An Evolutionary Explanation for Jewish Success

A People That Shall Dwell Alone: Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy
Kevin MacDonald
Praeger Publishers, Westport, CT, 1994
302 pages, ISBN 0-275-94869-2

Reviewed by Louis Andrews
pinc, Vol. 1, No. 1, January 1997.

Contents

Preface                                                           vii

CHAPTER 1 Introduction and Theory                                   1

CHAPTER 2 Genetic Segregation of Jews and Gentiles                 23

CHAPTER 3 Evolutionary Aspects of the Tanakh                       35

CHAPTER 4 Genetic and Cultural Segregation of Jews and Gentiles    57

CHAPTER 5 Resource and Reproductive Competition Between Jews 
and Gentiles                                                      111

CHAPTER 6 Cooperation, Altruism, and Community Control of Group
Interests Among Jews                                              137

CHAPTER 7 Judaism as an Ecological Strategy: Selection for 
Phenotypic Traits Related to Intelligence, High-Investment
Parenting, and Social Cohesion                                    165 

CHAPTER 8 The Origins of Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy 227

Bibliography                                                      269

Index                                                             293

How odd of God,
to choose the Jews.
-- Ogden Nash

The evolution of morality and the part morality plays in evolution have become relatively hot topics in recent years. Robert Wright's big seller, The Moral Animal, and Howard Bloom's The Lucifer Principle both deal with it from different, though general, approaches. Kevin MacDonald, a well published evolutionary psychologist currently at California State University at Long Beach, takes an entirely different approach using the history of a specific group to look at these issues.

MacDonald has written an engaging book, reminiscent (as Hans Eysenck has remarked) of C. D. Darlington's classic The Evolution of Man and Society. The book is the first in a proposed two part series on Judaism as an evolutionary strategy and the origins of anti-Semitism. The second volume, much referenced by the first, unfortunately still awaits release by Praeger. Both are in the Human Evolution, Behavior, and Intelligence series, edited by Seymour W. Itzkoff of Smith College, Mass. (USA).

The general argument is that, despite the message in Nash's couplet, God didn't choose the Jews, but the Jews chose God. That "god" was the "holy seed" of Israel, "the genetic material of the upper-class Israelites who were exiled to Babylon." According to MacDonald, the purpose of Judaism is not the worship of some heavenly deity, but the survival and propagation of the Jewish people. It can be viewed as sort of a single case example of what Raymond Cattell (in his Beyondism books) has proposed for the world.

MacDonald writes in his preface:

The basic proposal is that Judaism can be interpreted as a set of ideological structures and behaviors that have resulted in the following features: (1) the segregation of the Jewish gene pool from surrounding gentile societies as a result of active efforts to prevent the influx of gentile-derived genes; (2) resource and reproductive competition between Jews and gentiles; (3) high levels of within-group cooperation and altruism among Jews; and (4) eugenic efforts directed at reproducing high intelligence, high investment parenting, and commitment to group, rather than individual, goals.

As US columnist Mona Charen recently noted, one problem in studying or writing about Jews and Judaism is that the person is suspect unless a Jew. MacDonald is certainly aware of this and addresses it immediately and effectively. He writes on page one: "The theory of Judaism presented here implies that Judaism must be understood as exhibiting universal human tendencies for self-interest, ethnocentrism, and competition for resources and reproductive success. But an evolutionary theory must also suppose that these tendencies are in no way exclusive to Judaism. Indeed, the theory of anti-Semitism proposed in a companion volume …essentially states that gentiles also are self-interested, are ethnocentric, and engage in competition for resources and reproductive success." Still a major review in Ethology and Sociobiology by scholar John Hartung was accused of being anti-Semitic and the brouhaha over it resulted in a new contract being drawn between the Human Behavior and Evolution Society and the well-respected science publisher Elsevier.

Since group evolutionary theory has been on the out since George Williams' pioneering work in the sixties, MacDonald's first task to make anew a theoretical claim for group evolution and thus group evolutionary strategies. He does this rather convincingly by showing how social controls, ideology, and plasticity in evolution can overcome individual self interest in a collectivist community. MacDonald relies heavily on H. C. Triandis' work on individualism and collectivism in marshaling his arguments throughout the book. Judaism has always been a collectivist culture, while Western societies have generally been individualistic, except during portions of the middle ages. MacDonald argues that this Christian medieval collectivist response was partially in reaction to Judaism.

To see human behavior as a group strategy, we must compare groups to species occupying a common ecosystem. If the groups fail to interbreed to any great degree, then the comparison will hold. The "species" of the ecosystem will then develop habits of cooperation and conflict, and modes of parasitism and predation. As the Competitive Exclusion Principle requires, the non-assimilating group that excels, even minimally, in a specific geographic area will eventually dominate. In fact, MacDonald argues that the strategy may be viewed as pseudospeciation. If groups behave largely as species, then the same rules will apply. If a group behaves altruistically within, then that group will benefit genetically over those that behave individualistically. That has resulted, according to MacDonald (over several thousands years of evolution) in a one standard deviation (SD) increase in overall IQ and nearly a two SD increase in verbal IQ among Ashkenazi Jews compared with other Caucasians.

For long term success, such group strategies may require psychological characteristics that not everyone has in abundance. Successful groups seem to "reject" (via limiting mating possibilities, etc.) far more members than they allow in from the outside. Thus a common ethnicity is characteristic, and in the case of Jews, a common micro-ethnicity. While Jewish groups from one area may have traditionally helped Jews in another area, they tended to marry only within their own groups, especially in the dominate classes. A daughter might be given to marry elsewhere (even to a wealthy or important gentile as a political move), but that had no genetic impact on the "stem" Jewish family, which could normally trace it's genealogy back seven generations if of much status. Conversion has always been uncommon and those who became Jews generally suffered a lower social status and were governed by different marriage policies than those born Jewish. Despite this, the few who converted were normally drawn from the more talented among the gentiles, while Jews who abandoned the faith were largely the poor and isolated.

In a number of fascinating chapters, MacDonald surveys Jewish history using the Tanakh (Old Testament), Talmud, and other writings of Jewish scholars both ancient and modern. He provides substantial evidence to promote his claims and it will be interesting to see the nature of the response by critics. The primary emphasis is on Jews as sojourners, since that is characteristic of most of their history and a key to his evolutionary group strategy theory. When Jews (as in portions of the Old Testament) did as other peoples, i.e., moved into a geographical area, killed or enslaved it's inhabitants, and excluded others, their strategy would be somewhat different. However, even here, MacDonald finds the roots of some of the later strategies.

Language and dress have been two of the more important tools used to maintain separation between the Jews and their host populations throughout the Medieval period and until recently. Hebrew was the language taught and only those in trades requiring regular communication with gentiles learned other languages. Even though Jews were 10% of the population in early 20^th century Poland, the majority could not speak Polish before WWI. Interestingly, the more prestigious were the least likely to use or even know Polish.

Until the modern era, Jews have lived within - though apart from - the nations of Europe. The Enlightenment changed that. The development of the nation-state required all to be citizens of it, not of some self-governing group living within the state. MacDonald writes that "It is not an overstatement to claim that the European Enlightenment has been the most traumatic event in the history of Judaism as a group evolutionary strategy." The responses were several-fold: Reform Judaism, new social controls via voluntary Jewish associations, and Zionism.

Overall, MacDonald shows how the power of ethnocentrism and resource competition between virtually non-assimilating groups in the same geographic area has occurred over millennia, yet allowing the minimal interactions necessary for survival and mutual growth. Anti-Semitism is a naturally expected and powerful phenomenon, yet the strength of Jewish ethnocentrism has prevailed until recently. Because of the advent of liberal anti-ethnocentrism, the long-range future for both Judaism and anti-Semitism seems poor. It remains to be seen if one (in any recognizable form) can exist without the other.

Technically, the book suffers from two weaknesses. Firstly, both volumes were originally intended to be one and the first makes numerous references to Volume 2, Separation and Its Discontents which is still awaiting release. Secondly, many terms, names, and dates of events that are probably known primarily to Jewish scholars are undefined. A glossary would also have been a helpful addition.

Kevin MacDonald is Professor of Psychology at California State University, Long Beach, CA, USA. He has published widely in the area of human development, sociobiology, and evolutionary psychology and is Secretary/Archivist and newsletter editor for the Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES).