Deposition of Kevin MacDonald
in defense of David Irving
(July 27, 1999)
I. I, KEVIN MACDONALD, Professor
of Psychology at California State University-Long Beach, Long
Beach, CA 90840-0901 USA, will say as follows:-
2. I have a Ph. D. in Biobehavioral
Sciences from the University of Connecticut. I have published
six books (including two edited books) and over 30 academic papers
In the area of evolutionary approaches to human, behavior., particularly
in the field of evolutionary psychology and the application of
evolutionary psychology to understanding ethnic conflict in history
(e.g., Social and Personality Development: An Evolutionary Synthesis.
New York: Plenum, 1988). I am editor of the journal Population
and Environment; published by Human Sciences Press, a division
of Kluwer Academic Publishers. This journal deals with issues
related to the interface between environmental issues and human
population, including issues of ethnic conflict. I am also Secretary/Archivist
and member of the Executive Board of the Human Behavior and Evolution
Society, the main academic organization dealing with the application
of evolutionary biology to the study of human affairs.
3. Since 1993 I have been involved in extending
the evolutionary paradigm to the study of Judaism. This project
has resulted in three books:
A People That Shalt Dwell Alone: Judaism as
a Group Evolutionar Strategy (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger,
1994; 302 pp.) delineates key aspects of Judaism within an evolutionary
theory of groups. The basic proposal is that Judaism can be interpreted
as a set of ideological structures and behaviors that have resulted
in the following features: (i) the segregation of the Jewish gene
pool from surrounding gentile societies; (2) resource and reproductive
competition with gentile host societies; (3) high levels of within-group
cooperation and altruism among Jews; and (4) eugenic efforts directed
at producing high intelligence, high investment parenting, and
commitment to group, rather than individual, goals.
Separation and Its Discontents.- Toward an
Evolutionary Theory of Anti-Semitism (Westport, Connecticut:
Praeger, 1998; 325 pp.) develops an evolutionary theory of anti-Semitism.
The basic thesis is that Judaism must be conceptualized as a group
strategy characterized by cultural and genetic segregation from
gentile societies combined with resource competition and conflicts
of interest with segments of gentile societies. This cultural
and genetic separatism combined with resource competition and
other conflicts of interest tend to result in division and hatred
within the society. A major theme of this volume is that intellectual
defenses of Judaism and of Jewish theories of anti-Semitism have
throughout its history played a critical role in maintaining Judaism
as a group evolutionary strategy. The book discusses tactics Jewish
groups have used over the centuries to combat anti-Semitism. Particularly
important are discussions of Jewish self-interest, deception,
and self-deception in the areas of Jewish historiography, Jewish
personal identity, and Jewish conceptualizations, of their ingroup
and its relations with outgroups.
The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis
of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political
Movemencs (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1998; 376 pp.)
Ethnic conflict is a recurrent theme throughout the first two
volumes, and that theme again takes center stage in this work.
However, whereas in the previous works ethnic conflict consisted
mainly of recounting the oftentimes bloody dynamics of Jewish-gentile
conflict over the broad expanse of historical time, the focus
here shifts to a single century and to several very influential
intellectual and political movements that have been spearheaded
by people who strongfy identified as Jews and who viewed their
involvement in these movements as serving Jewish interests. Individual
chapters discuss the Boasian school of anthropology, psychoanalysis,
leftist political ideology and behavior, the Frankfurt School
of Social Research, and the New York Intellectuals. An important
thesis is that all of these movements may be seen as attempts
to alter Western societies in a manner that would end anti-Semitism
and provide for Jewish group continuity either in an overt or
in a semii-cryptic manner.
4. The main point of my testimony is that the
attacks made on David Irving by Deborah Lipstadt and Jewish organizations
such as the Anti-Defamation League should be viewed in the long-term
context of Jewish-gentile interactions. As indicated by the summaries
of my books, my training as an evolutionist as well as the evidence
compiled by historians leads me to conceptualize Judaism as self-interested
groups whose interests often conflict with segments of the gentile
community. Anti-Jewish attitudes and behavior have been a pervasive
feature of the Jewish experience since the beginnings of the Diaspora
well over 2000 years ago. While anti-Semitic attitudes and behavior
have undoubtedly often been colored by myths and fantasies about
Jews, there is a great deal of anti-Jewish writing that reflects
the reality of between-group competition exactly as expected by
an evolutionist. Particularly important have been the themes of
separatism-the fact that Jewish groups have typically existed
as recognizably distinct groups and have been unwilling
to assimilate either culturally or via marriage to the wider society,
the theme of economic, political, and cultural domination, and
the theme of disloyalty.
5. Because anti-Jewish attitudes and behavior
have been such a common response to Jews as a Diaspora group,
Jewish groups have developed a wide variety of strategies to cope
with their enemies. Separation and Its Discontents discusses
a great many of these strategies, including a very long history
of apologia dating to the ancient world. In the last century there
have been a great many intellectual activities, most notably many
examples of Jewish historiography which present Jews and Judaism
in a positive light and thcir enemies in a negative light, often
with little regard for historical accuracy. Most importantly for
the situation of David Irving, Jewish groups have engaged in a
wide range of political activities to further their interests.
In general, Jews have been active agents rather than passive martyrs;
they have been highly flexible strategizers in the political arena.
The effectiveness of Jewish strategizing has been facillitated
by several key features of Judaism as group evolutionary strategy-particularly
that the IQ of Ashkenazi Jews is at least one standard deviation
above the Caucasian mean. In all historical eras, Jews as a group
have been highly organized, highly intelligent, and politically
astute, and they have been able to command a high level of fhancial,
political, and intellectual resources in pursuing their group
goals.
6. For example, Jews engaged in a very wide range
of activities to combat anti-Semitism in Germany in the period
from 1870 to 1914, including the formation of self-defense committees,
lobbying the government, utilizing and influencing the legal system
(e.g., taking advantage of libel and slander laws to force anti-Jewish
organizations into bankruptcy), writing apologias and tracts for
distribution to the masses of gentile Germans, and funding organizations
opposed to anti-Semitism composed mainly of sympathetic gentiles.
Jewish organizations commissioned writings in opposition to "scientific
anti-Semitism," as exemplified by academically respectable
publications that portrayed Judaism in negative terms. Academic
works were monitored for such material, and Jewish organizations
sometimes succeeded in banning offending books and getting publishers
to alter offensive passages. The result was to render such ideas
academically and intellectually disreputable.
7. A theme of anti-Jewish writing in the contemporary
U. S. has been that Jewish organizations have used their power
to make the discussion of Jewish interests off limits. Individuals
who have made remarks critical of Jews have been forced to make
public apologies and suffered professional difficulties as a result.
Quite often the opinions in question are quite reasonable-statements
that are empirically verifiable and the sort of thing that might
be said about.other groups or members of other groups. For example,
media critic William Cash (1994), writing for the British magazine
The Spectator, described the Jewish media elite as "culturally
nihilist," suggesting that he believed Jewish media influence
reflects Jewish lack of concern for traditional cultural values.
Kevin Myers, a columnist for the British Sunday Telegraph (January
5, 1997) wrote that 'we should really be able to discuss Jews
and their Jewishness, their virtues or their vices, as one can
any other identifiable group, without being called anti-Semitic.
Frankness does not feed anti-Semitism; secrecy, however, does.
the silence of sympathetic discretion can easily be misunderstood
as a conspiracy. It is time to be frank about Jews."' Myers
goes on to note that The Spectator was accused of anti-Semitism
when it published the article by William Cash (1994) referred
to above. Myers emphasized the point that Cash's offense was that
he had written that the cultural leaders of the United States
were Jews whose Jewishness; remained beyond public discussion.
8. Cash stated that there is a double standard
in which a Jewish writers like Neal Gabler is able to refer to
a "Jewish cabal" while his own use of the phrase is
described as anti-Semitic. He also noted that while movies regularly
portray negative stereotypes of other ethnic groups, Cash's description
of Jews as "fiercely competitive" was regarded as anti-Semitic.
As another example, Marlon Brando repeated statements originally
made in 1979 on a nationally 'televised interview program to the
effect that "Hollywood is run by Jews- It's owned by Jews."
The focus of the complaint was that Hollywood regularly portrays
negative stereotypes of other ethnic groups but not of Jews. Brando's
remarks were viewed as anti-Semitic by the Anti-Defamation
League of B'nai B'rith (ADL) and the Jewish Defense League (Los
Angeles Times, April 9, 1996, F4).
9. These claims regarding Hollywood are empirically
verifiable claims, but the response of major Jewish organizations
has been to label the claims "anti-Semitic" and attempt
to ruin the careers of the people involved. Both Cash and Brando
have apologized for their remarks and, as part of their apologies,
visited the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles (Forward,
April :z6, 1996). (Cash's apology occurred some two years
after publication of his remarks.) The Forward article
suggests that Cash has had trouble publishing his work in the
wake of the incident. Moreover, the same issue of Forward reported
that the publisher of Cash's comments, Dominic Lawson, editor
of the London Spectaror, was prevented from publishing
an article on the birth of his Down Syndrome daughter in The
New Republic when Martin Peretz, the owner, and Leon Wieseltier,
the literary editor, complained about Lawson's publishing Cash's
article. There is abundant evidence that Peretz strongly identifies
as a Jew and for his unabashed policy of slanting his journal
toward positions favorable to Israel.
10. Similarly, Noam Chomsky, the famous Massachusetts
Institute of Technology linguist, describes his experience with
the ADL:
In the United States a rather effective system
of intimidation has been developed to silence critique. -.
. . Take the Anti-Defamation League. . . . It's actually
an organization devoted to trying to defame and intimidate
and silence people who criticize current Israeli policies,
whatever they may be. For example, I myself, through a leak
in the new England office of the Anti-Defamation League, was
able to obtain a copy of my file there. It's 150 pages,
just like an FBI file, [consisting of] interoffice
memos warning that I'm going to show up here and there, surveillance
of talks that I give, comments and alleged transcripts of
talks [T]his material has been circulated (and] ... would
be sent to some local group which would use it
to extract defamatory material which would then be
circulated, usually in unsigned pamphlets outside the place
where I'd be speaking.... If there's any comment in the press
which they regard as insufficiently subservient to the party
line, there'll be a flood of letters, delegations, protests,
threats to withdraw advertising, etc. The politicians of course
are directly subjected to this, and they are also subjected
to substantial financial penalties if they don't go along
. . . This totally one-sided pressure and this, by now, very
effective system of vilification, lying, defamation, and judicious
use of funds in the political system . . . has created a highly
biased approach to the whole matter. (Chomsky 1988, 642-3)
11 . Consider also the comments of columnist Joseph
Sobran, who was forced out of his position as columnist at National
Review for remarks critical of Israel:
The full story of (Pat Buchanan's 1996 presidential]
campaign is impossible to tell as long as it's taboo to discuss
Jewish interests as freely as we discuss those of the Christian
Right. Talking about American politics without mentioning
the Jews is a lirde like talking about the NBA without mentioning
the Chicago Bulls. Not that the Jews are all-powerful, let
alone all bad. But they are successful, and therefore powerful
enough: and their power is unique in being off-limits to normal
criticism even when ifs highly visible. They themselves
behave as if their success were a guilty secret, and they
panic, and resort to accusations, as soon their Jewishness,
their virtues or their vices, as one can any other identifiable
group, without being called anti-Semitic. Frankness does not
feed anti-Semitism; secrecy, however, does. T'he silence of
sympathetic discretion can easily be misunderstood as a conspiracy.
It is time to be frank about Jews.'-' Myers goes on to notc:
that The Spectaror was accused of anti-Semitism when it published
the article by Williara Cash (1994) referred to above. Myers
emphasized the point that Cash's offense was that he had written
that the cultural leaders of the United States were Jews whose
Jewishness remained beyond public discussion.
8. Cash stated that there is a double standard
in which a Jewish writer like Neal Gabler is able to refer to
a "Jewish cabal" while his own use of the phrase
is described as anti-Semitic. He also noted that while movies
regularly portraynegative stereotypes of other ethnic groups,
Cash's description of Jews as '~fiercely competitive" was
regarded as anti-Scmitic. As another example, Marlon Brando repeated
statements originally made in 1979 on a nationally *televised
interview program to the effect that "'Hollywood is run by
Jews. It's owned by Jews." The focus of the complaint was
that Hollywood regularly portrays negative stereotypes of other
ethnic groups but not of Jews. Brando's remarks were viewed
as andSemitic by the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith
(ADQ and the Jewish Defense League (Ios Angeles Times, April 9,
1996, F4).
9. These claims regarding Hollywood are empirically
verifiable claims, but the response of major Jewish organizations
has been to label the claims "anti-Semitic" and attempt
to ruin the careers of the people involved. BoEh Cash and Brando
have apologized for their remarks and, as part of their apologies,
visited the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles (Forward,
April :z6, 1996). (Cash's apology occurred some two years
after publication of his remarks.) The Forward article
suggests that Cash has had trouble publishing his work in the
wake of the incident. Moreover, the same issue of Forward reported
that the publisher of Cash's comments, Dominic Lawson, editor
of the London Specraror, was prevented from publishing
an article on the birth of his Down Syndrome daughter in The
New Republic when Martin Peretz, the owner, and Leon Wieseltier,
the literary editor, complained about Lawsons publishing Cash's
article. There is abundant evidence that Peretz strongly identifies
as a Jew and for his unabashed policy of slanting his jourrial
toward positions favorable to Israel.
10. Similariy, Noam Chomsky, the famous Massachusetts
Institute of Technology linguist, describes his experience with
the ADL:
In the United States a rather
effective system of intimidation has been developed to silence
critique. Take the Anti-Defamation League. . . . It's actually
an organization devoted to trying to defame and intimidate and
silence people who criticize current Israeli policies, whatever
they may be. For example, I myself, through a leak in the new
England office of the AntiDefamation League, was able to obtain
a copy of my file there. It's 150 pages, just like an FBI file,
[consisting of] interoffice memos warning that I'm going to show
up here and there, surveillance of talk,, that I give, comments
and alleged transcripts of talk . . . [T]his material has been
circulated [and] ... would be sent to some local group which would
use it to extract defamatory material
which would then be circulated, usually in unsigned pamphlets
outside the place where I'd be speaking.... If there's any comment
in the press which they regard as insufficiently subservient to
the party line, there'll be a flood of letters, delegations, protests,
threats to withdraw advertising, etc. The politicians of course
are directly subjected to this, and they are also subjected to
substantial financial penalties if they don't go along... This
totally one-sided pressure and this, by now, very effective system
of vilification, lying, defamation, and judiocious use of funds
in the political system… has created a highly biased approach
to the whole matter. (Chomsky 1988, 642-3)
11. Consider also the comments of columnist Joseph
Sobran, who was forced out of his position as coluinnist at National
Review for remarks critical of Israel:
The full story of (Pat Buchanan's r996 presidential]
campaign is impossible to tell as long as it's taboo to discuss
Jewish interests as freely as we discuss those of the Christian
Right. Talking about American politics without mentioning
the Jews is a little like talking about the NBA without mentioning
the Chicago Bulls. Not that the Jews are all-powerful, let
alone all bad. But they are successful, and therefore powerful
enough: and their power is unique in being off-limits to normal
criticism even when it's highly visible. They themselves behave
as if their success were a guilty secret, and they panic,
and resort to accusations, as soon as the subject is raised.
Jewish control of the major media in the media age makes the
enforced silence both paradoxical and paralyzing. Survival
in public life requires that you know all about it, but never
refer to it. A hypocritical etiquette forces us to pretend
that the Jews are powerless victims; and if you don't respect
their victimhood, they'll destroy you. It's a phenomenal display
not of wickedness, really, but of fierce ethnocentrism, a
sort of furtive racial superpatriotism. (Sobran 1996, 3).
12. It is my view that the campaign to suppress
the publication of David Irving's biography of Goebbels (Washington
Post, April 4, 1996) is another example of these tactics.
After an article by editorial columnist Frank Rich condemning
the book appeared in the New York Times (April 3, 1996),
the ADL successfully pressured St. Martin's Press to rescind publication
despite the fact that this book, relying on previously unknown
diaries of its subject, is a major scholarly achievement-an indispensable
work for those writing on the history of the Third Reich. Deborah
Lipstadt's work contributes to this atmosphere of suppression-particularly
her statement that Irving is not a historian. Quite simply, it
is widely acknowledged among professional historians such as Gordon
Craig, A.J.P. Taylor, and Hugh Trevor-Roper that David Irving
is a brilliant researcher and a compelling writer. His work is
required reading for serious students of the Third Reich and World
War II.
13. I suppose that the motivation for this campaign
of suppression is because of Irving's involvement in disputes
about the nature and extent of the Holocaust-that in the absence
of such activity, Irving's biography of Goebbels would have been
published without incident. However, I submit that Irving's other
activities should not result in the suppression of Irving's historical
research and the general denigration of his work that is apparent
in Lipstadt's work. To be sure, Irving, like many historians,
may indeed see events through a filter of personal political and
intellectual convictions. This is a commonly acknowledged diffliculty
that afflicts all of the social sciences, and Jewish social scientists
have certainly not been immune from these tendencies. In my book
Separation and Its Discontents, I devote much of a chapter
to many examples of the historiography of Jewish history
written by Jews-surely not exhaustive-in which there are clear
apologetic tendencies tendencies to view the Jewish ingroup in
a favorable manner and to pathologize anti-Semitism as irrational
and completely unrelated to the actual behavior of Jews.
These works have been published by the most prestigious
academic and commercial presses. Other commentators have noticed
similar apologetic tendencies in Jewish historiography, including,
most notably Albert Lindemann in his recent book Esau's Tears.
Modern Anti-Semitism and the Rise of the Jews (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1997). Revealingly, Lindemann's examples of
biased historical research include the work of Jewish Holocaust
historians Lucy Dawidowicz and Daniel J. Goldhagen-a. clear indication
that the area of Holocaust studies remains politically charged.
Moreover, in The Culture of Critique I describe several
highly influential intellectual movements (Boasian anthropology,
Freudian psychoanalysis, the Frankfurt School of Social
Research) that presented themselves as science but were strongly
influenced the Jewish ethnic agendas of their founders, particularly
combating anti-Semitism.
14. Intellectual blinders and political agendas
are a fact of academic life. However, even were it to be proved
that David Irving does indeed bring a certain set of biases to
his work, even the most biased researchers may well contribute
invaluable scholarship. Science emerges when the work of all investigators
becomes part of the marketplace of ideas and when scholars are
not vilified and their scholarship censored simply because their
conclusions fly in the face of contemporary orthodoxy.
References
Casb, W. (1994). Kings of the deal. The Specraror
(29 0ctober): 14-16.
Chomsky, N. (1988). Language and Politics.
Black Rose Books: Montreal-New York.
Sobran, J. (1996). The Buchanan frenzy. Sobran's
(.March): 3 4
signed .........
Kevin MacDonald
Professor of Psychology
California State University
Long Beach, Long Beach
CA 90840-0901 USA
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