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The Daily Dish - 2006-2011 archives for The Daily Dish, featuring Andrew Sullivan

"The Jew Thing"

By The Daily Dish
Feb 27 2007, 4:02 AM ET

Sam Harris and I have been debating God online (I'm at work on my latest epistle but had to finish my D'Souza review first), so why not debate the Jews? In particular the work of Kevin MacDonald, an evolutionary psychologist, is as incendiary as it is intriguing. The Derb strides in where even he has previously feared to tread. Money quote:

Yes, indeed I was, and am, 'afraid of offending Jews.' Of course I am! For a person like myself, a Gentile who is a very minor name in American opinion journalism, desirous of ascending to some slightly less minor status, ticking off Jews is a very, very bad career strategy. I approached the MacDonald review with great trepidation. I gave my honest opinion, of course the entire point of my line of work is to speak your mind and get paid for it but I'll admit I was nervous. Reading the review again, I think it shows.

I have somewhere formulated Derbyshire’s Law, which asserts that: “ANYTHING WHATSOEVER said by a Gentile about Jews will be perceived as antisemitic by someone, somewhere.” I have experienced the truth of this many times.

Read the whole thing. It's fascinating. It begins here.



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