Why Jews are Overrepresented in Politics and Intellectual Movements

Apparently there are a lot of Jews in the alt/dissident-right (e.g. Steve Sailer, Moldbug, Lomez). The possibility of Sailer being Jewish does not factor into my opinion of him. This comes off as purity-testing by those who have made it an issue. This does not mean I agree with everything he says, but directionally he is right, such as opposing affirmative action. He talks sense most of the time. He’s never had any pretensions of being explicitly right-wing, and would demur at such a designation or label. Rather, he’s more like a liaison between the center and the alt-right.

Jews are overrepresented in politics and niche intellectual movements, on either side of the aisle. Maybe this is due to high IQ, such as novelty-seeking, which is correlated with IQ. Who else has the necessary verbal IQ to write all that material? Due to being articulate, they tend to rise to the top of organizational structures, which is an incentive to keep going as others drop out, so Jews tend to outnumber others in time. Verbal ability matters greatly when it comes to policy and law. High verbal-IQ, in and of itself, does not explain why Jews may choose to get into politics, but it can explain how they rise to among the highest ranks, as far-outlier verbal ability makes Jews effective communicators.

Scott Alexander produces perfectly-edited prose in all his posts, by himself. Same for many other Jews. If that is not talent, I dunno what is. Meanwhile many gentiles, from my own experiences at school and probably as teachers can attest, are more ham-fisted at the craft.

Speech is natural, but there is nothing at all natural about writing. Going from speech to writing is like going from counting to solving equations. Yet Jews in particular excel at this. The ability to articulate one’s thoughts well attracts other intellectuals who reciprocate/spread said work, raising the influence of said individuals. Gentiles, although well-represented at long-form fiction writing, like how Mormons have carved out a niche in sci-fi or the legacy of gentiles like Robert Heinlein and Arthur C Clarke–more extemporaneous styles of writing like short-form non-fiction such as columnists is more Jewish-dominated.

Having to limit my reading selection to only writers who are provably gentile–if we want to be precise about it, having at most a single Jewish grandparent–likely means this blog will not exist, as there will be scant source material from which to refer to. Despite being 2-percent of the US population, by my estimate half of the bloggers I read are Jewish, as in having at least a single Jewish parent. It’s not uncommon to read a blog post in which the author who is Jewish responds to a second writer who is also Jewish. The odds of that happening by chance alone going by demographics are something like 1/5000.

Jews have a lot of clout in so far as steering the direction of political movements (such as neoconservatism), but it’s gentiles who tend to bankroll or are the face of them, like Bush and Reagan. Or Obama, whose oratory abilities were put to use persuading the public about policy created by his largely Jewish cabinet. Here again we see the strengths of different groups. Elon, as AFIK, has never written anything longer than a tweet (his biography was ghostwritten) yet he’s the richest person in the world and whose purchase of Twitter dealt a major blow to wokeness. Same for gentiles such as Trump and Peter Thiel. But there is also a need for brainy, articulate people to deal with policy, but also to make a case to the public and policy makers, such as speechwriters.