Is Kevin MacDonald\u2019s Theory of Judaism \u201cPlausible\u201d? A Response to Dutton (2018)

Nathan Cofnas

doi:10.1007/s40806-018-0162-8

Abstract

In a trilogy of books, Kevin MacDonald argues that Judaism is a “group evolutionary strategy.” According to his theory, Jews are genetically and culturally adapted to advance their own group interests at the expense of gentiles. Several influential twentieth-century liberal intellectual and political movements were designed by Jews to promote separatism and group continuity among themselves while undermining gentile society. According to Cofnas [Human Nature, 29, 134–156, 2018], MacDonald’s argument is based on “misrepresented sources and cherry-picked facts.” Cofnas proposed the “default hypothesis” to explain Jewish overrepresentation among the leaders of liberal intellectual and political movements: Because of their relatively high IQ and concentration in influential urban areas, Jews are overrepresented in all (non-overtly anti-Semitic) cognitively demanding activities. Dutton [Evolutionary Psychological Science, 2018] objects to Cofnas, claiming that, “from the perspective of evolutionary psychology,” MacDonald’s theory is more “plausible” than the default hypothesis because “people tend to act in their ethnic interests” and Jews are particularly high in ethnocentrism. Contra Dutton, it is argued here that there is no evidence to support the general notion that people tend to act in their ethnic interests. The evidence suggests, if anything, that Jews are not particularly ethnocentric. There are no theoretical principles or established empirical findings of evolutionary psychology that make MacDonald’s theory “plausible.”

Highlights

Kevin MacDonald (1994, 1998a, b) argues that Judaism is a Bgroup evolutionary strategy.^ According to his theory, Jews are genetically and culturally adapted to promote their own group interests at the expense of gentiles
I found that when Frankfurt School leaders did comment on Jews or Israel, contra MacDonald, they advocated the same multiculturalist policies that they promoted for gentiles (e.g., open borders and Evolutionary Psychological Science (2019) 5:143–150 multiculturalism in Israel). (See Cofnas 2018b, pp. 146–148, for specific examples of how Frankfurt School theorists are misrepresented in Culture of Critique (CofC).)
Dutton (2018) claims that MacDonald’s thesis in CofC is more Bplausible^ than the default hypothesis because B[f]rom the perspective of evolutionary psychology,^ we should assume that Bpeople tend to act in their ethnic interests,^ and Bthere is evidence that Jews are higher in positive ethnocentrism.^ evidence supporting the notion that Bpeople tend to act in their ethnic interests^ is scant and unconvincing, and there are both theoretical and empirical reasons to reject it

Summary

Introduction

Kevin MacDonald (1994, 1998a, b) argues that Judaism is a Bgroup evolutionary strategy.^ According to his theory, Jews are genetically and culturally adapted to promote their own group interests at the expense of gentiles. In Cofnas (2018b), I concluded that MacDonald’s argument in CofC is based on Bsystematically misrepresented sources and cherry-picked facts.^ I found that he did not provide any real evidence that the leaders of the movements discussed in CofC were concerned about Jews, let alone that they designed their movements to promote Jewish interests at the expense of gentiles.

Results

Conclusion