"Derbyshire's comments make up only the second time in my life that I remember someone make a comment critical of the Jews in any way. The first was from an old teacher of mine, a very civilized man. He suggested that many Jews were so absorbed in their ethnic identity that they mistook many problems which were existential and generically human for being specifically Jewish and unique to them. This worked against the general effect of their cultivation and intelligence; it tended to limit their vision, and ultimately their growth as human beings. I was so startled to hear him criticizing Jews I didin't really process it at the time, but I have come to think there is some truth in it."

A correct observation, but true not only of Jews.

It is difficult for most of us to separate the specifically cultural from the purely natural. Human problems, though, don't come with the label "this is a specifically ethnic problem," or this is a "universal human problem."

Too often the two types of problems are intertwined.