Kevin MacDonald and
Richard Lynn:
A Tale of Two Movement Wimpouts
By John 'Birdman' Bryant
This was originally published as Birdman's Weekly Letter #340 dated 30 August 2005 - There has been no response from either MacDonald or Lynn
Kevin MacDonald needs little introduction to those who commute among the byways of political incorrectness: He is a professor at California State University at Long Beach and the author of a well-known tryptich of books on the theme of Jewish behavior as a group evolutionary strategy; and his 15 minutes of fame was his appearance at the much-publicized David Irving-Deborah Lipstadt trial where he testified that he did not believe that Irving was an antisemite. The Wikipedia article on MacDonald says that
"Most controversial is his assertion that Jewish ethnocentricism enhances the ability of Jews to out-compete non-Jews for resources while undermining the power and self-confidence of the white majority in Europe and America. Leading scholars have rejected MacDonald's work as contradicting "basic principles of contemporary evolutionary psychology" and failing "basic tests of scientific credibility," though it has found an audience among white supremacists and the Arab world for its attacks on Jews."
In addition, MacDonald also hosts an invitation-only Politically Incorrect mailing list on the Web to which I once belonged, but was promptly booted out of as a result of vigorously defending myself against a couple of man-hating feminist types. I was offered reinstatement if I would tone down my responses, but respectfully declined, as I had little tolerance for the huge gobs of mail that the list generated, and not a few questions about why man-hating feminists found a safe harbor in this list.
Richard Lynn is not as well-known Kevin MacDonald in the Politically Incorrect community, but is nevertheless a man of high status and some controversy. A biographical entry on the Web at
http://psychcentral.com/psypsych/Richard_Lynn
gives the following information about him:
"Richard Lynn is a professor of psychology in Northern Ireland. He received his degree from Cambridge University, and is an emeritus professor at the University of Ulster. "Lynn is a member of the London School of Differential Psychology. He has published three books and several academic articles. His research is principly involved in correlating intelligence and race. His self-described interests are: intelligence, sex differences, race differences, and eugenics. "Lynn's studies were cited in the 1994 book, The Bell Curve and came under criticism as part of the controversy surrounding that book. His most recent research, published 2002 in the journal Population and Environment, is titled Skin color and intelligence in African Americans. Lynn purports to prove that African-Americans with lighter-colored skin have higher intelligence than those with darker skin. [1] (http://www.rlynn.co.uk/pages/publications.htm) "Lynn serves on the board of directors of the Pioneer Fund, which provides large grants to support his research. He is also on the editorial board of the Pioneer-supported Mankind Quarterly."
Approximately three months ago I completed the second edition of my book Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Jews But Were Afraid to Ask Because You Thought You'd Be Called 'Antisemitic', which I expanded to approximately three times the length of the first edition. I had received good reviews of the first edition from two Jews, and I thought it was time to see if I couldn't get some gentiles to review it, so I asked MacDonald if he would consider writing a Foreword, and Lynn if he would consider writing a review, both of whom accepted my invitation and were sent copies of my book. A few days ago, having heard nothing from either in three months, I emailed an inquiry. The response from MacDonald was the following note dated 8/28/05:
Hi John: I think it's a good book but there are some things in it that I did not feel comfortable with. So I am sorry, I can't write a foreword. Sorry, KM
To this I responded:
Is there any chance I could have a statement to quote on my book cover, or is that not possible either?
PS: I would be curious to know what you did not feel comfortable with. I am not looking to get into an argument or discussion, but I would just like to know where the cleavage is in our views. If you are comfortable in going to England and defend David Irving under intense media scrutiny, I just wonder what it is that puts me beyond that pale.
Almost immediately after sending the above letter, I wrote another one which is reprinted below. MacDonald did not respond to either this letter or to the earlier one:
[Begin]
Dear Kevin:
Let me begin by saying that, if writing a review or a blurb for my book is going to put you in professional or personal peril, then I don't want you to. I would never ask anyone to do that for me.
However, when you tell me that there are some things in my book that you are 'uncomfortable with', that doesn't sound like you are talking about professional or personal peril. So let me put things to you this way:
Above virtually all other men, you know that the Jews, or more properly Organized Jewry, pose a major threat to Western civilization. (If you DON'T know that, then you are a very different man than I thought.) Now if you think that my book is just an intellectual exercise, like some obscure scholarly treatise on quaternions, then I could perhaps understand how you would object to writing a foreword or even a review, despite your expertise. ON THE OTHER HAND, HOWEVER, if you see my book as more than just an arid intellectual exercise, that is, if you see it as an attempt to deal with a real threat to the civilization that we both hold dear, and further, if you are aware of the fact that there are very few men of any intellectual capability who are sufficiently knowledgeable and sufficiently strong to actually stand up and try to oppose this threat, then I ask you, Isn't it appropriate for you to set aside your 'uncomfortableness' and give the book all the honest support you can possibly muster? I am not perfect, and my book is not perfect, and it may very well make you 'uncomfortable' in parts, but of the very few seriously capable men who see the threat, if no one has the courage to stand up and be counted, then there is simply not much hope for Western civilization. I mean, when are you planning on speaking out beyond the confines of academe? It may be tough today, but it is going to be a LOT TOUGHER tomorrow, and it may be virtually IMPOSSIBLE just a few years down the pike. If we are dealing with more than something academic, then we had better start banding together -- just like the Jews do, I might add -- if we don't want our civilization and our race to become extinct.
How about it, Kevin?
John Bryant
[End]
At the same time MacDonald and I were exchanging correspondence, I also queried Richard Lynn. Here was his response, dated 8/28/05:
Sorry if I didn't acknowledge your book which I enjoyed reading Richard Lynn
I responded:
Thank you for your comments. Is there any chance that you might extend your remarks by a few sentences, or even write a review that I might post? Your comments would be most valuable to me.
Lynn responded:
I am afraid your book is a bit too controversial for me to be associated with. As a controversial figure myself, I have to be careful of my associations. I hope you will understand. RL
I replied:
[Begin]
Prof Lynn:
I appreciate that you are controversial and that this makes you a target for political correctees. But your desire not to be 'associated' with my book (or me) does raise some significant questions in my mind:
First, if you accepted for possible review a copy of a book entitled "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Jews But Were Afraid To Ask Because You Thought You'd Be Called 'Antisemitic'", then you accepted a book whose title virtually SCREAMS controversy, so how could anything in the book be MORE controversial than what the title promised? I would really like to know what it was that you found.
Second,
(1) in view of the fact that I am not asking you to endorse the book's conclusions, but only hoping -- in view of your declaration that you found the book enjoyable -- that you will tell readers that it may be a worthwhile read, and
(2) in view of the fact that it is perfectly possible for you to qualify any kind of endorsement of my book by saying "While I find numerous points of disagreement, I think that ...",
I therefore fail to see in view of the above points what it is that you are so afraid of in giving me a review or blurb, and would really be most interested to know.
Third, as I told Prof Kevin MacDonald, to whom I also sent a copy of my book for review, if even the best and most powerful men of the intellectual community -- a group which certainly includes MacDonald and yourself -- do not have the courage to stand up and make criticisms of what they very well know needs to be criticized, then what hope is there for Western civilization? Indeed, by being an emeritus professor, you are apparently quite free to speak your mind without fear of losing your job or emoluments. So why are you acting so reluctant? Are you afraid that the British hate crime laws would get you for endorsing my book? If I thought you would have to take a serious personal risk in reviewing my book, I would never have asked you to do so, and you, undoubtedly, would never have accepted. So what is going on here? I think that, at the very least, you owe me a full and frank explanation.
I would very much appreciate your response on these points.
Respectfully,
John Bryant
[End]
Lynn responded:
There are only so many battles one can fight & this is one I feel I have to duck Best wishes Richard Lynn
Now if the reader will forgive me for saying so, I feel very ill-used by MacDonald and Lynn. Neither gave me any substantive feedback, nor any good explanation of why they could not do so; and certainly they did not respond at all to the very relevant questions raised in my letters to them. I believe that when these men accepted a copy of my book, they accepted an obligation to me -- an indefinite one, I will grant, but nevertheless an obligation which I strongly feel they have not fulfilled. More important than the unfulfilled personal obligation, however, is the unfulfilled obligation to -- what shall we call it? the Politically Incorrect community? Western civilization? the white race? I feel this particularly acutely with MacDonald, who has made a career out of what could be called 'Jewish skepticism', ie, warning people about the Jewish threat, yet he will not bother so much as to lift his little finger to help someone who has also dedicated a good part of his life to warning of the Jewish threat. It would be one thing if MacDonald were just an ordinary guy, but he is one of the leaders of Jewish skepticism, and in this position he has both special power, and also special obligation to use that power in favor of the community. I do not see him doing that.
In conclusion, while MacDonald did not bother to comment on my book, I would like to make a few comments on his -- comments which may possibly be relevant to the way in which MacDonald has reacted to my own book. While it has been some time since I have read any of MacDonald's work, the basic theme, 'Judaism as a group evolutionary strategy', was a warning that Jews are 'out-evolving' the white race, and, more precisely, dominating it, with the result that America and the West are rapidly descending into the toilet of a Judaized society. If I have correctly stated MacDonald's thesis, and if I am correct that he intends it as a warning rather than merely an academic observation, then I certainly agree with him. However, there is an important sense in which my own book is much broader and more relevant than MacDonald's, and also more accurate. Here's why:
* 'Evolutionary strategy' is an inaccurate and mistaken expression: Evolution cannot be said to be guided by a 'strategy' unless Nature is anthropomorphized; for a 'strategy' is a policy which is consciously contrived by one man or a small group of men, while evolution is a long process over generations that occurs by force of natural law and not conscious deliberation. We could say that certain Jewish policies -- genetic isolation, encouraging the intelligent to have more children, etc -- will have an evolutionary EFFECT, but to say that a policy is an 'evolutionary strategy' is what Aristotle would have called a 'category mistake' -- it is an error comparable to saying that air is intelligent or the number two is fuzzy.
* Evolution is only half the picture, and not even the most important part if you are considering modern Jewish behavior. Jews may have 'out-evolved' whites by their habit of sticking together, breeding for intelligence, having a common language useful for communication among international communities, and the like; but the problem is that evolution has already taken place over the long-gone past, and we are now confronted, not with an 'evolutionary strategy' but rather with a REVOLUTIONARY one. And that revolutionary strategy has given us a series of revolutions, which many think include the French Revolution, the revolutions of 1848, the Bolshevik Revolution, the many communist revolutions which have occurred and are continuing to occur, the First and Second World Wars, the Iraq wars, the virtual overthrow of the US Constitution, and many other revolutions too numerous to mention. And the revolutions just mentioned are only the POLITICAL revolutions; for there have been many other revolutions -- cultural, sexual, religious, and the like -- whose Jewish component has been critical. The point I am making, then, is that MacDonald's work focuses on the 'slow' and historical part of Jewish behavior, while I focus on the 'fast' and contemporary part -- the part which is most obvious, most critical, and most in need of whites to focus upon in the effort to reverse the Judiazation of the West. In this sense, then, I would suggest that my book is far more relevant than MacDonald's to the vital problem which is the contemporary Jewish Question. Perhaps MacDonald intuits this, and perhaps his refusal to help me is a kind of unrecognized professional jealousy which has kicked in, consciously or unconsciously, with the intent of keeping himself from being upstaged from his position of intellectual leadership on the Jewish Question.
* In terms of the effects of Jews on Western culture, there is a book available on the Net at no charge which, in my view, is far better than MacDonald's. It is called When Victims Rule, and it may be found at the following URL:
In conclusion, I am sure that this essay will be read by many partisans of MacDonald and Lynn, and that I am likely to get some critical if not nasty letters as a result. So be it. That was certainly the case when I exposed the piece of scum known as David Irving. More generally, it is often easy to admire people from afar, but when you get 'up close and personal' and (to mix and bake a metaphor) begin smelling their feet of clay, things can change a bit. Please note that I am not saying that MacDonald's work is bad, or anything of the kind -- on the contrary, the matter we are presently discussing is not related to work, but to CHARACTER. Men show their character in most things they do, whether small or large, and the matter which I have discussed in this essay does not speak well of either MacDonald or Lynn. Some would say to me that I should keep this quiet; that I should not damage the Movement by infighting. But while I agree that infighting can sometimes be destructive, I believe that the Movement will run a lot better on truth than it will on lies. I also believe that the best way to determine the truth is usually to have matters exposed publicly, with both sides being allowed their full say. In this spirit I invite MacDonald and Lynn to respond to me in whatever way they wish, and I will be more than happy to publish it here.
Postscript
I said that character was the issue here, but I might well have said that character is the biggest issue that the Movement has to face. Whites used to be Christians, and Christianity taught character -- and morals, to which character is intimately related. But now we are all atheists -- we have discarded Christianity because it was irrational, but we also lost the important lessons it had to teach us, and for that reason our race may well go the way of all flesh. Character and morals are all about getting along well with others, ie, creating a wholesome and workable society. When character and morals break down, the social fabric is rent asunder. And character and morals are products of inner-directedness, or conscience. They cannot be enforced. The police might be able to arrest criminals, but they can usually do nothing against the man who does not keep his word; and it is the gossamer of word-keeping and other filagrees of character and morals upon which society so perilously hangs. A society may perhaps survive if most of its members are other- or outer-directed, but the society will fail if the members who do the directing are not themselves inner-directed. And here is where the Jews are way ahead of us. They may regard gentiles as cattle, but they treat their own in what can only be described as a Christian manner. Until we relearn the character and morals of our Christian forebears, we will be at the mercy of the Jews. But there is hope. As a philosopher of morals, I have tried to set out a basis for morality that can substitute for the Christian one, but without the need to accept irrational beliefs and take a Pascalian 'leap of faith'. While these efforts are scattered thruout my books, they are nevertheless available for those willing to dig things out. Still, I hope at some future time to put together some kind of Bible of Non-Theological Morality, and perhaps this will help fulfill the moral needs of people in this unhappy post-Christian world.
Some Birdman books on morality:
* The Most Powerful Idea Ever Discovered
* Success in Marriage -- Guaranteed!
* Interpersonal Relations
* Religion, Science and Superstition
See also the Science and Religion section of my website
Postscript
In reflecting on the above remarks, I
recalled TS Eliot's 1925 poem, "The Hollow Men". It is
not a poem that I have ever been able to get much meaning out of,
but it struck me that the beginning and the end of the poem seem
to fit the circumstances of MacDonald and Lynn, and not a few
others in the Movement:
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men. ...
>
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
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