What we are trying to fix is to avoid being thrown en masse into a pit of death because of the machinations of a tiny tiny number of our tribe. That’s what affiliated Jews call, “self-hating.” When you try to slow down the push for conflict and martyrdom.
That’s why we need Jews for Consistency.
How can one change the world? I see some options.
* You can come to peace with yourself and radiate your happiness outward.
* You can contribute to your community and build up your people and your country.
* You can have great kids and raise them right.
* You can propound good ideas and shed light on complicated matters so that increased clarity in the world leads to decreased unnecessary suffering.
I try to make the world a better place by improving myself, improving my own happiness and inner peace, improving my finances and my health and my psyche, being of service to others (both to those in my Orthodox Jewish community and to others), improving my place in the world so that I can marry and have children, and I try through my writing to promote good ideas and to shed light on complicated matters.
I don’t feel much of a conflict between my allegiance to my group (Orthodox Jews) and to my search for universal truths. I don’t want anything for my group that I do not want for other groups. I think ethno-nationalism is good for everyone. I believe that each people has special gifts and has a special role to play in the world. Aborigines and Jews, for instance, have very different gifts and are probably not well suited to living amongst each other.
It is equally important to me that Jews prosper and that non-Jewish Europeans prosper even though it seems like in history, the fortunes of these two groups often go in opposite directions (i.e., that the stronger and more cohesive whites are, the more vulnerable Jews are, and the stronger Jews are, the less cohesive and strong whites are). This strikes me as tragic.
I often have trouble talking about these ideas with people because ties “bind and blind” to quote Jonathan Haidt. The stronger your group identity, the more difficult it is for you to see things objectively. The more you identify with your group, the more likely you are to fear and dislike outsiders. The more beliefs you hold and the more strongly you hold them, the more protected and armored you are against observing reality objectively. Almost all beliefs are simply unnecessary muscular tension. Several times a day, I make a deliberate effort to let go of my beliefs so that for a minute or two, I can see the world with fresh eyes, freed of the compression that goes with my belief system. I usually notice my neck and back and face freeing up as I let go of commitments, my breath frees up, and movement and observation become easier. Without this practice, I tend to live top-down 95% of the time, with my cognitive commitments framing everything I encounter in reality so that life becomes drained of surprise and joy.
