Rating: 
Summary: Not wholly convincing, but demands to be read
Review: This is a puzzler. The research is staggering, the sheer accumulation of data impressive, the theory similar to what the great Solzhenitsyn has argued for years; and yet with The Culture of Critique - as with its predecessors - I suspect you really have to be a thoroughgoing sociobiologist to buy the whole package. Other reviewers have already noted the oddity that Jewish opposition to egalitarianism, black supremacism, etc., from such commentators as Michael Levin (or, before him, Mises and Rothbard) has been neglected in Kevin MacDonald's analysis. The author's repeated assumption that Christianity can be discussed primarily, if not exclusively, as a sociobiological imperative is also less than wholly convincing (what if, dread thought, Christianity has survived because it happens to be true?). It's an unusual approach which in discussing the 19th century emphasizes Wagner's outbursts on the Jews but says nothing of Mendelssohn, surely the ne plus ultra of the age's Jewish-turned-Christian intellectual achievement (and a man very much on Wagner's own mind). Still, if you have the slightest interest in the history of ideas, you must read this book, and indeed its predecessors. MacDonald's devastating demolition of Freudianism and, in particular, of Adornoism belongs within every literate person's mental furniture.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Book - But Dangerous
Review: This is an excellent book, and it deserves to be read widely and evaluated on its merits. It explains the phenomenon of hugely disproportionate Jewish representation in the legal profession, journalism, and academia. It also explains quite convincingly why Jews made up the core of the movements that drove the history of the 20th century, including Marxism, psychoanalysis, Boasian sociology, radical feminism, and multiculturalism. MacDonald analyzes these issues in terms of "sociobiology" (the application of the principles of biological evolution to explain the behaviour of human social groups), so one's opinion of the book will turn on whether and to what extent one accepts sociobiology as a discipline. I personally find the sociobiological approach convincing. After all, we are before we are anything else biological creatures, and our most basic instinct is to reproduce our own kind. How can one explain the tragic events of Kosovo and Bosnia other than in terms of one ethnic identity fighting for its survival against the forces of absorbtion? That said, there exists the danger that this book could be terribly misused, and I think that some of the other comments are unduly colored by this fear. I point out that the truth or falsity of MacDonald's conclusions in no way relate to whether they can be misused. To say otherwise would put one on the side of those that condemned Galileo for his dangerous ideas. I would hope that the discussion that MacDonald's trilogy is sure to spark will remain firmly grounded in the spirit of free inquirey.
Rating:
Summary: The elephant otherwise unnoticed and unremarked upon
Review: To read this intellectually intoxicating book is suddenly to realize how unfree public discourse in 21st Century America really is. MacDonald's argument is compelling and, in its broad outline, rather obvious. It is serious and brilliantly illuminating. It is in no way hateful or racist. But MacDonald says things that you just don't hear said, that never appear in our famously free media. MacDonald is a real hero for so boldly describing this elephant in the modern intellectual history of the West, an elephant that stands otherwise unnoticed and unremarked upon.
Rating:
Summary: Should come with disclaimer
Review: Very interesting, although monomaniacal research. Everybody who's into social and political studies should read it (possibly twice). Personally, I think some of the Jews' contributions to the world's intellectual wealth during the last century have been extraordinary. Still, it is this very same superiority that compromises their position, as long as the Jewish individuals identify with their ethnic group. MacDonald presents his point superbly, although there's a lot to be discussed with his ideas, and it really should be. The more these topics are talked about, the less danger there is for ethnocentric distress, and frustration with the Jews "controlling" other people's lives. It's a pity that this work will end up being used and abused by all the rabid anti-Semites out there.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Most Important Books of the 20th Century
Review: Virtually all books written about 20th century history, politics, sociology and culture omit an objective analysis of a key factor: the influence of Jewish individuals and groups. In a work thoroughly researched and brilliantly written, Kevin MacDonald courageously investigates this critical factor of our past, present and future.
Rating:
Summary: Approach Slowly, With and Open Mind
Review: Your reaction to this book will turn largely on whether you buy the premise; i.e. that Jewish intellectual movements of the past 150 years - many of which have been extremely critical of Western Civilization - are motivated by instinctual, Darwinian drives for group survival and advantage, which are largely unconscious. I buy the argument, and so I loved this book. I found MacDonald's analysis of Marxism, Boasian Sociology, Psychoanalysis and others to be clearly written, brilliantly illuminating, and staggering in its implications. I've never looked at the world the same since reading this amazing volume. I've heard it called the "rosetta stone," and there's much truth to that. If you don't buy the evolutionary framework, I urge you to look into the matter further. I'm convinced that evolutionary psychology provides a vastly more scientific framework than the currently in vogue Marxism or Psychoanalysis. Read Edward O. Wilson's "On Human Nature." That little volume contains a brief story that I think illustrates the main point. Wilson discusses the British genocide of the Tasmanian natives beginning in the early 19th century. The British colonists hunted down the Tasmanians like animals, and by the 1840's only a handful survied in the deep forests. A British Calvinist minister arrived on the scene, determined to save the Tasmanians. He coaxed them out of their forest hideouts, moved them to a reservation on a nearby island, dressed them in European clothes and taught them Calvinism and English. As Wilson points out, this was in fact horrible violence, and the Tasmanians became listless, gave up on life, and just quit having babies until they died out completely. Wilson points that while the good Christian minister went to Tasmania with the best of intentions - CONSCIOUSLY believing that he was there to help save the Tasmanians - he was UNCONSCIOUSLY really "acting under the compulsion of" a group survival instinct to finish the job his fellow Britishers started, but in a more acceptable and therefore more effective fashion. This passage in Wilson was like a kick to the stomach for me. Think of the implications. Europeans colonized, enslaved, looted and murdered Africans until de-colonization about 1960. But now their immediate descendants claim to have rejected all that. They've changed religion - no more Calvinism, they're now neo-Marxist PeeCee people. All that all these nice PeeCee liberals, such as Mary Robinson, really want to do is "help" Africa. So how do the new, improved and "liberal" Europeans help Africans? They send carloads of birth control pills but little technical aid. Historically racist organizations like Planned Parenthood work relentlessly to make abortion "safe and legal", but to encourage easy sex among the young, denigrating marriage. Liberals work to encourage sexual immorality called "safe sex" and distribute millions of condoms, but condemn as "backward" the only sure way to stop the spread of AIDS: abstinence. As a result of all their best CONSCIOUS efforts, Africa is facing a demographic nightmare. These modern liberals are in fact acting under Wilson's unspoken instinct. They think they're there to help, they're really there to kill off all the black people in the world - to finish the job the Imperialists began long ago. It is the same with the Jews. The Jews have been in group competition with Europeans for centuries. There have been pogroms and inquisitions. The Jews, in response, have developed unconscious group defense strategies. These defenses express themselves in intellectual movments aimed at undermining the cultural and racial integrity of Europeans. Jews lead Bolshevism, and took a direct hand in the murder of millions of Slavic peasants. Jews founded and propagated the other attacks on the West's spiritual underpinnings in the other movements described in "Culture of Critique." Jews continue this attack on the society of the West through their near-monopoly control of the press. You will never view MTV and it's filth the same way again. Note that the result of all of this is the same in Tasmania, Africa and Europe: PEOPLE QUIT HAVING BABIES AND THEY START TO DIE OUT. Pat Buchanan chronicles this well in his latest book "Death of the West" - although he doesn't get at the root causes of this catastrophe as does MacDonald. Like MacDonald, I don't blame Jews for launching defensive attacks against us, or for that matter European liberals like Mary Robinson for secretly wanting to kill the Africans through well-meaning population control programs, because it is all UNCONSCIOUS to the individuals involved. The point of this book, and my purpose for droning on here, is not to point the finger, but rather to wake people up to their own EVOLVED hidden desires to kill and hurt outgroups, and the terrible damage it does to others and ourselves. Once we can awaken to the fact of our own depraved desires, we can separate or take other steps such that we cease to commit terrible sin on each other to the destruction of our own souls. Read this book, and pass it on to your friends.
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