From Meccania to Atlantis - Part 4½: Darkness in the Cranium

From the desk of Takuan Seiyo on Sun, 2008-12-14 08:54

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This is a brief post scriptum to Part 4, warranted by a series of most interesting comments thereto by a Mr. W. Lindsay Wheeler, and counter arguments by other readers, for whose positive comments I am thankful.
 
It is strange indeed that the Roman Catholic faith still harbors such a high percentage of Antisemites, particularly on the periphery of Europe bracketed by Ireland on one side and Poland on the other. Part of it has to do with the limited teaching of the Bible in Catholic education – at least the kind I know from Europe. Many traditional Catholics have little idea of how very much their image of Christ is derived from a book composed in part and later redacted by the Jews’ traditional enemies, the Middle Eastern Greeks who had already invented Antisemitism in BCE Alexandria. It is also deeply ignorant about the actual man Christians would call by the Greek word, Christ, though his own disciples had called him “Rabbi.”
 
Lack of true knowledge of Old Testament and its inseparable connection to Jesus and to his teachings leads not only to spiritual poverty, but to an intellectual one as well. The Bible is, after all, the greatest work of literature ever written, whatever else it may be. It is too, a foundation of European civilization without which one like Mr. Wheeler is streaking naked in his bared-fang frothing through the corridors of civilized men.
 
Mr. Wheeler’s specific comments do not merit a reply, but the comments of his interlocutors do. For one, what ought to be important to us – as opposed to the Body Snatchers – is not whether one says something negative against Jews, blacks etc., but whether it’s true. Probably one of the most controversial things I am going to write in this series is that Antipod schools ought to restore the study of history to great prominence in the curriculum – and it ought to be true history.
 
True history calls for teaching about the past and present barbarity of Africa, but also about the evil of slavery, whatever pique it may cause south of the Mason-Dixon line. True history must teach about the massive Jewish complicity in the Bolshevik’s rise to power, including in the 1919 Munich Soviet Republic that may have put Hitler over the edge. But this calls for learning also why Jews had been pushed in this direction by their rejection by Christian society. It calls for acknowledging that the Catholic Church used to try cats and pigs for Satanism and burn them at the stake, in addition to the 100,000 women so dispatched – but also that it enabled the scientific revolution.
 
One side of these issues is verboten under the current regime. True education does not mean teaching the side now forbidden, but teaching the whole truth, including this side.
 
One issue in which Jew-haters reveal their prejudiced ignorance is in their treatment of Jews as a tribe with an evolutionary agenda. It is probably true with respect to very narrow, specific segments, e.g. the Syrian-Jewish community from Aleppo, or the Hasidim. But Jews as a people, particularly the Ashkenazi ones, have ceased being a tribe more than 100 years ago. In fact, there are major schisms among Jews even about such supposed issues of tribal evolutionary strategy as Zionism, the Jewish religion, homosexuality (strictly forbidden in Judaism), support for the Democratic Party and more.
 
The truth shall make you free; now, which Jew said that?
 
This business of superior–inferior is for idiots; always has been. Superior in what way, for what purpose? Truth calls for teaching about racial differences, some of which confer advantages on nonwhites, as any witness to an Olympics or to an English spelling bee will tell you.
 
Those who decry Jews who decry white supremacism have not ventured far from their corner pub. If Mr. Wheeler could step into the skin of a Chinese or Japanese, and look at white men through those eyes, he would find plenty to squirm about. At the time Queen Isabella was boasting of having taken only two baths in her lifetime, and the royal houses of Europe were swarming with fleas, the Japanese had been bathing daily in hot water for a thousand years. The features of the Chinese culture that propel China to run circles around the West despite of China’s various handicaps have been part of that culture for 2500 years now.
 
So let’s all slow down on this supremacy stuff, and go to work – something we have much to learn about from the Orientals. As it were, whites have many reasons to feel good about their culture and its achievements, but the way to build on those does not involve cock-a-doodle-doo.
 
Libertarianism will get a treatment in one of the next chapters, and not a very positive one. Anybody who would confuse Austrian economics with Libertarianism I’d not make my Minister of Finance. BTW, the most influential member of the nefarious Jew conspiracy Mr. Wheeler calls “libertarianism” was not a Jew, though related to one. It was Friedrich von Hayek, a gentile relative of the ¾ Jewish philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.
 
To connect the unfortunate term “racialism” to the Bible, people who claim to be Christians, and who have a brain, ought to have an operative knowledge of basic statistical terms such as Gaussian Distribution, mean, and standard deviation.
 
Which means that whatever statements one makes about any group of people, however true, are true so only in the statistical sense. There should always be room for those removed by more than one sigma from the mean. Or, as Abraham said in Sodom to the entity channeled in our times by Mr. W. Lindsay Wheeler: “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the fifty righteous who are in it?” [Gen. 18:23-25].
 
Lastly, Brussels Journal’s editors may be compelled to install race idiot filters one day, because a stream of compulsive subpar postings in a righteous tone and with lots of soi-disant sensational revelations generate much wheel spinning. On the other hand, people who are “extreme right wing” – as this community is labeled by some Body Snatchers – will always have to deal with those who are even more “right wing.” The latter are, of course, so “right” that they are actually way on the left, as were Hitler and Mussolini.
 
Maybe some of the fruitbars are salvageable, and for that purpose maybe at least an attempt at argument is justified. Ultimately, however, one has to be aware that unalloyed racial hatred is a disease, and one that requires quarantine. It’s the evil twin of Body Snatching, after all, though manifested as counter-matter in a parallel universe.
 
 

See also:

From Meccania to Atlantis - Part 1: The March of the Body Snatchers, 28 October 2008

From Meccania to Atlantis - Part 2: From the Clenched Fist to the Raised Middle Finger, 1 November 2008

From Meccania to Atlantis - Part 3: From Encirclement to Breakout, 27 November 2008

From Meccania to Atlantis - Part 4: Tribe, 12 December 2008

@fcal

Submitted by Takuan Seiyo on Tue, 2008-12-16 06:26.

You have the facts right. BTW, Thomas Sowell wrote a wonderful book pertaining to your last paragraph, which I agree with in principle. And Thomas Sowell is the answer to some of the other posts here.

When we look at the 19th and

Submitted by fcal on Wed, 2008-12-17 01:00.

When we look at the 19th and early 20th century situation of the Jews in Europe, a religious and cultural minority, and the manner by which they attained societal success, without any Government organizing positive discrimination, one can only wonder how this was possible.

The only reason why this was achieved IMHO was the prevalence of the Enlightenment inspired classical liberal philosophy of equal opportunities. The results being the fruit of the endeavour and exertion of the individual concerned.

To the history-lovers

Submitted by Takuan Seiyo on Mon, 2008-12-15 02:37.

I don’t know if you gentlemen are pros in this field. I am a dilettante dabbler. My expertise is only in truth, but that has to do with Zen and I don’t want to get off the rails here.

The problem we have is that so few of the well-known historians nowadays seem to be interested in truth. And we need to find those who are, because love of truth and deep knowledge and love of history have to come together.

 

So, if we are ever going to have a cabinet position for Minister of History, who would be your choice? Mine would be Paul Johnson, but we better form that cabinet soon, because he is getting old.

 

The orientation I refer to calls for total impartiality. I am not looking for someone who’ll whitewash the West, or accept the version written by the winners. I have enough confidence in the West to believe that its history will withstand any scrutiny, and compared to other peoples’ histories it will still merit love and respect.

 

But watch out. Monarchist, for instance, is cherry-picking history to bolster his point of view. He cites true reasons why traditional Poles may still have a reason to feel animus toward Jews. However, the same reasons exist in the West. I am not very happy with Jews, as a group, for the same reason. But all that does not justify the Kielce Pogrom, and a series of similar post-war incidents, not to speak of the pre-war ones.

 

Similarly, to be a monarchist, one has to lay out the worst-case against monarchy first. To stay with Poland, after Sobieski it all went downhill. Polish 18 century monarchs included outright traitors, fops and fools. And I don’t see much better in the post-medieval history of Spain, France etc. Flanders, on the other hand, got along very well without monarchs.

 

 

 

@Takuan

Submitted by Monarchist on Thu, 2008-12-18 21:43.

1. Kielce pogrom was a communist orchestrated event, this is commonly accepted view among Polish conservatives. If you read Polish, you could buy proper books online.

2. Polish 18 century monarchs have very little to say. Monarchy was infected by deadly virus of 'noble's democracy' which lead our country to disaster.

@marcfrans

Submitted by Takuan Seiyo on Mon, 2008-12-15 02:07.

Your attachment of skin color to these things is trivializing the issue. I have remarked on this before. And I know better than most how human values are similar, given my personal history, a sufficient disclosure of which I have made on these pages.

 

But there are giants differences as well. Among others, if you think, a la Dubya, that all people yearn for the democracy, I have a bridge in Fallujah I’d like to sell you.

 

The solution that I have only begun delineating will not appeal to you, and that’s fine. But the alternative picture implied in your post is grounded in denial of reality. The difference between us is that you accept that reality without acknowledging its true nature, while I acknowledge its true nature and reject it. You and I see the world differently, and we will not convince each other.

 

Cold Shower

Submitted by marcfrans on Mon, 2008-12-15 00:10.

1) I certainly appreciate Takuan Seiyo's comments concerning the idiocy of antisemitism and the need for the teaching of "true history" (as opposed to the distortions of PC history).  He also makes a useful point about understanding basic statistical terms, although I would put that differently by stressing the moral duty to judge individuals as individuals (and not as members of some 'tribal' group).  One can hardly advocate "cultural christianity" (elsewhere in part 3, I believe) and do otherwise, unless one thinks that term could somehow be rationally divorced from the contents of the bible.

2)  Looking back on the 4 articles+postcript, there is much for reasonable conservatives to agree with: such as the attachment to cultural identity (but not to anything called "racial identity"), the resistance to mass immigration (especially immigration of "people so dissimilar"), the refusal to accept "PC's veil of silence", the need for a "conservative Burkian disposition", opposition to supranational bodies (but not voluntary international cooperation), etc...  At the same time, I see little empirical evidence of "whites' disfranchisement" in Western democratic societies (unless this is meant to refer to legislated attacks on freedom of political speech in certain European countries).  

3) As to the proposed remedy of an "exodus", or the formation of "anti-pod communities", it would seem  unwordly, impractical, defeatist, and counterproductive.  A retreat into something akin to 'white tribal homelands' is certainly not the way to safeguard presumed 'white values'.  'Amish communities' can survive in America, because the USA still has a democratic civic culture (which developed out of judeo-christian values and) which tolerates such diversity.  A retreat of conservatives into 'white' tribal homelands can only undermine that civic culture further and strengthen its enemies.   Separation from the muslims and, more importantly, from the (majority?) "white dhimmis", is the equivalent of 'giving up', of abandoning the culture war that is raging in most Western societies and surrendering to its enemies.  Neither the Amish, nor "cultural christianity" (in conservative 'white enclaves') would then be able to survive.   

4) Of course, I do not believe that there is such a thing as "white values".  There are values which empirically and currently can be seen to survive and thrive better in white or European societies for a whole host of reasons, but values have no 'color'.  Values make or determine culture, and it is culture that conservatives should focus on.   If they want to preserve judeo-christian values, which historically have enabled the emergence of 'democracy' and of meaningful individual freedom, they must engage in the ongoing culture wars within western civilisation, and not retreat into 'tribal' homelands.  Clearly, great practitioners and advocates of "true history", like Madden and Hanson are actively engaged in that unavoidable and necessary 'fight' for our culture.             

True history, part III

Submitted by Sagunto on Sun, 2008-12-14 22:26.

:) Capodistrias,

 

I'd like to check out that garage of yours some day! The book by Dahlin enjoys the good company here of two large volumes by Prof. Hans Jansen (not the arabist) on the subject of Pius XII. He and rabbi Dahlin have met several times. The excellent studies are written in Dutch, regrettably. One of them consists of a minutely detailed chronological account of the continuous protests by the Vatican, on multiple levels (the chronology extends from 1938 into 2001), and the praise of the Jewish community showered on Pius XII during his pontificate.

Well, since we've started a little shop of books on true history here, I imagine you also keep a Duffy handy in your toolbox ;-)

[Prof. Eamon Duffy (1992/2005). The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580.]

Kind regs from Amsterdam forever city of Theo van Gogh,

Sag.
 

True History, part IV

Submitted by Capodistrias on Tue, 2008-12-16 20:20.

Sagunto,

Welkom to my bibliotek , of course, you'll have to sign a waiver not to hold me liable for any injuries from falling tomes and whatever is in some of these boxes.

Thank you for the Jansen reference, I'll have to take a look at it. Maybe we should suggest an english trans to Ignatius or Tan publishers?

I remember Duffy's book when it came out, I should have a copy. Thanks for the reminder. The wife will not be thanking you.

@TS

Paul Johnson is good. I prefer Christopher Dawson. Or is being alive a prerequisite for the position?

The Pope, the Jews, etc.

Submitted by Takuan Seiyo on Sun, 2008-12-14 21:47.

Thank you for the comments.  I agree with those who say that the Catholic Church deserves a lot more credit v. the Jews than it is given. To the erudite evidentiary chain presented by you I’d like to add one piece you’ll find fascinating. It’s a long-ago National Review article by General Ion Pacepa, a defector from Commieland who had been one of the top men in the Romanian Securitate. He had been personally involved in a plot orchestrated by the KGB (maybe NKVD then) to malign and distort Pope Pius XII wartime record.

 

 

Remember too who it is that’s writing. I already identified myself as a Pole born in the Catholic faith. Though my DNA is half Jewish, when I write something about the Roman Catholic Church or Polish Antisemitism I do so with an inside view. That Antisemitism exist, and it’s not related to Rome at all, but to some ethnic factors that are too many to discuss now.

 

 

For instance, I’ve spent considerable time in Switzerland and Italy, and I’ve never met a Swiss or Italian Antisemite. I wonder if there are any such in Denmark. But go to a countryside pub in the Ukraine, Poland, Austria, Croatia, Spain or Ireland, scratch the superficial façade off your local oldtimer drinking companion, and the Antisemite will show. But not if he is Protestant.

 

 

Monarchist makes an interesting point. Of course Poland doesn’t have many Antisemites these days. It’s a miracle it has any at all, for it hardly has any Jews. And the number of the Antisemites exceeds the number of Jews many times over.

 

 

Actually, when I go to Poland these days what irritates me is the Philosemites. I meet constantly upper middle class Poles who melt in adoration of the shetls, of Jewish klezmer music, of the Hasidim etc. But I tell them it’s ridiculous. First of all, it’s too late. Where were you when the Jews were actually here? Second, there is nothing I find adorable about the Jewish lifestyle in pre-1920s Eastern Europe. As a Pole, I would have resented them too – a majority of them, that is.

 

 

What the diehard racist doesn’t get is that it’s a game of statistics. You can have a prejudice against a group, but you cannot relate to each individual as though he embodied that group.

 

@Takuan

Submitted by Monarchist on Sun, 2008-12-14 22:22.

You are a Pole but don't claim to be an insider if you spend your life outside of Poland. There are anti-Jewish sentiments in Poland because of two major factors.

1. Older people still remember communism and collaboration of many Jews with the regime. What is more so called 'laic left', a part of Solidarity movement which communists allowed to compromise with them (round table) gained the power and mainstream media after 1989. Their leaders were mostly former Jewish Trockites, highly anti-conservative elements supported by euro-American left. For example Adam Michnik ( I will just add that his brother was a communist judge, granted few death penalties) became Goebbels of Polish euro-left.

2. Different Jewish groups (like World Jewish Committee) arrogantly demand huge compensations from Polish government. Compensations not for any individuals victims but for themselves who are supposed to represent "world's Jewry".

Of course this is not any reason to hate the Jews, however people are less or more unreasonable. Otherwise I would not be a monarchist!

True history, part II

Submitted by Sagunto on Sun, 2008-12-14 20:10.

I reckon you will @Monarchist.

 

I have two histories by Th. F. Madden, i.e. "The new concise History" (updated 2005 edition) and "The illustrated History" (2004). Enjoyed both.

Kind regs from Amsterdam,

Sag

 

True history indeed

Submitted by Sagunto on Sun, 2008-12-14 19:22.

For all those who are interested in "true history" (indeed) instead of perpetuating old myths about the so-called "Dark Ages", here's some info:

 

 

Jewish historian Rabbi David G. Dahlin states unequivocally that papal-Jewish relations are far better than most people think. Also a telling quote from historian Thomas Madden: "..Of all medieval institutions, the [Catholic] Church stood alone in Europe in its consistent condemnation of Jewish persecutions."
Prof. Madden adds to this: "the only safe place in Europe to be a Jew was in the lands of the pope."
Renowned scholar in Jewish history Cecil Roth, editor in chief of the Encyclopedia Judaica. Roth was the most the most prolific Jewish historian and 20th C's preeminent Jewish scholar of papal-Jewish relations. And what was his verdict?

Roth:
"Of all the dynasties in Europe, the papacy not only refused to persecute the Jews.. but through the ages popes were protectors of the Jews. The truth is that the popes and the Catholic Church from the earliest days of the Church were never responsible for physical persecution of Jews and only Rome, among the capitals of the world, is free from having been a place of Jewish tragedy. For this we Jews must have gratitude." Note that this highly esteemed scholar also speaks about 'the truth', but my guess is that he has put reason before anger in his scientific effort the get close to it.

To keep things short: a list of popes who protected the Jews, starting with the one who started this catholic tradition:

Pope Gregory I (590-604), a.k.a. 'the Great', praised by Jewish 14th C philosopher Judah Mosconi as "a great philosopher who delved into Hebrew books.. and loved Jews very much and made for them great deliverances [from harm] in his days." He wrote the historic decree Sicut Judaeis, which introduced all subsequent papal edicts defending the Jews. He affirmed that the Jews "should have no infringement of their rights.. We forbid to vilify the Jews. We allow them to live as Romans and to have full authority over their possessions."

Pope Calixtus II (1119-1124): this pope's promised defense of the Jews (in urgent need of reinforcement after Crusade I) was reissued at least twenty-two times by successive popes between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries (apparently this was needed. If only some people in that period had been more "papist" ;-)

Pope Gregory X (1271-1276)
Pope Clement VI (1342-1352)
Pope Boniface IX (1389-1403)
Pope Martin V (1417-1431)

Pope Sixtus IV (1471-1484): deeply interested in Hebrew literature. One of the most philo-Semitic Renaissance popes.

Pope Alexander VI (1492-1503)
Pope Julius II (1503-1513)

Pope Leo X (1513-1521): Roth has pointed out that Leo X was so well regarded by the Jews of his day that it was said that the Jews of Rome considered his pontificate "a presage of messianic times."

Pope Clement VII (1523-1534)
Pope Paul III (1534-1549)

Pope Benedict XIV: produced an official report, known as "one of the most remarkable, broad-minded and humane documents in the history of the Catholic Church -a document which will always cause his memory to be cherished in gratitude and affection by the Jewish people." [Roth] It was a scholarly investigation of all reported cases of Jewish ritual murder in history. It established the complete lack of any basis for the accusation.

Pope Clement XIV
Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903)
Pope Pius X (1903-1914)
Pope Benedict XV (1914-1922)
Pope Pius XI (1922-1939)

Pope Pius XII (1939-1958): this pope and his "papist organization" managed (according to Israeli historian Pinchas Lapide in his meticulously researched 1967 book Three Popes and the Jews) "to save at least 700,000 but probably as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands." It is now certain that he personally managed to hide many Jews in his papal residence at Castel Gandolfo. Of course some 'thinkers' would rather listen to the accusations and myths of non-historians like Mr. Goldhagen or German playwrite and friend of Holocaust-denier Irving, Herr Rolf Hochhuth. I'd only say to such people "think again", probably to no avail though.

Pope John XXIII (1958-1963)

Pope Paul VI (1963-1978): refused to accept award for his rescue work on behalf of Jews during the Holocaust. He declined, saying, "All I did was ny duty, and besides I only acted upon orders from the Holy Father [Pius XII]."
Pope John Paul II (1978-2005)
Pope Benedict XVI (2005- )

Sag.

@Saguntum

Submitted by Capodistrias on Sun, 2008-12-14 20:56.

This time you beat me to the punch :)

Great post, great history. Rabbi Dalin's The Myth of Hitler's Pope I keep by my desk. I've met Italian Jews who were saved by Pius XII.The attacks on him were obviously orchestrated by the Chekists as part of the Soviet strategy in the Cold War, that would be the aspect of the Cold War the Soviets did win, the war to undermine, infiltrate, and corrupt our institutions.

Wheeler's sad diatribes against the Jews are unfortunate on many levels. I noticed, as you so stunningly hammer home, Wheeler avoided citing Papal authority in his post, a rather glaring oversight for someone professing to be championing traditional,conservative Catholicism.

Kind regards,
From my garage ;)

I don't think that Poland

Submitted by Monarchist on Sun, 2008-12-14 18:32.

I don't think that Poland have much of anti-Jewish people these days. If not the Holocaust Industry scam  they would be a marginal force. Before the war there was plenty of Jews in Poland, thus they were not favourites of the natives. The Jews were awful tribalists themselves, mostly unwilling to learn local language. Especially in this website you should not be surprised that multiculturalism doesn't work. You cannot compare those few Jews living today  in the west to massive population in pre-WWII Poland. Ethnic minorities behave differently when stronger and they are perceived differently by locals as well.

Second issue that I need to raise is the attitude of the Roman Catholic Church. Perhaps author should show here such document where Vatican says that Jews should be burned or killed in different way? This is nonsense. Perhaps Calvin and Luther behaved in similar manner but their activity on this ground have nothing to do with the RCC.

 

"Probably one of the most

Submitted by Capodistrias on Sun, 2008-12-14 17:27.

"Probably one of the most controversial things I am going to write in this series is that Antipod schools ought to restore the study of history to great prominence in the curriculum – and it ought to be true history."

TS,
As an historian working out of his garage I look forward to the upcoming pieces...

Your writing is extraordinary, the fact that you are not a native speaker of English bogles my mind. Conrad would be proud.