Bret Stephens Jewish Supremacy column pushback

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A new op-ed from controversial New York Times columnist Bret Stephens has provoked outrage from some Times readers, including a US Senator and prominent Jewish writers.

In "The Secrets of Jewish Genius," Stephens explores the assertion that Jewish people, in particular the Ashkenazi Jewish ethnic group, are predispositioned to be more intelligent than other groups. Many critics responded that this argument forms the basis of the eugenics school of thought, which suggests that the human race can be improved by encouraging the reproduction of populations with "desirable" traits — an ideology that was foundational to systems of slavery and to the Holocaust.

Brianna Wu, a candidate for the US House of Representatives and target of Gamergate harassment, said the same argument about Ashkenazi Jews was used by white supremacists who sent death threats to female video game developers during Gamergate.

In his column, Stephens relies on one 2005 study that measured IQ tests of Ashkenazi Jews compared to other ethnic groups. IQ testing has been characterized as highly misleading in other scientific studies, in part due to sociological factors and the limitations of what the standard IQ test measures.

One of the authors of the study cited by Stephens has been identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an extremist due to his ties to white nationalist groups.

Not only was Stephens' column branded as offensive, but it's not the first or second time he has been accused of drawing on dubious science and cherry-picking from historical sources. His Times debut cast doubt on climate science and he was widely mocked and criticized for an August column that suggested the insult "bedbug" was anti-Semitic.

The Times highlighted a comment agreeing with Stephens to pin to the top of the comment section, whereas most of the "Reader Picks" are critical of the column. The comment section was closed the day the article was published.

"Bret Stephens" trended on Twitter, where the response to the column was overwhelmingly negative. The Times tweet of the article was "ratioed," which means the tweet had significantly more critical replies than likes or retweets. Some of the backlash included people saying they canceled their Times subscriptions and instructing others on how to do so.

It's certainly not the first time a Stephens column has provoked the same backlash, nor is it the first time his work has prompted people to threaten to cancel their subscriptions. But for prominent figures, this column left more of an impact.

Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii wrote that the column "crossed a very important line and for no reason other than to be provocative," compared to Stephens' other controversial work.

Bret Stephens latest piece is not like the other ones. I mean it is bad, like the other ones," Schatz wrote. "Well, consider me provoked."

David Klion, the news editor of Jewish Currents, which publishes from a left-leaning Jewish perspective, wrote that the explanation for "Jews are better-educated than the typical American" doesn't need to depend on race science, and has "straightforward sociological explanations."

Brianna Wu, a candidate for the US House of Representatives...

...identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center...

I don't want to submit to the NYT's paywall to read the whole story, but in this remarkably sourced news report about the story I'd offer two corrections at least:


should read, "Notorious Internet lunatic Brianna Wu, a candidate for the US House of Representatives...."


And:

should read, "...identified by the radical Marxist extortion racket known as the Southern Poverty Law Center...."

An eminent Lithuanian rabbi is annoyed that his yeshiva students devote their lunch breaks to playing soccer instead of discussing Torah. The students, intent on convincing their rav of the game’s beauty, invite him to watch a professional match. At halftime, they ask what he thinks.

“I have solved your problem,” the rabbi says.

“How?”

“Give one ball to each side, and they will have nothing to fight over.”

I have this (apocryphal) anecdote from Norman Lebrecht’s new book, “Genius & Anxiety,” an erudite and delightful study of the intellectual achievements and nerve-wracked lives of Jewish thinkers, artists, and entrepreneurs between 1847 and 1947. Sarah Bernhardt and Franz Kafka; Albert Einstein and Rosalind Franklin; Benjamin Disraeli and (sigh) Karl Marx — how is it that a people who never amounted even to one-third of 1 percent of the world’s population contributed so seminally to so many of its most pathbreaking ideas and innovations?

The common answer is that Jews are, or tend to be, smart. When it comes to Ashkenazi Jews, it’s true. “Ashkenazi Jews have the highest average I.Q. of any ethnic group for which there are reliable data,” noted one 2005 paper. “During the 20th century, they made up about 3 percent of the U.S. population but won 27 percent of the U.S. Nobel science prizes and 25 percent of the ACM Turing awards. They account for more than half of world chess champions.”

But the “Jews are smart” explanation obscures more than it illuminates. Aside from the perennial nature-or-nurture question of why so many Ashkenazi Jews have higher I.Q.s, there is the more difficult question of why that intelligence was so often matched by such bracing originality and high-minded purpose. One can apply a prodigious intellect in the service of prosaic things — formulating a war plan, for instance, or constructing a ship. One can also apply brilliance in the service of a mistake or a crime, like managing a planned economy or robbing a bank.

But as the story of the Lithuanian rabbi suggests, Jewish genius operates differently. It is prone to question the premise and rethink the concept; to ask why (or why not?) as often as how; to see the absurd in the mundane and the sublime in the absurd. Ashkenazi Jews might have a marginal advantage over their gentile peers when it comes to thinking better. Where their advantage more often lies is in thinking different.

These explanations for Jewish brilliance aren’t necessarily definitive. Nor are they exclusive to the Jews.

Where do these habits of mind come from?

There is a religious tradition that, unlike some others, asks the believer not only to observe and obey but also to discuss and disagree. There is the never-quite-comfortable status of Jews in places where they are the minority — intimately familiar with the customs of the country while maintaining a critical distance from them. There is a moral belief, “incarnate in the Jewish people” according to Einstein, that “the life of the individual only has value [insofar] as it aids in making the life of every living thing nobler and more beautiful.”

And there is the understanding, born of repeated exile, that everything that seems solid and valuable is ultimately perishable, while everything that is intangible — knowledge most of all — is potentially everlasting.

“We had been well off, but that was all we got out,” the late financier Felix Rohatyn recalled of his narrow escape, with a few hidden gold coins, from the Nazis as a child in World War II. “Ever since, I’ve had the feeling that the only permanent wealth is what you carry around in your head.” If the greatest Jewish minds seem to have no walls, it may be because, for Jews, the walls have so often come tumbling down.

At its best, the American university can still be a place of relentless intellectual challenge rather than ideological conformity and social groupthink. At its best, the United States can still be the country that respects, and sometimes rewards, all manner of heresies that outrage polite society and contradict established belief. At its best, the West can honor the principle of racial, religious and ethnic pluralism not as a grudging accommodation to strangers but as an affirmation of its own diverse identity. In that sense, what makes Jews special is that they aren’t. They are representational.

The West, however, is not at its best. It’s no surprise that Jew hatred has made a comeback, albeit under new guises. Anti-Zionism has taken the place of anti-Semitism as a political program directed against Jews. Globalists have taken the place of rootless cosmopolitans as the shadowy agents of economic iniquity. Jews have been murdered by white nationalists and black “Hebrews.” Hate crimes against Orthodox Jews have become an almost daily fact of life in New York City.

Jews of the late 19th century would have been familiar with the hatreds. Jews of the early 21st century should recognize where they could lead. What’s not secret about Jewish genius is that it’s a terribly fragile flower.

I don't want to submit to the NYT's paywall to read the whole story, but in this remarkably sourced news report about the story I'd offer two corrections at least:


should read, "Notorious Internet lunatic Brianna Wu, a candidate for the US House of Representatives...."


And:

should read, "...identified by the radical Marxist extortion racket known as the Southern Poverty Law Center...."

Here is the column in question which I should have quoted earlier
The Secrets of Jewish Genius It’s not about having higher I.Q.s.

New York Times columnist Bret Stephens is once again stirring outrage—this time with a piece entitled “The Secrets of Jewish Genius” that cites a paper co-authored by an academic labeled an “extremist” eugenicist and celebrated by white supremacists.

He said that Jews “are, or tend to be, smart” and cited the 2005 paper “Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence” by Gregory Cochran, Jason Hardy, and Henry Harpending, which declares that Ashkenazi Jews have the highest average I.Q. of any ethnic group. Stephens’ take? “Ashkenazi Jews might have a marginal advantage over their gentile peers when it comes to thinking better. Where their advantage more often lies is in thinking different,” he said.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has Harpending, who died in 2016, on its list of extremists and lists his ideology as “white nationalist.”

“Harpending has given talks on these ideas at white supremacist conferences, and is widely celebrated among white supremacists on forums like Stormfront and the Vanguard News Network, who see a champion for their cause behind his academic rhetoric,” the center said.

Benton also pointed out in a Twitter thread that the lead author on the 2005 paper, Gregory Cochran, has a history of homophobia.

In the paper “An Evolutionary Look at Human Homosexuality,” Cochran wrote that homosexuality, from a biological perspective, is “surely a disease.”

So it’s a bug,” Cochran wrote. “Somehow, the brain has been damaged, but in a limited and focused way.”

The Times and Stephens did not respond to requests for comment.

After a public uproar, The New York Times has revised a column by Bret Stephens that cited an academic paper co-authored by an anthropologist who has been branded a white nationalist.

An editor’s note, appended to the column headlined “The Secrets of Jewish Genius,” says a reference to the 2005 study was removed and that Stephens did not know the author “promoted racist views.”

“Mr. Stephens was not endorsing the study or its authors’ views, but it was a mistake to cite it uncritically,” the note said. “The effect was to leave an impression with many readers that Mr. Stephens was arguing that Jews are genetically superior. That was not his intent.” It noted that he “went on instead to argue that culture and history are crucial factors in Jewish achievements.”

It was quickly pointed out on social media that Harpending, who died in 2016, was listed as an extremist by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which listed his ideology as “white nationalist.”

“Harpending has given talks on these ideas at white supremacist conferences, and is widely celebrated among white supremacists on forums like Stormfront and the Vanguard News Network, who see a champion for their cause behind his academic rhetoric,” the center said.

Nieman Lab scholar Joshua Benton also pointed out in a Twitter thread that Cochran has a history of homophobia.

In the paper “An Evolutionary Look at Human Homosexuality,” Cochran wrote that homosexuality, from a biological perspective, is “surely a disease.”

So it’s a bug,” Cochran wrote. “Somehow, the brain has been damaged, but in a limited and focused way.”

I think he could have done a much better job researching. If he had included some articles I have seen questioning if atheists are more intelligent than religious people, it would have shed a bit more light on the culture side of things for the Jews.