Mark William Henshaw wrote:

I've been wondering for a while about a puzzle presented by the
Ashkenazim. They seem phenomenally, paranoiacally racist, yet at the
same time they dominate liberalism and liberal movements, moreso than
conservative movements (although that may be less true today).

ams: Other than Paul Gottfried, how many Jewish paleocons can you name? The "old" conservatives are the real conservatives.  The "new" conservatives are barely distinguishable in practice from the so-called New Democrats.  (One must ignore the campaign rhetoric, because Neoconservatives and New Democrats must both say publicly what their bases want to hear; but as the Chinese say, "Watch their feet."  What policies do they actually pursue in office? How do they vote in Congress? )

mwh:Is it
really feasible for a fundamentally low-O, nationalist/conservative
group, to be able to get along well enough with the high-O
egalitarian/liberal mainstream long enough to dominate its agenda?

ams: I think your looking at this the wrong way.  In analyzing Jewish activism, I think the conservative-liberal axis is less salient than the nationalist-cosmopolitan axis.  Jews are nationalists, often hypernationalists, as regards Israel (where they are the majority) and cosmopolitan as regards host countries where they are the minority.  Even the so-called Neocons are cosmopolitans--more immigration, free trade, open borders, "new world order" (Poppy Bush's favorite slogan), equal rights for everyone in the country regardless of ethnicity (ethnicicy is really another word for nationality), and "propositional" nationhood (the idea that a "nation" is a group of people who support a common political ideology such as "democracy" or "democratic capitalism" rather than a groupof people descended from common ancestors and sharing a common culture; the latter is sometimes called, redundantly, "ethnic nationalism;"  the former is sometimes called "constitutional patriotism"--you can google it for more info).

mwh: If
Jews really were simply conservative in their outlook, why wouldn't
they have sided with conservatives all along? And why do they seem to
perpetually anger and annoy conservative types?

ams: Ever since the "America First" movement struggled futilely against F. Roosevelt's internationalist foreign policies in the 1930's, nationalism has been regarded as more or less synonymous with "conservatism" (renamed "paleoconservatism" in the 1970's).  Jews are not American (paleo)conservatives because they are not Anglo-Saxon nationalists.  But contrast Jewish politics in their host countries with Jewish politics in or in support of Israel. In the latter case, Jews suddenly appear "conservative."  They suddenly want to conserve something--the Jewish character of the Jewish ethnic state.  What do Jewish "conservatives" (neocons)  in America seek to conserve? (tick, tick, tick...)

mwh: And, why are they
conspicuously active in science? Do they just get their Nobel prizes
by scratching one another's backs?

ams: Of coure it's not that simple.   There is  some  ethnic  nepotism going on, obviously,  but ethnic  nepotism is only possible if there are Jews who are actually "in the running"--and that requires a certain amount of accomplishment.

mwh: A quick look at Israel might be illuminating:

http://www.geert-hofstede.com/hofstede_israel.shtml

Their PDI is quite low - below 10.
Their IND is around 50.
Their MAS is around 40.
Their UAI is high - about 75.

ams: BTW, what sample are these personality scales normed on? Mostly north European Prots who speak a Germanic language, such as English? Just curious.

And in fact, when averaging all predominantly Jewish nations'[Jewish communities'???--ams] scores,
we see the same trends. The above web page reports, "The high
Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI), the primary correlating Hofstede
Dimension with Judaism, reflects a low tolerance for ambiguity. This
creates a highly rule-oriented society that institutes laws, rules,
regulations, and controls in order to reduce the amount of
uncertainty within the population."

ams: The US has more laws than any other country in the world.  Does Hofstede mean primarily extra-legal rules (custom, religious law, etc.)? I noticed Hofstede's page also says:

The Country of Israel’s closest correlating Hofstede Dimension is Uncertainty Avoidance (UAI), approximating the results for both predominantly Catholic and Buddhist/Shinto countries.

Might Protestant countries be aberrations? Have Orthodox, Hindu, and Muslim countries been studied? I'll look more closely at Hofstede's site later.

mwh: A country's PDI correlates negatively with the average Openness and
Extroversion, and positively with the average Conscientiousness, in
that country. Likewise, UAI correlates positively with the average
Neuroticism, and negatively with the average Agreeableness, of a
country.

Insofar as low PDI and high UAI is reflective of Jewish personality
traits in general, it seems that Jews are indeed high on Openness -
but also low in Agreeableness and high in Neuroticism, as I have
suggested on previous occasions.

ams: And higher on Conscientiousness, which might contribute to their high achievement levels.  That, rather than Agreeableness, might also account for their high ingroup altruism.

~Alypius