promoting high levels of multi-ethnic immigration has been a goal 
> of Jewish groups since the late 19th century.
> 
> Jewish Holocaust activists insisted on the "incomprehensibility 
> and inexplicability of the Holocaust" (Novick 1999, 178) -- an 
> attempt to remove all rational discussion of its causes and to 
> prevent comparisons to numerous other examples of ethnic 
> violence. "Even many observant Jews are often willing to discuss 
> the founding myths of Judaism naturalistically -- subject them to 
> rational, scholarly analysis. But they're unwilling to adopt this 
> mode of thought when it comes to the 'inexplicable mystery' of 
> the Holocaust, where rational analysis is seen as inappropriate 
> or sacrilegious" (p. 200). Holocaust activist Elie Wiesel "sees 
> the Holocaust as 'equal to the revelation at Sinai' in its 
> religious significance; attempts to 'desanctify' or 'demystify' 
> the Holocaust are, he says, a subtle form of anti-Semitism" (p. 
> 201).
> 
> Because the Holocaust is regarded as a unique, unknowable event, 
> Jewish organizations and Israeli diplomats cooperated to block 
> the U.S. Congress from commemorating the Armenian genocide. 
> "Since Jews recognized the Holocaust's uniqueness -- that it was 
> 'incomparable,' beyond any analogy -- they had no occasion to 
> compete with others; there could be no contest over the 
> incontestable" (p. 195). 

Abe Foxman, head of the ADL, noted that 
> the Holocaust is *"not simply one example of genocide but a near 
> successful attempt on the life of God's chosen children and, 
> thus, on God himself" (p. 199) -- a comment that illustrates well 
> the intimate connection between Holocaust promotion and the more 
> extreme forms of Jewish ethnocentrism at the highest levels of 
> the organized Jewish community.

*(I'll bet some of those Jews wish that Gawd had chosen someone else.
Is it not wild, some of the lunatics still think that the alleged
Master Planner of the Universe and Chief Traffic Cop of the Cosmos
actually gives a fuck)
> 
> A result was that American Jews were able to define themselves 
> "as the quintessential victim" (Novick 1999, 194). As an 
> expression of this tendency, Holocaust activist Simon Wiesenthal 
> compiled a calendar showing when, where and by whom Jews were 
> persecuted on every day of the year. Holocaust consciousness was 
> the ultimate expression of a victim mentality. The Holocaust came 
> to symbolize the natural and inevitable terminus of 
> anti-Semitism. "There is no such thing as overreaction to an 
> anti-Semitic incident, no such thing as exaggerating the 
> omnipresent danger. Anyone who scoffed at the idea that there 
> were dangerous portents in American society hadn't learned 'the 
> lesson of the Holocaust'" (p. 178).
> 
> While Jews are portrayed as the quintessential victim in 
> Holocaust iconography, the vast majority of non-Jews are 
> portrayed as potential or actual anti-Semites. "Righteous 
> Gentiles" are acknowledged, but the criteria are strict. They 
> must have risked their lives, and often the lives of the members 
> of their families as well, to save a Jew. "Righteous Gentiles" 
> must display "self-sacrificing heroism of the highest and rarest 
> order" (Novick 1999, 180). Such people are extremely rare, and 
> any Jew who discusses "Righteous Gentiles" for any other reason 
> comes under heavy criticism. The point is to shore up the 
> fortress mentality of Jews -- "promoting a wary suspicion of 
> gentiles" (p. 180). A prominent Jewish feminist exemplifies this 
> attitude: "Every conscious Jew longs to ask her or his non-Jewish 
> friends, 'would you hide me?' -- and suppresses the question for 
> fear of hearing the sounds of silence" (p. 181).
> 
> Consciousness of the Holocaust is very high among Jews. A 1998 
> survey found that "remembrance of the Holocaust" was listed as 
> "extremely important" or "very important" to Jewish identity -- 
> far more often than anything else, such as synagogue attendance 
> and travel to Israel. Indeed, Jewish identity is far more 
> important than American identity for many American Jews: "In 
> recent years it has become not just permissible but in some 
> circles laudable for American Jews to assert the primacy of 
> Jewish over American loyalty" (Novick 1999, 34). (See, e.g., the 
> comments by AJCommittee official Stephen Steinlight above.)
> 
> However, consciousness of the Holocaust is not confined to Jews 
> but has become institutionalized as an American cultural icon. 
> Besides the many Holocaust memorial museums that dot the country 
> and the mushrooming of mandated courses about the Holocaust in 
> public schools, a growing number of colleges and universities now 
> have endowed chairs in Holocaust Studies. "Considering all the 
> Holocaust institutions of one kind or another in the United 
> States, there are by now thousands of full-time Holocaust 
> professionals dedicated to keeping its memory alive" (Novick 
> 1999, 277).
> 
> This effort has been very successful. In a 1990 survey, a 
> substantial majority agreed that the Holocaust "was the worst 
> tragedy in history" (Novick 1999, 232). Recently, the main thrust 
> of the Holocaust as cultural icon is the ratification of 
> multiculturalism. Between 80 and 90 percent of those surveyed 
> agreed that the need to protect the rights of minorities, and not 
> "going along with everybody else" were lessons to be drawn from 
> the Holocaust. Respondents agreed in similar proportions that "it 
> is important that people keep hearing about the Holocaust so that 
> it will not happen again."
> 
> The effort has perhaps been even more effective in Germany where 
> "critical discussion of Jews ... is virtually impossible. Whether 
> conservative or liberal, a contemporary German intellectual who 
> says anything outside a narrowly defined spectrum of codified 
> pieties about Jews, the Holocaust, and its postwar effects on 
> German society runs the risk of professional and social suicide" 
> (Anderson 2001). Discussions of the work of Jewish intellectuals 
> have come to dominate German intellectual life to the almost 
> complete exclusion of non-Jewish Germans. Many of these 
> intellectuals are the subjects of CofC, including Walter 
> Benjamin, Theodore Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Hannah Arendt, Paul 
> Celan, and Sigmund Freud. "Shoah business" "has become a staple 
> of contemporary German cultural and political life. Germans 
> thrive on debates about the Holocaust and their ongoing 
> responsibility to preserve its memory, campaigning to erect a 
> gigantic memorial to the Jewish dead in the historic center of 
> Berlin, or flocking to hear the American scholar Daniel 
> Goldhagen's crude and unhistorical diatribes against the German 
> national character" (Anderson 2001). Scholars have lost all sense 
> of normal standards of intellectual criticism and have come to 
> identify more or less completely with the Jewish victims of 
> Nazism.
> 
> For example, Holocaust poet Paul Celan has become a central 
> cultural figure, superceding all other 20th-century poets. His 
> works are now beyond rational criticism, to the point that they 
> have become enveloped in a sort of stultifying mysticism: 
> "Frankly, I find troubling the sacred, untouchable aura that 
> surrounds Celan's name in Germany; troubling also the way in 
> which his name functions like a trump card in intellectual 
> discussions, closing off debate and excluding other subjects" 
> (Anderson 2001). Jewish writers like Kafka are seen as 
> intellectual giants who are above criticism; discussions of 
> Kafka's work focus on his Jewish identity and are imbued by 
> consciousness of the Holocaust despite the fact that he died in 
> 1924. Even minor Jewish writers are elevated to the highest 
> levels of the literary canon while Germans like Thomas Mann are 
> discussed mainly because they held views on Jews that have become 
> unacceptable in polite society. In the U.S., German scholars are 
> constrained to teach only the works of Germans of Jewish 
> background, their courses dwelling on persecution, and genocide. 
> Indeed, it is not too far fetched to suppose that German culture 
> as the culture of Germans has disappeared entirely, replaced by 
> the culture of the Holocaust.
> 
> Like Novick, Finkelstein (2000) takes a functionalist view of 
> "the Holocaust Industry," arguing that it serves as a vehicle for 
> obtaining money for Jewish organizations from European 
> governments and corporations, and for justifying the policies of 
> Israel and U.S. support for Israeli policy (p. 8). Finkelstein 
> also argues that embracing the Holocaust allows the wealthiest 
> and most powerful group in the U.S. to claim victim status. The 
> ideology of the Holocaust states that it is unique and 
> inexplicable -- as also noted by Novick. But Finkelstein also 
> emphasizes how the Holocaust Industry promotes the idea that 
> anti-Jewish attitudes and behavior stem completely from 
> irrational loathing by non-Jews and have nothing to do with 
> conflicts of interest. For example, Elie Wiesel: "For two 
> thousand years ... we were always threatened.... For what? For no 
> reason" (in Finkelstein 2000, 53). (By contrast, the basic 
> premise of my book, _Separation and Its Discontents_ [MacDonald 
> 1998a] is precisely that anti-Jewish attitudes and behavior 
> throughout history are firmly rooted in conflicts of interest). 
> Finkelstein quotes Boas Evron, an Israeli writer, approvingly: 
> "Holocaust awareness" is "an official, propagandistic 
> indoctrination, a churning out of slogans and a false view of the 
> world, the real aim of which is not at all an understanding of 
> the past, but a manipulation of the present" (p. 41).
> 
> Finkelstein notes the role of the media in supporting the 
> Holocaust Industry, quoting Elie Wiesel, "When I want to feel 
> better, I turn to the Israeli items in the New York Times" (p. 
> 8). *

The New York Times, which is owned by the Sulzberger family 
> (see below), "serves as the main promotional vehicle of the 
> Holocaust Industry.
*(Any Holocaust snack food items available?)

 It is primarily responsible for advancing the 
> careers of Jerzy Kosinski, Daniel Goldhagen, and Elie Wiesel. For 
> frequency of coverage, the Holocaust places a close second to the 
> daily weather report. Typically, The New York Times Index 1999 
> listed fully 273 entries for the Holocaust. By comparison, the 
> whole of Africa rated 32 entries" (Finkelstein 2001). Besides a 
> receptive media, the Holocaust Industry takes advantage of its 
> power over the U.S. government to apply pressure to foreign 
> governments, particularly the governments of Eastern Europe (pp. 
> 133ff).
> 
> In a poignant allusion to the pervasive double standard of 
> contemporary Jewish ethical attitudes (and reflecting a similar 
> ethical double standard that pervades Jewish religious writing 
> throughout history), Finkelstein describes a January 2000 
> Holocaust education conference attended by representatives of 50 
> countries, including Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel. The 
> conference declared that the international community had a 
> "solemn responsibility" to oppose genocide, ethnic cleansing, 
> racism, and xenophobia. A reporter afterward asked Barak about 
> the Palestinian refugees. "On principle, Barak replied, he was 
> against even one refugee coming to Israel: 'We cannot accept 
> moral, legal, or other responsibility for refugees'" (p. 137).
> 
> Excerpted from <http://www.csulb.edu/~kmacd/Preface.htm>
> 
> 
> --Irmin
> 
> ====
> 
> Vanguard News Network
> http://www.vanguardnewsnetwork.com


Great yammering yarmulkes! Will it ever end. Get ready for a TV
special, Holocaust Part 17.

Benny the bagel bender