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Introduction of Professor Kevin MacDonald
by Sam G. Dickson
November 2004
[Upon MacDonald's acceptance of the 2004 Jack London Literary Prize]
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We are gathered tonight to honor Dr. Kevin MacDonald. It is an honor for me
and I am sure you "second that emotion" to honor him and to be here in his
company.
On the way to this dinner I tried to elicit some personal and professional
information from Dr. MacDonald. Alas, he is by nature private and excessively modest, an occupational hazard among our people, who have not learned the wisdom of the old proverb "Brass will drive out gold."
Here are some of the dry facts I managed to wring from this overly modest
man: Dr. Kevin MacDonald earned his Ph.D. at the University of Connecticut.
He is the author of three books on childhood development.
He has published over 100 papers in scholarly journals. He currently teaches
in the Psychology Department of the University of California at Long Beach.
Those are the dry facts which, while impressive, tell us nothing of why we
are here to honor him.
If ever there existed a writer and scholar who not only merited the Jack
London Literary Prize, but personifies the criteria for this award, it is
our honoree tonight.
Here are some of the criteria: intellectually intrepid, reflecting the
timeless values of our western civilization and so on.
Intellectually intrepid?
Surely few scholars have demonstrated this quality as strongly as Dr.
MacDonald in the three-volume set of his works on what has to be the most
controversial, most delicate and most timely topic in our society today.
Timeless western values?
One of those values, a characteristic which has from earliest times set our
people apart from the other races on the planet, is objectivity - the
ability to observe nature, things and events dispassionately and clearly.
A regard for truth as an ultimate reality.
This trait is evident as early Plato and extends from the antiquity of
Greece down into the science laboratories of our own times. Sometimes our
objectivity has been counterproductive and has hobbled us in the struggle
for survival and turf on this globe. Nevertheless, this quality has enabled
us to make scientific advances, which are the wonder of history and the envy
of other races. And the objectivity, the clarity, the restraint which
permeate Dr. MacDonald's trilogy may enable large numbers of people to think
sensibly and fairly for the first time about the topic. And a large
readership among thoughtful people may help hugely to further the survival
of our people and its civilization.
Is there any other issue so urgent, so difficult as this issue? Alexander
Solzhenitsyn recently published a book on the history of the relationship
between Russians and Jews entitled Two Centuries Together. To say the least Two Centuries Together did not meet with the approval of America's
philo-semites. It also did not suit the anti-semites. Solzhenitsyn for
obvious reasons of his own nationality and the necessity of limiting the
scope of his book to a manageable size focused on the history of the
dealings between Russians and Jews over the last two centuries.
But the unhappinesses, strains, stresses and difficulties we find detailed
in Two Centuries Together are not restricted in space or time. Indeed, we
might entitle Dr. MacDonald's triology on the Jewish people as Two and Half
Millennia Together.
The topic is one with a sizeable literature.
We have a reasonably large trove of literature dealing with the
Jewish-Gentile divide from the Gentile/Christian side of the aisle. Most of
this would be characterized by the mores and tastes of our society as
"anti-semitica." The size and extent of the literature of those hostile to
the Jews is rather large, even if -- in our "free" society -- such literature is "not available in stores" and can be found only in the "samisdat" press.
("Samisdat" is Russian for "self-published" and was the term used for
underground, anti-party literature in the late and unlamented Soviet Union.)
Unfortunately, setting aside the matter of the general unavailability of
anti-semitica, most of such books are characterized by a tone so hateful and
polemical as to impair their usefulness.
There are exceptions now and then such as the book by the Roman Catholic
writer Hilaire Belloc entitled simply The Jews and Anti-Semitism by Bernard Lazare, himself a Jew. But such thoughtful and restained books are rare to the point of being almost non-existent. In contrast to "anti-semitica" the literature on the issue from the Jewish perspective is overwhelming in size
and in distribution. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of books, a
veritable unending river of articles in newspapers, magazines and journals
as well as incessant Hollywood movies have been produced setting forth the
Jewish or philo-semitic explanations of the relationship between Jews and
Non-Jews.
Furthermore, not only are such works generally available in our society,
they are virtually forced upon us.
One thinks of the books which appear at regular periods funded by groups
like the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith which achieve massive
distribution by being first offered for sale and widely promoted, then
remaindered and finally inserted by gift into practically every library in
America including every high school, college and municipal library. Examples
of such books spring readily to mind: Undercover and The Plotters by Roy Carlson, The Troublemakers, Danger on the Right, The Paranoid Style and so on.
The thesis promoted by the literature of philo-semitica -- and this thesis is
the reigning orthodoxy of the establishment in our country and every other
European country -- is quite simple. That thesis is that blame for the bitter
history of the relationship of Jews and Europeans lies 100% on the side of
the Non-Jews, that Jews are an utterly blameless people ("the most innocent
people in history" according to Eli Wiesel), that Non-Jews hate and
persecute Jews for absolutely no reason whatsoever except the intrinsic
wickedness and evil of Gentiles, that no action or behavior on the part of
the Jews has ever contributed in the slightest way to the unhappy
relationship so often found between Jews and Gentiles.
This is their explanation of why for a period of twenty five centuries or
more Jews have often been the targets of hatred, anger, pogroms and
expulsions at the hands of every people amongst whom Jews have lived from
the Greeks and Romans of the pre-Christian era of antiquity through all
subsequent time throughout all of Europe including virtually every nation of
Christian Europe such as the England of Edward II, the Spain of 1492,
Poland, the Germany of relatively modern times and Russia. Everybody but the
Jew is out of step.
Such an "explanation" can only be characterized as a libel on humanity. This
silly, one-sided, biased and intrinsically impossible thesis is promoted by
authority in our society, accepted by the vast majority of people and those
who dissent from it are frequently the targets of official and semi-official
harassment and persecution. Indeed, as Joe Sobran once trenchantly observed,
we don't even have a vocabulary with which to deal with this subject...and
other such subjects. We have the word "anti-semitism" to describe the hatred
of the Gentile for the Jew but no word exists in our language for the hatred
of the Jew for the Christian.
As I said before, there is virtually a void of sensible, restrained
literature on the subject.
And into that void has stridden our intrepid and clear-reasoned honoree, Dr.
Kevin MacDonald.
And at the most appropriate and suitable time of our post-September 11
world.
Indeed, one may wonder if it not were said correctly that "the hour and the
man have met" or should we say "the hour and the scholar"? For three
generations our country's infatuation with the State of Israel and its role
as the enabler of Zionist brutality against the Arab world provoked hatred
and rage.
Over and over again we have witnessed the spectacle of the votes in the
United Nations condemning some latest Israeli outraged -- votes in which the
entire world even including Britain and the Western European countries has
voted to condemn and only two -- the United States and Israel have voted to
condone such atrocities.
Was it a surprise when after almost 60 years of such events the United
States became the target of Arab terrorists, as we were warned by so many
people including among them the late Alfred Lillienthal, himself a Jew? But
immediately the "leaders" of the American people assured us that despite the
clear statements of the terrorists themselves, we were attacked because
"they hate our freedom."
No, we all know better.
The 3,000 or so Americans who died in the twin towers in New York died
precisely because of our support of Israel, no matter how atrocious its
behavior.
Despite the damage control efforts on this subject, the terrorist attack and
the present situation will eventually force some degree of consideration of
this issue from a vantage point other than the silly, preposterous "everyone
is to blame but the Jews" theory.
And that is why the appearance of Dr. MacDonald's trilogy could not be more
timely, allowing its readers to look at the history of our Two Thousand Five
Hundred Years Together objectively.
The core of those three volumes can be concisely stated by the observation
that the key to Jewish survival throughout the long history of their
diaspora is that they are -- and must remain -- adversarial to any society in
which they live.
Jews are not the only minority ever to be distributed broadly through the
world.
The French Huguenots were spread throughout Holland, Britain, Germany and
America - most notably in South Carolina where my own ancestors came. In
South Carolina they arrived speaking an alien language, following a
Protestant religion with significant differences from the prevailing
Anglican Church and as members of a nation which had been the historic enemy
of the English for centuries.
Within three generations the French Huguenots were extinct, totally absorbed
and assimilated, their existence lingering on only in an occasional peculiar
French name like my father's name "Bonneau."
Why is this so?
For the obvious reason that the French Huguenots were in a fundamental way
not adversarial to the society in which they lived. If the Jews ever ceased
being adversarial, they would cease to exist. And as Dr. MacDonald's works
show, is it unnatural that the Non-Jews in the community who as individuals
or whose values, churches and institutions are the subjects of that
adversarial attitude (the "culture of critique") resent and are provoked by
such an attitude and what comes with it? This fresh and fair approach allows
all involved -- Jew as well as Gentile -- to view the relationship of Jew and
Gentile in a new light, and a light which may promise some way of answering
these problems sensibly and humanely.
This introduction has gone on long enough.
Let it be said that my remarks are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect
the opinions of our honoree Dr. Kevin MacDonald nor of the organizers of
this event and The Occidental Quarterly. Ladies and gentlemen, we have
gathered as adult people, as fair and just people, as people not motivated
by hatred or the desire to hurt others to deal with a topic which needs
adult attention. All over the Washington area here are stores offering
"adult" literature, literature which was once regarded as controversial but
which now "enjoys" widespread acceptance in our society. Well, we are
honoring here tonight real adult literature, works which are helpful to
adult people, meeting together as adults, seeking adult solutions to matters
of concern to adults.
Alas, most of our society seems more interested in childish treatments of
this explosive subject.
Leave them to their "Dick-And-Jane" theories they read in The New York Times
and elsewhere.
We will deal with this issue as grown-ups.
As Saint Paul said the time has come to put aside childish things and to
think like men.
And let us now show our appreciation to someone who thinks like a man and
has a man's guts to stand behind the truth even at great cost, the
distinguished and worthy recipient of the Jack London Literary Prize, Dr.
Kevin MacDonald.
SAM G. DICKSON
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