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Dear Colleague,
Library of Social Science identifies important authors and invites them to write essays and papers for our Newsletter and Website.
We distribute their writings and promote their books to our audience of 10,000 scholars, students and publishing executives around the world.
We are pleased to publish this essay by Yale Magrass and Charles Derber and to present their book, GLORIOUS CAUSES: The Irrationality of Capitalism, War & Politics.
The essay is directly below. Information on their book--and how to order through Amazon--are below on the right.
Please scroll to the bottom of the page for a complete Table of Contents reviews of GLORIOUS CAUSES: The Irrationality of Capitalism, War & Politics.
Best regards,
MHGS
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Mary Helen Guider-Shaw
Director of Public Relations
Library of Social Science
Phone: (630) 212-0485
Email: mhgs@libraryofsocialscience
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GLORIOUS CAUSES: The Irrationality of Capitalism, War & Politics
Yale R Magrass & Charles Derber
Click here for information on ordering from Amazon
Yale R. Magrass is Chancellor Professor of Sociology/Anthro. at the Univ. of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. He is the author of eight books and over 60 articles.
Charles Derber is Professor of Sociology at Boston College. A renowned scholar and public intellectual, he has written 21 books, translated into eight languages, and more than 100 articles, including publications for the New York Times, Boston Globe, Newsday, Truthout, and others.
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JEWISH GERMS INFLICT THE GERMAN BODY
The Nazis believed Jews orchestrated an insidious plot to dominate the world using whatever tactic was convenient with no concern for principle. They initiated a life against death struggle between the Aryan and Jewish races based on the belief that Jews were vermin--germs--infecting the Aryan body.
The Jews were conceived as the ultimate international cosmopolitans, who had wandered the world without a state for 2000 years.
Whereas most Europeans were rural farmers, Jews were thought to be urban money-lenders. The Nazis believed that international finance capital had brought urbanization to destroy the serenity of the rural village; to undermine tradition, and dedication to race, community and nation.
The German peasant, according to the Nazis, felt a commune with nature such that he and it were inseparable. The Aryan ingrained within the dark cold forests of Northern Europe experienced depth, intensity, a yearning for the sun. His physical make-up, light-skin, blonde, blue-eyed--reflected this yearning. All Germans shared in this essence, constituting an organic community.
The disruption of the natural order brought on by industrialization and urbanization could not lie within the “volk”--a spiritual quality shared by all true Germans. It must have been an alien imposition. No one could have been more obviously responsible than the representative of the trans-European nation, the Jews, within Germany’s borders. The Jew was seen as violating volkish norms in having no organic ties; he was always primarily concerned with pecuniary. The transiency of urban life was a reflection of his transiency. German volkish identity was defined in contrast to the Jew.
The Nazis were certain that although Jews didn't care about glory--they encouraged wars--because it brought them profit. However, the Nazis believed that Jews were cowards and let others do their fighting for them. They were accused of avoiding military involvement in World War I, in spite of the fact that 12,000 Jews had died fighting for Germany.
One tactic used by some Jews used to fit into the German ideal of the volk was to argue that they constituted a volk with an identity of their own. In response to the charge of urban transiency, there was a movement among Jews to return to the land, out of which grew Zionism and the kibbutz movement. This may seem contradictory but it seems they felt the way to prove they were German was to form a separate nation and leave Germany.
Although ancient Israel, the kingdoms of David and the Maccabees, were aggressive warrior states, the Jews, especially the Ashkenazic Yiddishkeit Jews of Germany and Eastern Europe, evolved during two thousand years of wandering in the diaspora, into a culture which regarded soldiers in an extremely negative light.
Their very existence challenged the militaristic ideals the Nazis wanted for Germany. Yiddishkeit values developed as a means to survive in a hostile environment when one lacked power. This was especially offensive to Nazis. Yiddishkeit regarded softness as a virtue and admired intellectuals more than warriors.
Finding it was an advantage to seem unthreatening when doing business with Gentiles, Ashkenazic Jews developed a self-effacing style. Humor was a weapon they would resort to far more readily than arms. Behind this seeming passivity was something Walter Waskow calls "God-wrestling."
Skeptical and angry. It shrugged its shoulders a lot, distrusted all authority, and learned to laugh at the absurdity of things...Its heroes are the angry mockers of authority who conform reluctantly because they have to. ____________________________________________________________________________
GLORIOUS CAUSES: The Irrationality of Capitalism, War & Politics, Yale R Magrass & Charles Derber
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction: Not Such A Wonderful Life
Chapter 1: An Irrational Cultural Divide: Cosmopolitans and Traditionalists Battling Over the Real and The Ideal
Chapter 2: The South Shall Rise Again: Finding Glory in the Defeat of an Indefensible Cause
Chapter 3: Stabbed in the Back: The Master Race Shall Be the Master
Chapter 4: America Becomes Exceptional But Europe Prospers
Chapter 5: Weimar America: Vietnam, the Left, the Right & Reagan
Chapter 6: Make America Great Again: The Reagan in Trump and the Failures of Anti-Trumpism
Chapter 7: We Can’t Afford Glory: Turning Toward Equality and Human Survival
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"Yale Magrass and Charles Derber’s study of 'glorious causes' is an in-depth discussion of why people act against their interests. They provide readers with a comprehensive, multidisciplinary analysis of a subject which has been frequently overlooked. Their chapters on the rise of the right, with popular support, and the failure of the left to come to terms with it, is particularly relevant to politics today. It is a book to be read and debated in classrooms and public meetings throughout the US and abroad."- James Petras, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Binghamton University.
"In an era of upheaval and political confusion, how can we understand the emerging world and still have hope for the future? Glorious Causes provides insightful answers. It not only explains the roots of America's deep trouble, but points to ways that we can re-imagine our country and make it once again a beacon for humanity." - Stephen Kinzer, Author of Overthrow, All the Shah's Men and Poisoner in Chief
"Another way of looking at history -- provocative, original, progressive." - Oliver Stone, Hollywood director of Platoon, JFK, and Born on the Fourth of July.
"Fascinating, provocative and very timely! I found it very hard to stop reading, and when I had to momentarily, I was eager to get back to it. On every page, there's something startling to be learned about the past that is crucial to understanding our vertigo-inducing present. Highly recommended!" - Daniel Ellsberg, the Pentagon Papers whistleblower and author of The Doomsday Machine
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