Kevin MacDonald: “I’m not optimistic about the future of the West”
Kevin MacDonald
You have a long career in psychology, as a Professor at
California State University, and have authored many different books and
academic articles on that subject, focusing mostly on evolutionary
psychology, psychology on ethnocentrism and group evolutionary
strategies. Could you give us a brief definition of these concepts?
Evolutionary psychology views the human brain as being shaped by evolution, that is, that over evolutionary time the human mind and underlying neural structures were shaped by natural selection. For example, humans fall in love because there are brain structures that enable this, and it’s adaptive because it motivates men and women to procreate and invest in their children. Genes for this gradually accumulated, and people with more of those genes survived and prospered.
Please tell us when did you first become active within the “right” ideological specter and which of your conclusions and observations led you to become a renowned author within the circles of the Right? Did your studies of Psychology played a major part in this development?
I started being active while writing my book The Culture of Critique in the mid-1990s. The Culture of Critique is about how Jewish intellectuals and political activists have shaped Western culture in the twentieth century. I realized that they were shaping culture in ways that promoted their interests but were detrimental to the interests of Europeans. Throughout my writing, I have used my psychological background. For example, one reason that Jewish intellectuals were so influential was because they were able to obtain positions in elite universities. A part of human psychology is to look up to such people and they have more influence as a result. I also write a lot about ethnic networking among Jews—how they promote each other’s work and promote common goals that satisfy Jewish interests.
You have written extensively about the influence of the Jewish-interests groups within the Western societies and about the role of the Jewish intellectuals within the different subversive movements that came to be known as “Cultural Marxism”, your most famous book on the subject being »Culture of Critique«. Could you please explain to us how do these groups operate, in which areas has their influence been the most effective and for what reasons do you choose to describe them as »Culture of Critique«?
Culture of Critique describes several of the most influential intellectual and political movements of the twentieth century—Boasian anthropology, Freudian psychoanalysis, the Frankfurt School, the general involvement of Jews with the left, and Jewish activism on behalf of immigration. All of these movements had a central core of people who were strongly identified as Jews and thought of their work as advancing Jewish interests in some way. For example, Freud thought of himself as a warrior in opposition to European culture which he hated because of historical anti-Semitism. His work undermined traditional Western sexual mores and family relationships. His movement attracted many other Jews and together they influenced public opinion because they were able to obtain influential positions in academic and professional organizations such as the American Psychiatric Association, and they were able to spread their messages in the mainstream media—Hollywood, television, and newspapers.
It seems that the breakdown of the Western values and the destruction of the once homogenous European societies that we witness today is a consequence of the ideas and movements that can be traced to the Frankfurt School, whose intellectuals were mostly Jewish, and which was the birthplace of the so called »Cultural Marxism«. Could you give us a brief overview of the ideas and concepts which were the product of the Frankfurt School, and have proven as the most detrimental to our culture and to our European nations? Also would you say that the Frankfurt School represents the beginning of these subversive movements and ideals, or do its roots go further back in time?
The Frankfurt School began in the 1920s as an orthodox Marxist group and continued in that direction until after Hitler came to power after 1933. Marxism did not predict that the working class would vote for a fascist, but many did, and after Hitler came to power, he had high public approval. They reconceptualized the problem as White ethnocentrism because racial identity was central to National Socialism. They reasoned that an anti-Jewish movement could not develop in a country that was not racially homogeneous. As a result, their work claimed that White people who identified as White and attempted to advance the interests of their race had a psychiatric disorder and this was then picked up and promoted very effectively by Jewish activist organizations like the Anti-Defamation League. They did not make an analogous analysis in which identifying as a Jew and advancing Jewish interests were pathological.
Jewish subversion began earlier. Boasian anthropology and psychoanalysis began early in the twentieth century and Jewish activism on the left aimed at toppling gentile power structures dates from the nineteenth century.
The question many people are curious about is, why would certain Jewish-interested groups want the destruction and the breakdown of the Western societies, what is their main motivation and what do they want to achieve through their subversive actions, and influence in culture and in politics?
As noted above, Jews do not feel safe in a homogeneous White society after what happened in Germany in the 1930s. As a result, they have promoted immigration and demographic change so that Whites will be a minority in Western societies and Whites will be less able to organize against Jews. Another major motivation is hatred because of what they see as irrational ant-Semitism throughout history, so that, for example, they oppose Christianity because of the historical role of Christianity in opposition to Jews. They never see their own behavior as contributing to hatred of Jews.
Some people would argue, that the Jews have always been involved in different political movements both on the Left and on the Right, and that while there are quite a few Jews on the Left, it is mostly a coincidence and has nothing to do with them being Jewish, since we can also find Jews among the Conservative Right. What would be your answer to these observations, and what would be your main argument in claiming, that the leftist movements are not just movements which happen to also have a lot of Jewish activists, but that this movements and ideals themselves were created by the Jewish groups to further their own goals and agenda?
I know of no example of a Jew who has advocated for White interests. In general, Jews on the right have been neoconservatives who are mainly motivated by garnering support for Israel within the Republican Party and among conservatives. Neoconservatism, with its roots on the Trotskyist left, has fundamentally acted to combat older forms of conservatism (labeled paleoconservatism) in America and to move the American conservative movement to the left on key issues like immigration (see “Neoconservatism as Jewish Movement“). For example, I cite an American intellectual, Samuel Francis: “There are countless stories of how neoconservatives have succeeded in entering conservative institutions, forcing out or demoting traditional conservatives, and changing the positions and philosophy of such institutions in neoconservative directions.”
My argument that Jews on the left retained strong Jewish identities and a sense of Jewish interests is contained in Chapter 3 of The Culture of Critique and is too long to quote here. However, it begins with the following:
While »Culture of Critique« is probably your most famous book on this subject, it is just a third book of a trilogy, the other two books being » A People That Shall Dwell Alone« and »Separation and its Discontents«. In these books you also write about Judaism and about the phenomenon of Antisemitism. Could you tell us how would you say Judaism differs from Islam and Christianity? And regarding the topic of Antisemitism, do you believe Jewish groups are using it today to further their own agenda?
As discussed in A People That Shall Dwell Alone, Judaism developed as a very explicit diaspora strategy—they saw themselves as living as a minority group within larger societies. They never sought to be a universal religion. Their writings underscore that they saw themselves as in conflict with the wider society and as having different interests from other groups in the society. For example, a common theme of historical anti-Semitism was that Jews made alliances with kings and other aristocrats and would engage in oppressive business practices that would enrich their aristocratic patrons and themselves at the expense of other sectors of the population.
Jewish groups are constantly exaggerating anti-Semitism as a way to raise money but also to provide reasons for enacting controls on free speech. In the United States it is now basically off-limits to criticize Israel: any criticism of Israel is regarded as anti-Semitism. Another example, according to a recent article in the mainstream media, Jews in the television industry have been producing very Jewish-themed shows emphasizing the Holocaust and other threats to Jewish interests because of a supposed huge increase in anti-Semitism. “There’s been a huge uptick in anti-Semitic hate crimes in the U.S. over the past five years, according to the FBI, in an era when only 45% of U.S adults know that six million Jews died in the Holocaust, according to a Pew Research Center survey published in January.«
How would you assess the work of President Trump since he entered the office?
I was very supportive of Trump during the 2016 election. His record since is mixed. He is certainly doing the bidding of is pro-Israel donors like Sheldon Adelson and the Republican Jewish Coalition despite his campaign pledges for an America-First foreign policy. He has not been as good as he promised on immigration. He is building the wall with Mexico but has also approved huge numbers of worker visas that displace American workers, and he has not decreased the huge numbers of legal immigrants that will soon make Whites a minority in the U.S., nor has he ended birthright citizenship according to which anyone born in the U.S. is automatically a citizen, leading to illegal aliens establishing families and obtaining welfare benefits, etc.
What are your predictions for the U.S. presidential elections this year? And what are your predictions regarding the future of U.S.A. and the rest of the Western world?
It’s too soon to tell what will happen this year much less the long-term future of the West. Trump will have a good chance against Joe Biden, who is senile and not a candidate that inspires enthusiasm. However, the non-White vote keeps increasing and this will soon make it impossible for any Republican to win. Right now Trump is being blamed for a poor response to the coronavirus and that may be an effective talking point for Biden, especially given what the virus panic has done to the economy. The strength of the economy had been Trump’s major asset.
I am not optimistic on the future of the West. We are importing non-White majorities that will have no interest in maintaining our culture, our institutions, or our traditional freedoms. Unless something drastic changes, the West as we know it will be destroyed.
You are also the Chief Editor of the website »Occidental Observer«, can you tell us a bit about this project?
The Occidental Observer has articles that touch on White identity and interests. Given my writing, we have a lot of discussion of Jewish issues.
We are all aware of the censorship which has been increasing in the last years, regarding ideas that are deemed »politically incorrect«. Did you ever faced any kind of censorship, and did your activities and writings ever affected your professional career as a University Professor? Did you faced any criticism from you colleagues etc.?
Yes, there was a movement to get my university to fire me—the relevant documents are on my website. A left-wing organization, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), conducted a campaign against me. A representative of the SPLC came to my university from November 12–15 2006 to interview faculty and administrators about me. During the 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 academic years there was also a great deal of discussion and debate about my work and associations on faculty email lists. Eventually several departments issued statements dissociating themselves from my work and, in some cases, condemning my work. I was an active participant in these debates, In April, 2008, there was a large meeting conducted by the SPLC representative to denounce me. A speaker from the Anti-Defamation League also participated in this meeting.
Can you tell us for the end a bit about you latest book, titled »Individualism and the Western Liberal Tradition, and let us know what are your plans for the future?
Individualism and the Western Liberal Tradition argues that ethnic influences are important for understanding the West. The prehistoric invasion of the Indo-Europeans had a transformative influence on Western Europe, inaugurating a prolonged period of what is labeled “aristocratic individualism” resulting form variants of Indo-European genetic and cultural influence. However, beginning in the seventeenth century and gradually becoming dominant was a new culture labeled “egalitarian individualism” which was influenced by preexisting egalitarian tendencies of northwest Europeans. Egalitarian individualism ushered in the modern world but may well carry the seeds of its own destruction. I have a chapter on psychological mechanisms that have resulted in so many Westerners accepting the current regime of displacing White populations in favor of massive non-White immigration. This brings in much discussion of evolutionary psychology. For example, I present data that White people are more empathic towards others because we are less ethnocentric than other peoples. This tendency toward empathy has been manipulated by the media to make Westerners empathic to suffering Africans and Asians and make them willing to make these people into citizens. There are also some hopeful signs—e.g., because of all the anti-White hatred we are seeing in the media, more White people are identifying as White and seeing that they have interests as Whites in not becoming a minority. But I conclude the book by suggesting that there may be a civil war brewing in the United States.
https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2020/05/21/kevin-macdonald-im-not-optimistic-about-the-future-of-the-west/
Evolutionary psychology views the human brain as being shaped by evolution, that is, that over evolutionary time the human mind and underlying neural structures were shaped by natural selection. For example, humans fall in love because there are brain structures that enable this, and it’s adaptive because it motivates men and women to procreate and invest in their children. Genes for this gradually accumulated, and people with more of those genes survived and prospered.
Please tell us when did you first become active within the “right” ideological specter and which of your conclusions and observations led you to become a renowned author within the circles of the Right? Did your studies of Psychology played a major part in this development?
I started being active while writing my book The Culture of Critique in the mid-1990s. The Culture of Critique is about how Jewish intellectuals and political activists have shaped Western culture in the twentieth century. I realized that they were shaping culture in ways that promoted their interests but were detrimental to the interests of Europeans. Throughout my writing, I have used my psychological background. For example, one reason that Jewish intellectuals were so influential was because they were able to obtain positions in elite universities. A part of human psychology is to look up to such people and they have more influence as a result. I also write a lot about ethnic networking among Jews—how they promote each other’s work and promote common goals that satisfy Jewish interests.
You have written extensively about the influence of the Jewish-interests groups within the Western societies and about the role of the Jewish intellectuals within the different subversive movements that came to be known as “Cultural Marxism”, your most famous book on the subject being »Culture of Critique«. Could you please explain to us how do these groups operate, in which areas has their influence been the most effective and for what reasons do you choose to describe them as »Culture of Critique«?
Culture of Critique describes several of the most influential intellectual and political movements of the twentieth century—Boasian anthropology, Freudian psychoanalysis, the Frankfurt School, the general involvement of Jews with the left, and Jewish activism on behalf of immigration. All of these movements had a central core of people who were strongly identified as Jews and thought of their work as advancing Jewish interests in some way. For example, Freud thought of himself as a warrior in opposition to European culture which he hated because of historical anti-Semitism. His work undermined traditional Western sexual mores and family relationships. His movement attracted many other Jews and together they influenced public opinion because they were able to obtain influential positions in academic and professional organizations such as the American Psychiatric Association, and they were able to spread their messages in the mainstream media—Hollywood, television, and newspapers.
It seems that the breakdown of the Western values and the destruction of the once homogenous European societies that we witness today is a consequence of the ideas and movements that can be traced to the Frankfurt School, whose intellectuals were mostly Jewish, and which was the birthplace of the so called »Cultural Marxism«. Could you give us a brief overview of the ideas and concepts which were the product of the Frankfurt School, and have proven as the most detrimental to our culture and to our European nations? Also would you say that the Frankfurt School represents the beginning of these subversive movements and ideals, or do its roots go further back in time?
The Frankfurt School began in the 1920s as an orthodox Marxist group and continued in that direction until after Hitler came to power after 1933. Marxism did not predict that the working class would vote for a fascist, but many did, and after Hitler came to power, he had high public approval. They reconceptualized the problem as White ethnocentrism because racial identity was central to National Socialism. They reasoned that an anti-Jewish movement could not develop in a country that was not racially homogeneous. As a result, their work claimed that White people who identified as White and attempted to advance the interests of their race had a psychiatric disorder and this was then picked up and promoted very effectively by Jewish activist organizations like the Anti-Defamation League. They did not make an analogous analysis in which identifying as a Jew and advancing Jewish interests were pathological.
Jewish subversion began earlier. Boasian anthropology and psychoanalysis began early in the twentieth century and Jewish activism on the left aimed at toppling gentile power structures dates from the nineteenth century.
The question many people are curious about is, why would certain Jewish-interested groups want the destruction and the breakdown of the Western societies, what is their main motivation and what do they want to achieve through their subversive actions, and influence in culture and in politics?
As noted above, Jews do not feel safe in a homogeneous White society after what happened in Germany in the 1930s. As a result, they have promoted immigration and demographic change so that Whites will be a minority in Western societies and Whites will be less able to organize against Jews. Another major motivation is hatred because of what they see as irrational ant-Semitism throughout history, so that, for example, they oppose Christianity because of the historical role of Christianity in opposition to Jews. They never see their own behavior as contributing to hatred of Jews.
Some people would argue, that the Jews have always been involved in different political movements both on the Left and on the Right, and that while there are quite a few Jews on the Left, it is mostly a coincidence and has nothing to do with them being Jewish, since we can also find Jews among the Conservative Right. What would be your answer to these observations, and what would be your main argument in claiming, that the leftist movements are not just movements which happen to also have a lot of Jewish activists, but that this movements and ideals themselves were created by the Jewish groups to further their own goals and agenda?
I know of no example of a Jew who has advocated for White interests. In general, Jews on the right have been neoconservatives who are mainly motivated by garnering support for Israel within the Republican Party and among conservatives. Neoconservatism, with its roots on the Trotskyist left, has fundamentally acted to combat older forms of conservatism (labeled paleoconservatism) in America and to move the American conservative movement to the left on key issues like immigration (see “Neoconservatism as Jewish Movement“). For example, I cite an American intellectual, Samuel Francis: “There are countless stories of how neoconservatives have succeeded in entering conservative institutions, forcing out or demoting traditional conservatives, and changing the positions and philosophy of such institutions in neoconservative directions.”
My argument that Jews on the left retained strong Jewish identities and a sense of Jewish interests is contained in Chapter 3 of The Culture of Critique and is too long to quote here. However, it begins with the following:
There is little doubt that the vast majority of the Jews who advocated leftist causes beginning in the late nineteenth century were strongly self-identified as Jews and saw no conflict between Judaism and radicalism (Marcus 1983, 280ff; Levin 1977, 65, 1988, I, 4–5; Mishkinsky 1968, 290, 291; Rothman & Lichter 1982, 92–93; Sorin 1985, passim). Indeed, the largest Jewish radical movements in both Russia and Poland were the Jewish Bunds which had an exclusively Jewish membership and a very clear program of pursuing specifically Jewish interests. The proletarianism of the Polish Bund was really part of an attempt to preserve their national identity as Jews (Marcus 1983, 282). Fraternity with the non-Jewish working class was intended to facilitate their specifically Jewish aims, and a similar statement can be made for the Russian Jewish Bund (Liebman 1979, 111ff). Since the Bunds comprised by far the majority of the Jewish radical movement in these areas, the vast majority of Jews participating in radical movements in this period were strongly identified as Jews.In Chapter 3 I also provide evidence that Jews on the left were motivated to oppose nationalist movements, as in Poland after World War II where many Jews collaborated with the communist government. Jews in pre-revolutionary Russia saw the Czarist government as oppressive and eagerly joined the Soviet government after the Revolution. Jews in America in the 1920s–1940s realized that Jews were an elite in the USSR and strongly advocated for pro-USSR causes in the U.S. There are many more examples of this.
While »Culture of Critique« is probably your most famous book on this subject, it is just a third book of a trilogy, the other two books being » A People That Shall Dwell Alone« and »Separation and its Discontents«. In these books you also write about Judaism and about the phenomenon of Antisemitism. Could you tell us how would you say Judaism differs from Islam and Christianity? And regarding the topic of Antisemitism, do you believe Jewish groups are using it today to further their own agenda?
As discussed in A People That Shall Dwell Alone, Judaism developed as a very explicit diaspora strategy—they saw themselves as living as a minority group within larger societies. They never sought to be a universal religion. Their writings underscore that they saw themselves as in conflict with the wider society and as having different interests from other groups in the society. For example, a common theme of historical anti-Semitism was that Jews made alliances with kings and other aristocrats and would engage in oppressive business practices that would enrich their aristocratic patrons and themselves at the expense of other sectors of the population.
Jewish groups are constantly exaggerating anti-Semitism as a way to raise money but also to provide reasons for enacting controls on free speech. In the United States it is now basically off-limits to criticize Israel: any criticism of Israel is regarded as anti-Semitism. Another example, according to a recent article in the mainstream media, Jews in the television industry have been producing very Jewish-themed shows emphasizing the Holocaust and other threats to Jewish interests because of a supposed huge increase in anti-Semitism. “There’s been a huge uptick in anti-Semitic hate crimes in the U.S. over the past five years, according to the FBI, in an era when only 45% of U.S adults know that six million Jews died in the Holocaust, according to a Pew Research Center survey published in January.«
How would you assess the work of President Trump since he entered the office?
I was very supportive of Trump during the 2016 election. His record since is mixed. He is certainly doing the bidding of is pro-Israel donors like Sheldon Adelson and the Republican Jewish Coalition despite his campaign pledges for an America-First foreign policy. He has not been as good as he promised on immigration. He is building the wall with Mexico but has also approved huge numbers of worker visas that displace American workers, and he has not decreased the huge numbers of legal immigrants that will soon make Whites a minority in the U.S., nor has he ended birthright citizenship according to which anyone born in the U.S. is automatically a citizen, leading to illegal aliens establishing families and obtaining welfare benefits, etc.
What are your predictions for the U.S. presidential elections this year? And what are your predictions regarding the future of U.S.A. and the rest of the Western world?
It’s too soon to tell what will happen this year much less the long-term future of the West. Trump will have a good chance against Joe Biden, who is senile and not a candidate that inspires enthusiasm. However, the non-White vote keeps increasing and this will soon make it impossible for any Republican to win. Right now Trump is being blamed for a poor response to the coronavirus and that may be an effective talking point for Biden, especially given what the virus panic has done to the economy. The strength of the economy had been Trump’s major asset.
I am not optimistic on the future of the West. We are importing non-White majorities that will have no interest in maintaining our culture, our institutions, or our traditional freedoms. Unless something drastic changes, the West as we know it will be destroyed.
You are also the Chief Editor of the website »Occidental Observer«, can you tell us a bit about this project?
The Occidental Observer has articles that touch on White identity and interests. Given my writing, we have a lot of discussion of Jewish issues.
We are all aware of the censorship which has been increasing in the last years, regarding ideas that are deemed »politically incorrect«. Did you ever faced any kind of censorship, and did your activities and writings ever affected your professional career as a University Professor? Did you faced any criticism from you colleagues etc.?
Yes, there was a movement to get my university to fire me—the relevant documents are on my website. A left-wing organization, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), conducted a campaign against me. A representative of the SPLC came to my university from November 12–15 2006 to interview faculty and administrators about me. During the 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 academic years there was also a great deal of discussion and debate about my work and associations on faculty email lists. Eventually several departments issued statements dissociating themselves from my work and, in some cases, condemning my work. I was an active participant in these debates, In April, 2008, there was a large meeting conducted by the SPLC representative to denounce me. A speaker from the Anti-Defamation League also participated in this meeting.
Can you tell us for the end a bit about you latest book, titled »Individualism and the Western Liberal Tradition, and let us know what are your plans for the future?
Individualism and the Western Liberal Tradition argues that ethnic influences are important for understanding the West. The prehistoric invasion of the Indo-Europeans had a transformative influence on Western Europe, inaugurating a prolonged period of what is labeled “aristocratic individualism” resulting form variants of Indo-European genetic and cultural influence. However, beginning in the seventeenth century and gradually becoming dominant was a new culture labeled “egalitarian individualism” which was influenced by preexisting egalitarian tendencies of northwest Europeans. Egalitarian individualism ushered in the modern world but may well carry the seeds of its own destruction. I have a chapter on psychological mechanisms that have resulted in so many Westerners accepting the current regime of displacing White populations in favor of massive non-White immigration. This brings in much discussion of evolutionary psychology. For example, I present data that White people are more empathic towards others because we are less ethnocentric than other peoples. This tendency toward empathy has been manipulated by the media to make Westerners empathic to suffering Africans and Asians and make them willing to make these people into citizens. There are also some hopeful signs—e.g., because of all the anti-White hatred we are seeing in the media, more White people are identifying as White and seeing that they have interests as Whites in not becoming a minority. But I conclude the book by suggesting that there may be a civil war brewing in the United States.
https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2020/05/21/kevin-macdonald-im-not-optimistic-about-the-future-of-the-west/
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