Saturday, October 03, 2009

Israel Has No Right to Exist

Now that all of the anti-Semites have eagerly googled their way here, let me repeat that Israel has no "right" to exist. Rather, it has an obligation to do so.

Someone once said -- can't think of who at the moment -- that the purpose of culture was to produce a few great men. That being the case, perhaps the purpose of man is to produce a few great cultures.

First of all, this has nothing to do with the infinite worth of the individual. Rather, it has more to do with how one culture -- say, the Palestinians -- produces monsters by the truckbombload, whereas another -- oh, say, Israel -- produces more human greatness on a per-keppellah basis than any other.

Imagine if the UN weren't the diabolical shmutspool that it is. Not only is it the "last best hope" of the world's monsters, but it is actively at war with the best that mankind has to offer. Imagine: the UN Commission on Human Rights "has awarded 27 percent of its condemnatory resolutions for Israel," a a number which dwarfs any other country, despite the fact that Israel constitutes a tiny fraction of the world's population.

These thoughts are not new to me (I wrote a previous post with the same title a few years ago), but they are being renewed in reading George Gilder's The Israel Test. This book should be dagger in the heart of multiculturalism and the gospiel of "diversity," but it won't matter, for you cannot kill what is already dead. Yes, life can vanquish death, but not in academic debate. If anything, debating merely breathes life into the zombie. It's what they feed on.

Once again I am reminded of a Star Trek episode I was watching the other night. While beaming some Romulans on board, the Enterprise had also unwittingly taken aboard a disembodied alien which fed off of violence. It manipulated events so that the Romulans and humans were at each others throats. The alien didn't care about the outcome. Rather, it just fed off the vital emotion that was generated.

That is about as good a description of a mind parasite as you will see. Depending upon the parasite, it can feed on violence, or passion, or anger, or drama, or politics, or deceit (since the lie partakes of omnipotence), whatever. And indeed, the most serious mind parasites induct others into the psychodrama. If you can maintain "evenly hovering attention," you can feel the parasite's pull. For example, before responding to a troll, try to detach from your reaction and analyze what is provoking it. What has the troll said to draw you into his little drama, and what is it in you that has been provoked? Also, you will have noticed that the troll hardly feeds on truth or light. Quite the contrary; rather, it's your emotional reaction they're after.

I don't want to get too sidetracked here, but this is what distinguishes projection from what is called projective identification, which is an absolutely vital concept to understand if one is to understand humans. Through projective identification, the projector -- again, say the Palestinians -- behaves in such a way that it evokes the very reaction that reinforces the original perception and justifies the behavior.

Obviously, it is impossible to understand the left without the concept of projective identification. Nor is it possible to understand the UN, if that isn't a redundancy. One can know what the UN "is" by seeing what it accuses Israel of -- just as one can know what the left is by seeing what it accuses conservatives of. Again, I don't want to dwell in truisms.

For Gilder, Israel -- or the Jewish people -- is like an ax that conveniently cuts straight through the center of mankind. On one side you will have people who believe in freedom, achievement, and especially creative excellence. On the other side you will have people who believe in "fairness," in zero-sum economics, and in collectivism, but the practical effect is an envious attack on excellence -- and the cultural means to excellence.

Again, we are speaking in truisms, given the staggering amount of human excellence produced by the Jewish people. All decent people should be supporters of Israel -- indeed, even all indecent people, if only for reasons of pure self-interest, given the staggeringly disproportionate contribution they make to advances in science, including, of course medicine. In all likelihood a Jew will save your life many times over if he hasn't already (cf. nuclear physics).

In fact, if I were president, you know what I'd say to Ahmadinejad? I'd say how pathetic that you must rely upon Jewish physics to defend yourself! If this isn't a stark admission of the utter failure of Islamic science, I don't know what is. But anyway, thank you for admitting the superiority of the Jewish people, you frightful pig.

I don't know if I want to bore you with all of the statistics, but they do drive home the point. Gilder notes that Israel "with its population of 7.23 million, five and one-half million Jewish, stands behind only the United States in technological contributions." Excluding the Arabs, that's about... you do the math... 5.5 million vs. 300 million.... At any rate, "in per-capita innovation, Israel dwarfs all nations. The forces of civilization in the world continue to feed upon the quintessential wealth of mind epitomized by Israel."

Back to the idea that the purpose of culture is to produce greatness. Gilder writes that "the Jewish three-tenths of 1 percent of world population has contributed some 25 percent of recent notable human-intellectual accomplishment in the modern period." For example, in the latter half of the 20th century they were awarded 29 percent of the Nobel Prizes, and in this century, 32 percent. Not to mention "51 percent of the Wolf Foundation Prizes in Physics, 28 percent of the Max Planck Medailles and 38 percent of the Dirac Medals for Theoretical Physics, 37 percent of the Heineman Prizes for Mathematical Physics, and 53 percent of the Enrico Fermi Awards." To say nothing of the incalculable contribution of John von Neumann to the computer technology you're using right now.

I know what you're thinking. What's up with this intolerable achievement gap? We need to put in place a global affirmative action program so that some other groups can get their fair share of prizes. We don't want to take anything away from Israel. We just want to spread the prizes around. How about a Nobel for that innovative Palestinian guy who placed the explosives up his rectum in order to avoid detection by the Israelis. How did he do it? It seems to defy certain laws of physics, such as placing a square peg into a round hole.

One reason Israel is despised by the international left is that it is the most conspicuous disproof of their precious economic -- or ecognostic -- fantasies. "As one of the world's most profitiable economies built on one of the world's most barren territories, Israel challenges all the materialist superstitions of zero-sum economics, based on the 'distribution' of natural resources and the exploitation of land and labor." Indeed, the "crippling error of zero-sum economics" is the chief cause of global poverty (Gilder).

Israel is not what is wrong with the world, to put it mildly. Rather, it is one of the few things that is right with the world.

One more irony. "Jews, amazingly, excel so readily in all intellectual fields that they outperform all rivals in the arena of anti-Semitism." Thus, Obama is a mere shmendrick compared to the likes of Chomsky, Zinn, Soros, Marx, Engels, Naomi Klein, Ahmadinejad, etc.

I think I'll just continue this post tomorrow.... Shalom Shabb'atman.

30 comments:

julie said...

Jews, amazingly, excel so readily in all intellectual fields that they outperform all rivals in the arena of anti-Semitism.

Is it possible that Ahmadinejad belongs on that list?

I wonder what kind of response is going to be provoked by this disclosure? Frothing at the mouth, cries of negation and condemnation of the documents (it was Photoshop!), and increased calls to exterminate the Jews, no doubt.

Interesting.

Gagdad Bob said...

I actually just added that one at the end before seeing your comment....

Van Harvey said...

"In fact, if I were president, you know what I'd say to Ahmadinejad? I'd say how pathetic that you must rely upon Jewish physics to defend yourself! If this isn't a stark admission of the utter failure of Islamic science, I don't know what is. But anyway, thank you for admitting the superiority of the Jewish people, you frightful pig."

Oh... what I wouldn't give to be able to give my vote to a candidate who did and would say that!

julie said...

Van, I'd love to be a fly on the wall at that hypothetical conversation. Do you think his head would explode?

Bob, I guess I should have just waited a few minutes :)

Northern Bandit said...

It is indeed ironic that most American Jews are staunch Democrats. However I expect a majority of them are not observant.

Fortunately for coons I'm iphoning this before a flight so can't be long winded today. I'll make up for it from hotel - wink.

Anonymous said...

It is indeed ironic that most American Jews are staunch Democrats.

No, it's not "ironic", it's just that they are smarter than you; and more morally engaged with the world.

Bob conflates Israel and the Jewish people. Most of the accomplishments of the latter have no relation to the state of Israel (which didn't exist until 60 years ago); and there are good reasons to think that the diaspora life of the Jews was a major contributor to their intellectual abilities and (since the Enlightenment) their moral universalism -- which leads them to the Democratic party.

Israel was an attempt (amazingly successful) to transform the rootless cosmopolitans of the diaspora into men of the soil. Although Israel was majority socialist when it was founded, the logic of embattled nationalism has driven it to the right. That logic does not apply to Jews in the US.

Petey said...

Oops! Someone just failed the Israel test.

Petey said...

But we'll have to wait until tomorrow's post to show why he failed it so badly....

Cousin Dupree said...

I'm still waitin' for that Muslim diaspora to pay off. There are far more Muslims outside the Middle East than there are Jews in the whole world....

Cousin Dupree said...

From the WTF? Department: Coon Songs in Yiddish.

julie said...

Wow, that's weird.

On a possibly related note, when my niece was out visiting a year ago, I had Squirrel Nut Zippers playing in the car. At one point, she observed that it "sounded Jewish."

Being that she was twelve and I have no idea where she would have heard Jewish music, I thought that was both weird and interesting - mainly because a lot of it does.

Wasn't there a strong Jewish influence to a lot of early 20th century big band music?

Gagdad Bob said...

I don't know about that. But I just noticed how much The Band look like a bunch of frontier rabbis.

julie said...

They rather do. That would make for an interesting subgenre of Western novels.

debass said...

Most of the great American Songbook was written by Jews. Rogers, Hart, Hammerstien, Cohen, Berlin, etc.

Israel has been there for thousands of years. It was only recognized by the UN in 1948 and by the Balfour Decision in 1917.

Do I have to be Jewish to be a Zionist?

Unknown said...

> That would make for an
> interesting subgenre of
> Western novels.

Kind of like what's going on in 'The Weight'. You've got Carmen, the Devil, Crazy Chester... In Nazareth, no less.

Gagdad Bob said...

Or Daniel and the Sacred Harp...

julie said...

I like the lyrics; I may have to actually listen to them one of these days...

In other news, sign of the apocalypse?

Djadja said...

Julie, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Anonymous said...

One of the sockpuppets said: I'm still waitin' for that Muslim diaspora to pay off. There are far more Muslims outside the Middle East than there are Jews in the whole world....

The Muslims in Pakistan, Indonesia, etc do not constitute a diaspora. The people there were conquered and converted, not scattered from a single nation.

The cultures that are most like disaspora Jews are other ethnic minority communities that live within a majority culture but remain close-knit, such as Armenians and overseas Chinese. They initially tend to make their living through trade, and sometimes evolve into an intellectual elite. Arabs sometimes filled this role; they were the primary traders with Africa and for a long time. Arabs in the US are a such a minority; they tend to be small-business owners and their children are going to medical school, just like Jews were at a few generations ago.

Schuon said...

First of all, it is necessary to envisage a comment in its
totality and not be hypnotized, with perfect myopia, by a fragmentary difficulty, which after all is
the perspective of the devil, who disparages a mountain because of a fissure and, conversely,
praises an evil because of an inevitable particle of good.

Cousin Dupree said...

Good news from Deepak: "All conflict can end by realizing that the world is our projection and then stop fighting with our reflections."

Barackus said...

I thought getting rid of all ta nuclear junk would end all ta conflicts..?

julie said...

Suh-weet! So according to Deepak, I am god. Which means I'm still responsible for Alanis. And Deepak. Hm.

So when I click my heels three times and confer this tidbit of enlightenment upon the world, everything will be perfect and there will be whirled peas for all. Ready?

Damn, it didn't work.

Guess I'm off the hook for those two, at least...

julie said...

If he really believed what he says, he wouldn't waste any time fighting with conservatives, since they're all just projections from his own mind anyway.

Come to think of it, the conservatives he sees are projections from his own mind; lord knows they have little to do with reality.

Surber's translator said...

“Here come the more favor Obama just before the deadline and made showoff. He clearly won the battle in the media, but it turned out indeed to be indifferent. IOC members did not feel important, and they were indeed reduced to spectators and not players. So if he had come, he would have had time for a personal lubricant.”

Anonymous said...

In a small world, is it racism that prevents an imaginative reproductive program that would in time banish race and colour to the realm of myths and legends.

spanky said...

Butters?
You little skank you.

Anonymous said...

moral universalism and Democratic party in one sentence - that is really ironic. It could have had some truth 40 years ago; but now the main ideas of Democratic establishment are nihilism, moral anarchy and moral relativism, double standards and excuses for barbarity. All the above should be abomination for observant Jew, whereever he lives - in Israel or diaspora. But, alas, most diaspora Jews are too ready to imitate the worst decadent features of the cultures of the host nations.

Lush Life said...

It's ironic that Israel was created to protect against holocaust, when Israel has turned Gaza into a concentration camp.

Gagdad Bob said...

Quite true. Anything Israel hands over to be run by Palestinians will become a concentration camp.

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