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The Jewish Century

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Modernity is when everyone becomes urban, mobile, literate, articulate, intellectually complex, physically fastidious, and occupationally flexible. It is about learning how to cultivate people and symbols, not fields or herds. It is about pursuing wealth for the sake of learning, learning for the sake of wealth, and both wealth and learning for their own sake. It is about transforming peasants and princes into merchants and priests, replacing inherited privilege with acquired prestige, and dismantling castes for the benefit of individuals, nuclear families, and book-reading tribes (nations). Modernity, in other words, is when everyone becomes a Jew.

Yuru Slezkine, The Jewish Century

The English translation is atrocious, so if you can read in the original Russian do that instead. I had to edit this quote to make it readable because the translation is so poor.

25 responses to “The Jewish Century”

  1. el Avatar
    el

    I usually don’t read books about Jews or Jewish history, but this one sounds interesting. Is it really good and even worth buying this book for, if I don’t find online?

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      I’ll keep writing about it and posting quotes, and then you’ll be able to decide. I only just started but I’m reading it in Russian, so it will be fast.

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      1. Clarissa Avatar
        Clarissa

        It is very interesting to be reading this right after Paul Kingsnorth who is completely opposed to modernity.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply
  2. Avatar
    Anonymous

    So… what do these people eat, when nobody grows food?

    -ethyl

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Growing food moves from the most important occupation to a marginal one.

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    2. maitreyi1978 Avatar
      maitreyi1978

      With modern technology, only two percent of Americans work in agriculture. With only this we also produce a massive food surplus.

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      1. Clarissa Avatar
        Clarissa

        Exactly. The separation of human beings from the process of growing their own food (and increasingly not only making it but even bringing it to their own homes) has deep spiritual connotations that are discussed way too rarely. We have taken ourselves out of the natural cycles and both our bodies and our minds feel it. Whether this is good or bad is an issue we can discuss but that it’s real and significant is undeniable.

        Liked by 1 person

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        1. oldcowboy3 Avatar
          oldcowboy3

          Yes, quality matters.

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      2. Avatar
        Anonymous

        Yes, and we produce some of the lowest-quality food anywhere. I appreciate that we have a surplus and nobody starves, but you’d think with all that surplus labor and resources freed up… we could at least make high-quality food available?

        -ethyl

        Liked by 1 person

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          Terrible quality food, for sure. And a growing medical apparatus to compensate. And a growing list of disability services often to compensate for the same problem. Like people who are so obese they have to move on scooters.

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          1. oldcowboy3 Avatar
            oldcowboy3

            The quality of Canadian food may be a slightly better, but relatively few people still know how to cook properly. Some grasp that beef should be no more than medium rare, but so should venison, as well as the breasts of most flying birds. And almost nobody knows enough to brown a turkey breast side up then finish the bird breast side down to keep it moist. A long lost Oatmeal Savage secret for you Kid, as we approach Easter ;-D

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            1. Clarissa Avatar
              Clarissa

              OK, now I’m really hungry. And all I have at home are extremely healthy kotlety I made for N because he was having a medical procedure. They are very, very healthy and equally sad. They look sad, they taste sad, they are just sad.

              The procedure went great and he’s fine. So my efforts paid off.

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              1. Clarissa Avatar
                Clarissa

                It’s so annoying. These people produce one or two illiterate dopamine junkies with a flat subjectivity of a platypus but are telling us that they are extremely exhausted from the parenting that consists of providing screens and takeout pizza. One would think they are slaving over homeschooling classical reading curricula and cooking healthy meals from scratch all day.

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              2. oldcowboy3 Avatar
                oldcowboy3

                What did you do? I only had that once by a girlfriend with a Ukrainian grandmother. It was just a high quality meatloaf ;-D

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              3. Clarissa Avatar
                Clarissa

                Instead of frying, as usual, I vapor cooked it. The result looks pale and menacingly healthy.

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            2. oldcowboy3 Avatar
              oldcowboy3

              For safety reasons, flightless birds like commercially grown turkey and chicken should be cooked to 165-180°F. The latter, higher temperature somewhat tenderizes the thighs. And speaking of safety ;-D

              Liked by 1 person

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              1. Clarissa Avatar
                Clarissa

                😆😆😆

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  3. Avatar
    Anonymous

    I read this post after the one about a mercurial society. You are right. It is original. Thank you for translating that quote and making it more intelligible.

    Ol.

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  4. el Avatar
    el

    \\ The English translation is atrocious, so if you can read in the original Russian do that instead.

    In several places on Internet, it’s mentioned that this book was originally written in English and then translated into Russian.

    Since the author is a professor in USA writing in English makes more sense.

    His “The House of Government: A Saga of the Russian Revolution” was published by
    Princeton University Press in 2017, so must’ve been originally written in English too.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Maybe that’s why the English version is so bad. The author might not know the language well enough to write clearly.

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  5. PaulS Avatar
    PaulS

    The 20th century was definitely the Jewish century is SA.

    https://aish.com/the-jews-of-johannesburg-south-africas-thriving-jewish-community/

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      See? Slezkine’s theory is working.

      His theory even explains the Palestinian Nayib Bukele’s success in El Salvador 20 years before Bukele came to power. And people claim that social sciences have no predictive power.

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      1. PaulS Avatar
        PaulS

        We also have more than our fair share of psychos. The original bomb them back to the stone age was a Rhodesian.

        https://samilhistory.com/2022/10/07/bomber-harris-bugle/

        Liked by 1 person

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      2. mitchellporter Avatar
        mitchellporter

        What would the Slezkine interpretation of Bukele be?

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          Bukele is from a small nomadic community of tradesmen outsiders. Slezkine says that these are the most successful people in many societies and gives a list of such groups that is a mile long. Fascinating stuff.

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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