Arts & Culture
“Don’t Blame Darwinism for Hitler! Blame Christianity!”
By David Klinghoffer / April 30, 2008
It was from an obsessive Darwin-defender that I learned of the Anti-Defamation League's attack on the theatrical documentary Expelled, for "misappropriat[ing] the Holocaust." This guy is constantly emailing me. He warned that the ADL had just "issued a terse press release today condemning the equation of ‘Darwinism' with Nazism in Expelled. How can you call yourself a religious Jew and still believe in such Fundamentalist Protestant Christian nonsense like Intelligent Design?"
I thanked my email correspondent for a good laugh. The idea that, having defended Expelled's thesis concerning Hitler's intellectual debt to Charles Darwin, I would now feel chastised and repentant because of a statement from the ADL, an organization for which I have not a feather's weight of respect! This was rich stuff.
Just to be clear, however: Expelled doesn't equate Darwinism and Hitler. That basic point was also missed by Professor Sahotra Sarkar, who published a confused attack piece on me here on Jewcy. Sarkar attributed to me the view, "If you believe in the theory of evolution, you are an anti-Semite" — something that, obviously, I would have to be a fool to write or believe.
Dealing primarily with the academic suppression of Darwin-doubting scientists on campuses around the country, Expelled only spends about 10 minutes on the Hitler-Darwin connection. But it draws upon a solid, mainstream body of scholarship by the chief Hitler biographers and others.
Undeterred, the ADL wailed that "Hitler did not need Darwin to devise his heinous plan to exterminate the Jewish people and Darwin and evolutionary theory cannot explain Hitler's genocidal madness."
Much the same view has been propounded elsewhere. Once again here at Jewcy, Jay Michaelson seemed to argue that all science is by definition value-neutral: "Last I checked, Hitler also made use of automobiles. Indeed, he based a lot of ideas on militarism and machines; does that mean technology is morally wrong? Should you turn off your computer right now?"
No, Jay, there are obvious differences between Darwinian theory and auto and computer technology. Most important, the latter make no claims to answering ultimate questions, like how life originated, from which ethical corollaries are naturally drawn.
Auto and computer technology are also proved reliable every day by our experience. But no one has ever reported seeing a species originate in the manner described in Darwin's Origin of Species – not now, not in the fossil record, not ever.
More interesting than these observations is the hypocrisy of the ADL's outburst: "Hitler did not need Darwin to devise his heinous plan."
It's funny how when the subject of conversation is Darwinism, then Hitler needed no one particular inspiration. But when the conversation shifts from Darwinism to – oh, I don't know – Christianity? Ah, then suddenly the genealogy of Nazism becomes eminently traceable.
One of the ADL's main fundraising technique has long been to scare Jews by demonizing Christianity. The group accordingly isn't shy about tracing the genealogy of the Holocaust back to the New Testament. In an essay on the 40th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, for example, Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor, director of interfaith affairs wrote:
"The anti-Judaism that begins in the New Testament was transformed through the admixture of political, economic and sociological prejudice into the anti-Semitism of modernity. This reached its ugly and inhuman nadir during World War II with Hitler's Final Solution for the Jewish people."
Blaming the earliest Christian writings for setting off a chain of influences resulting in the Holocaust evokes little outrage in the liberal Jewish community. Visitors to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, for instance, are greeted by a film, Anti-Semitism, purporting to uncover the "religious root of this phenomenon, the pervasive anti-Jewish teachings that evolved from overly literal readings and misreadings of New Testament texts."
Yet when Hitler successfully sold his ideology of hate to the German people in his bestselling tract Mein Kampf, he phrased his argument not in Christian terms but in biological, Darwinian ones.
Ignoring Hitler's evolutionary rhetoric, of course, some commentators brandish a famous quote from the same book — "by defending myself against the Jews, I am fighting for the work of the Lord." They don't realize that Hitler was referring not to the God of the Bible but to Nature and her iron laws, as his preceding sentence clearly indicates.
In a curious irony, the modern paperback edition of Mein Kampf, available in any Barnes & Noble, includes an Introduction by – guess who? None other than the ADL's national director, Abraham Foxman. Did he, I wonder, even read the book?
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hey : ) God keep our land! I'm a prairie boy myself… only seen the ocean once.
I would say to anon. there that Klinghoffer seems to make the same point about evolutionary theory – that it is, or at least has so far, been unobserved. The difference being that the mechanism is at least theoretically observable.
Hitler certainly used ancient Christian anti-semitism. However, he stepped outside of Christianity, with his "goddesses". But a very big piece was the pre-Christian, Viking mentality. One could say Charlemagne did not quite succeed in Christianizing the Francs and Saxons, especially the Saxons, the ancestors of the Germans. They remained Norsemen deep down, with the disgusting Norse immorality of every kind. Science can be hijacked, rather easily, but it has no opinion, or should not have. As for Torah science, in Genesis, don't fret. That view is THE WAY IT LOOKS TO YOU. Because part of the message is: it is SHABBAT and science has gone home for the weekend. Now, we are talking about your LIFE EXPERIENCE, not objective facts. See you in the lab on Monday and we can try to describe G-d's creation accurately. But we are not picking up the phone till it gets dark Saturday night. Leave a message.
There is far too much confusion concerning this topic and David Klinghoffer has done a good job trying to sort out the issues.
Concerning the point that Hitler owed quite a debt to Darwin is plain from the record and the belief that Darwinism is purely science without a tinge of morality attached to it is wrong precisely because Hitler, to name only one example, employed Darwinian precepts to fuel his theory of the inferiority of Jews and the necessity to improve the social order by murdering Jews en masse. Since Darwinism suggests that material causes explain all material things, even beginnings–this is not science but is instead philosophy with a pointed line of attack. This is the point of view criticized in the movie that David Klinghoffer addresses. If someone really wants to argue that there is no philosophical element to the Darwinian party line–please go ahead and explain. It seems to me that it is almost entirely philosophical.
Regarding the sidebar about "evolution" this cries out for specific definitions and I believe the main dividing line concerns the alleged creative capacities of natural selection. No one could ever deny an "evolution" of life–this is what is described in Torah. The source of the power to create–this is the issue and the ultimate issue. For the Jew, the power rests with Hashem and nothing else. For the scientist, it was historically a search for Hashem's creation and how it happened. Today, Darwinism insists that there is no creator as a beginning non negotiable assumption so the question is always–how did natural processes create? The answer is always–"we don't know"–at least that is the honest answer. The conjecture that comes with all kinds of crazed evolutionary theories are fantasies and not at all scientific.
All sensible people want science to search for the truth–the trouble comes, as Klinghoffer and Ben Stein suggest–when assumptions prejudice a full search.
Concerning the scattered comments attacking the Torah's view of reality–most of these are completely baseless and the Torah gave us Pi to three decimal places hundreds of years before some Greek guy supposedly invented it. Much of this line of attack is a side bar and not on the topic but can be addressed if people are sincere in wanting to know what is said in Torah and what is not.
David G has a good point concerning the mindset of so many people in defense of the indefensible all-purpose Darwinian assumptions.
Gee, thanks for setting us all straight La Rama. I am particualrly impressed by your "If A then B" structure. Perhaps one day you will learn to use it yourself.
I discovered some time ago that the modern definition of "rational" is "I don't believe in God." It appears that some people think that almost anything is rational just so long as it doesn't reference any sort of deity, and conversly anything that references a deity is, by definition, irrational. It's sort of like talking to a wall, you structure the most elegant arguments, provide evidence and references, only to be told, "Yea, but your irrational." I find it is much easier to deal with if I ask "What evidence would you make you change your mind?" before engaging some individuals. Usually the answer is "None!"
The controversy is over whether a Darwinistic philosophy was a factor in the rise of Nazism. The point I made was that a specifically materialist Darwinist explanation of the nature of life is not just value neutral, it abnegates any belief in a transcendent moral code. If we are simply material beings – no different in our nature than a rock – then there is no such thing as a right or wrong action, any more than it could be "right" for a rock to roll left as opposed to right down a hill. It destroys morality and the "genocidal madness" of Hitler becomes only a perfectly routine matter of one grouping of self-replicators attempting to affect the propogation of their own DNA prejudicially.
The somewhat separate issue is whether evolution is a true theory. Klinghoffer argues that no new species has been observed arising through darwinistic processes. In fact, to my knowledge, there has been no observation of even an increase or creation of complexity or information. Birds beaks grow bigger or smaller, but this involves only a change in the number of genes affecting beak size and not the arise of those genes in the first place. It seems unusual to me to claim that having no evidence contradicting evolution is proof that it is true, although I do tend to beleive that it is true and a process ultimately directed by an Intelligence.
the moon is visible in daytime 15 days out of the MONTH, not the YEAR.
Gabriel and Brotherhhood say, "Christians and Jews seem to have no trouble accepting a round earth orbiting a star, despite the Bible's plain words to the contrary."
I say where?
To the contrary, at least one Old Testament passage, obviously written before any telescope or space travel existed, describes the earth as a circle using a word that can be translated "sphere" or "ball."
Isaiah 40:22 It is He who sits above the circle of the earth,
And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers,
Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in."
Gee, how did the writer of that passage know that?
Mmmmmmmmmmmm-guess that's a question I am not supposed to ask. Probably materialistic Darwinism has an explanation.
Now, to be fair, there are also passages that talk about the "four corners" of the earth. But such verses, including the "circle of the earth" described above, could very well be employing metaphorical or poetic langauge ("for corners" meaning North, South, East and West–all points, all places. When Shakespeare writes "there are daggers in men's smiles" we don't say that Shakespeare taught that actual knives once protruded from European dentures.)
I really doubt that there are any passages that can be fairly taken to mean the following: As a matter of science, math or physics, the earth is flat, round, cubular, retangular or any other shape.
The Bible is primarily a book of faith, morality and history–it was never intended to be a book of science (although what facts are there, are accurate and have been proven to be) .
Deal wi' dat–if you can.
Re: "In a curious irony, the modern paperback edition of Mein Kampf, available in any Barnes & Noble, includes an Introduction by – guess who? None other than the ADL's national director, Abraham Foxman. Did he, I wonder, even read the book?"
One wonders… Did Klinghoffer bother to read Foxman's introduction. If he did, he might have a better understanding why Foxman, a respected leader in the fight against anti-Semitism, was asked to do so.
It's spelled "nitwit", nitwit.
Your use of "flat-earther" is endearing. I say again: Name one actual university scientist who doesn't accept the theory of evolution. Scientist, mind you.
"Christians and Jews seem to have no trouble accepting a round earth orbiting a star, despite the Bible's plain words to the contrary."
I'm relived that you see Christains and Jews on such an equal plane, in spite of Hitler and all. What does the Talmud have to say about non-Jews? I don't see anyone quoting excerpts here.
…and neither does evolution.
If the theory of evolution really said that "weak" animals get killed off by "strong" animals–which it does not–it would merely be descriptive.
Fire will, as a matter of physical fact, burn down most houses. That does not mean that physics endorses arson.
Natural laws CANNOT be disobeyed. They have nothing to do with how people SHOULD behave. You cannot repeal the law of gravitation, or disobey, and it contains no ethical content.
Mr Klinghoffer still has not addressed Hitler's public and copious statements demonstrating his belief in God and Christianity.
Darwinism contains no ethical prescriptions, and it is not a religion, or synonymous with atheism.
The atheist Soviet Union rejected Darwinism, after all, as well as radical Muslims.
Christians and Jews seem to have no trouble accepting a round earth orbiting a star, despite the Bible's plain words to the contrary. I don't know why there should be such a fuss made over evolution.
The Bible, along with its accurate description of the state of Bronze Age science, conatins much valuable information about the world to come.
I would not want my doctor or my car mechanic looking in the Bible for answers to the questions I bring them, and neither I nor Richard Dawkins would expect me to write him about my ethical questions.
You can use it to do good things, or to do evil things.
Science is also a way of looking at the world. You can use that way of looking at the world to justify, or excuse, any action, good or evil.
To argue Mr. Klinghoffers case for him – in a "natural" world there is no action which is prohibited. There are no "Thou shalt nots". Why should not the strong kill the weak, if religion is false and if evolutionary theory is the the sum of human nature? In fact, NOT killing the inferior and the weak can be said to be subverting the law of nature. And this was said, by many people in the early 20th century.
Saying "Evolution is valid" does not address that problem. From the standpoint of the theory of evolution, there IS no problem.If you want some rule of human behavior which does not boil down to "the strong survive and the weak go to the wall", THEN there is a problem. It need not be solved by scrapping the theory of evolution, but the problem is there and ought to be addressed.
Ok, so Hitler read Darwin's theory, and afterwards did bad things.
What does that have to do with whether the theory is valid or not?
Klinghoffer says that:
'there are obvious differences between Darwinian theory and auto and computer technology. Most important, the latter make no claims to answering ultimate questions, like how life originated, from which ethical corollaries are naturally drawn.'
Uh.he's welcome to make any 'ethical corollaries' he wants, based on whatever metaphysical beliefs he has. It's like saying nuclear physics isn't true because we'd be able to build big bombs.
He's a romanticist. And, like all shoddy thinkers, is unable to differentiate between what he WANTS to be true from what is ACTUALLY true. I suppose he still thinks the moon follows him when he drives in his car.
If Klinghoffer were to read the document "Dabru Emet", he'd see there that 200 Jewish scholars and historians state, 'without Christian anti-semitism, the shoah could not have happened'…or, if he cared to read a bit of history, Chaim Raphael's book "The Road From Babylon" points out that Spanish Christians murdered about 1/3 of all Jews in Spain…before they expelled the remainder. And this was centuries before Darwin.
It's too much to hope that science haters like Klinghoffer and Stein would know history…or science…before trying to revise the former and destroy the latter. But Klinghoffer, like Stein, is simply a liar. And we can leave it at that.
"In brief, dear princes and lords, those of you who have Jews under your rule– if my counsel does not please your, find better advice, so that you and we all can be rid of the unbearable, devilish burden of the Jews, lest we become guilty sharers before God in the lies, blasphemy, the defamation, and the curses which the mad Jews indulge in so freely and wantonly against the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, this dear mother, all Christians, all authority, and ourselves. Do not grant them protection, safe-conduct, or communion with us. . . . With this faithful counsel and warning I wish to cleanse and exonerate my conscience."
-Martin Luther (On the Jews and Their Lies)
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