Among many of my correspondents, there is one who calls himself "Birdman." (He obviously loves birds; he once sent me a picture with a pigeon on his head.) Birdman, the author of more than 40 books, has a first rate mind and a truly original way of looking at things, and I have always enjoyed whatever thoughts and observations he sent me, even though sometimes I didn't agree with his specific point of view.
I promised him I would reciprocate, and ever since he announced that he had created his own website, <http://www.thebirdman.org> I have been on the lookout for an essay that would give my readers a flavor of how Birdman thinks and writes.
I think I found it this morning.
I have been holding heavy-duty discussions with a friend about the difference between the Gentiles and the Jews as groups, one difference being that the latter seem to have retained their strong genetic survival characteristics much better than the Gentiles who have wasted their best men (and with them, their best genes) in war after war after fratricidal war.
Here is how birdman views this topic in his essay "Genetic Relativity Theory". It is a bit esoteric, but definitely food for thought against the background of what happened in the century we have just left behind:
Entomologists have long puzzled over the question of why the order Hymenoptera, which includes bees, wasps and ants, are "social insects", ie, are organized in 'socialistic' or 'communistic' colonies whose principal characteristic is that the group counts for everything and the individual nothing. An answer to this puzzle has been proposed by entomologist William Hamilton, who observed that a feature which the Hymenoptera share in common is a peculiar type of reproduction called "haplodiploidy".
While the exact description of this process is beyond the scope of this essay (it may, however, be found in Connie Barlow, ed, "From Gaia to Selfish Genes", 156-7), the bottom line is that the social insects are much more closely- related genetically than other animal species. For this reason Hamilton proposed that the role of the individual in transmitting genetic information from one generation to another was far less important than in other more ordinary forms of reproduction, and thus the need of the insects' 'selfish genes' to get themselves reproduced required that the principal effort be in advancing the interest of the group over that of the individual.
Another and perhaps more comprehensible way to put this is that, because the individuals in colony of social insects share proportionally more of the genetic information, it follows that less genetic information is lost when an individual of the group dies than would be the case for a non-colonial individual.
The above facts strike me as relevant to the sociobiology of Jews. In particular, it is now known from genetic studies that Jews are much more closely related to one another than are gentiles generally -- a fact undoubtedly due to the inbreeding to which the Jewish population has been subject for so many generations. But if Jews are closely related, we might expect their society to be inclined toward the socialistic, and indeed, Jews have been the world's biggest promoters of this philosophy. (We may also note that ordinary families are themselves socialistic or communistic, a notion which somewhat reinforces Hamilton's theory.)
But if this explains Jewish leftism, it may also explain Jewish clannishness and cohesiveness -- ie, the tendency of Jews to both self-segregate and to work together more easily than gentiles, altho these characteristics were not originally genetic, but instead "became" genetic due to inbreeding.
A more general theory than the Hamiltonian one may be drawn from the above observations, and which we shall call "Genetic Relativity Theory:" Genetic relatedness is proportional to socialistic tendencies, clannishness and cohesiveness. If this theory is true, it would suggest that large organizations with strong genetic relatedness are the organizations with the most political power. And in fact this is precisely the case; for the principal political entities are things called 'nations', most of which developed from genetically-related clans or tribes, and this fact is suggested by the origin of the word "nation", whose root meaning is 'to be born'. Indeed, until the 20th century, most countries were themselves ruled by royal families, which not only demonstrates the power of genetic relatedness, but strongly suggests that nepotism is itself a genetically- determined behavior.
The lesson of genetic relatedness as a source of power does not end with nations, however; for we see precisely the same phenomenon in the Mafia, which itself has grown into a near-nation in its place of origin, southern Italy, and whose offshoots have taken vigorous root in America and other countries. In fact, the Mafia -- and more latterly, the 'Russian' (ie, Russian Jewish) mafia, the Chinese tongs, and similar often-genetically- based organizations, have become significant rivals to the authority of the American government in various local areas.
There should be no surprise here, however; for as noted above, families have traditionally ruled nations, and thus it should provoke no wonder that power flows from such genetic isolates as the Bonanos, the Gambinos or the Kennedys.
In the present context an interesting question arises: Is genetic relatedness relevant to any of the reputedly-powerful organizations such as the Masons, the Trilateralists or the Bilderbergers? While I can make no certain statements about such matters, it is notable that both the Bilderbergers and the Trilateralists were founded by the Rockefellers, who themselves are a dynasty of considerable power; while the Masons, whether genetically related or not, are collectively known as a 'fraternal organization' or "brotherhood". If the membership of these organizations are not related by blood, therefore, then -- at least in the case of the Masons -- they are behaving 'as if' they are. In sum, therefore, the Theory of Genetic Relativity suggests that there may not be much difference between brotherhoods and "brother hoods".
Thought for the Day:
"The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead."
(Thomas Jefferson)
Back to Table of Contents of the Nov. 2000 ZGrams