My friend "Mark" had found another friend of ours from the times of immigration to Argentina. "Adam" was a Jewish boy who played the violoncello (illustration) and had mounted an impressive electronic lab in his room. He came from a good Budapest family: grandfather had a seat on the stock exchange, father chemical engineer, mother teacher. At age 18 he took his motorcycle to Cordoba (800 km from Buenos Aires) and fell in love with a native girl at a roadside ice cream stand. He married her, left school and went to work in a factory, had three boys and bought a house in a bluecollar neighborhood. Once I visited him and found that one of his cherished treasures was my joke collection album that I had given to him.
Our meeting after almost fifty years turned out badly. "Adam" had retired at age forty a rich man, living off the rents of his numerous properties. He had left the factory after becoming its manager, and had much money, some of it in numbered accounts and much hidden under the soil. I wrote him that it was a very bad investment decision, because something could happen to him and no one would know where is the money when he needs it. Why doesnt tell his sons? We are not young, that money will be theirs soon anyway. Then he revealed me that his sons are the deception of his life: the big one is a drug addict with criminal record, and the other two are retarded. He told me: "Imagine a forty five years old man selling chorizos (Argentine hotdogs) at dance clubs's doors, because at night there are no municipal inspectors". He was bitter. I told him to find a good cause to leave his money, say a Jewish school. "What for, for producing more Jesus Christs?" he wrote. He was spending his time in affairs with fifty - sixty years old women. I must have written something offensive, because he too answered with anger that I should not insert my nose in his private affairs. Did I suggest that having married a native ice-cream salesgirl it is not surprising that his son turned out a street chorizo (hot dog) man? Well, there goes another beloved childhood friendship.
The loss hurts, and I am sad. It is raining outside, getting old is having to say good bye to one loved thing after another. And seeing how things have turned out on the long term, being less than excited at new starts and new relationships.
7 comments:
Perhaps his genes for intelligence will come out in his grandchildren.
I hope so, for his sake.
One would imagine, I think, that nature would have learned not to waste valuable genetic assets entirely.
One of the little-explored avenues in the genetics of intelligence is whether the pattern of inheritance differs according to ethnic group.
I think, in us Goyim, the genes for high IQ are rarer, you get more extremes within families and life is more of a lottery, with many pleasant and unpleasant surprises.
(See Volkmar Weiss).
And, I am unsure whether mothers or fathers are the major determinants of IQ in the children. I suspect women have a lot to do with it, but since the women also have to manage the pregnancy and look after the babies, it is possible there is a confounding effect. I suspect it is easier for stupid mothers to harm their children's brains permanently (eg, fetal alcohol syndrome, smoking while pregnant, etc) than stupid fathers.
One of the theses in "The Bell Curve" was that society was becoming increasingly segregated by the efficient sorting of the educational system. Previously, the smart man got the pretty lady, and her brains didn't matter that much, at least until it was too late to do anything about it (your friend's situation?). So the kids tended to drift back to the mean IQ of the village, and no-one got too uppity, and genetic cohesion was enforced by sexual desire.
Now, the smart men are only meeting and marrying smarter women, and those who can be persuaded to have kids, have smarter kids on average and everyone else sinks lower as the smart genes get sucked out of the general gene pool. In other words, there is a sort of speciation going on with the two extremes of humanity having less and less to do with one another. Humanity, I feel, is well on its way to becoming what in biology is called a 'ring species' in which the extremes are no longer able to interbreed successfully; how many New York society hostesses marry and procreate with Bushmen or Congolese Pygmies?. (Not enough, you might say).
Anon.
Most probably my friend "Adam" will have no grandchildren, as none of his sons is married nor dating. He is an only son and has no relatives. A dead branch.
But in the Southern end of the continent, my friend "Mark" is duely peopling Patagonia with patriotic Christians.
Intermarriage is more often than not a mistake but it goes on anyway - once social barriers to interbreeding are gone then many people will pick mates without regard to religion or race or anything. Mothers are the primary caretakers of children and children will resemble their mothers most in terms of the socioeconomic group they end up in, so it should not be surprising that the ice cream seller's daughter sells chorizo. If a Jew is going to intermarry he should at least search for a woman of equal or higher social status but such women were (until recently at least) unwilling to marry Jews and often the Jew looks not at all at social status but falls in love with the pretty little shiksa, not thinking that in a few years she will be big and fat and ugly like her mother.
In many cultures (particularly India) to this day it is believed that, even among the educated, that marriage is far too important a decision to be arrived at randomly by a young man picking out the first hot looking woman he sees. So there is an organized process with matchmakers and parents vetting the suitability first, etc. in terms of religion, economic status, etc. The young people so introduced are not required to get married if they find there is no chemistry between them, but if they do accept the match then long term things tend to work out better because they have much in common.
Once a Jew has thrown his lot in with the goyim it is not surprising that he becomes alienated from his people and his past, so don't take these snubs personally.
K
Dear K, I am immune to snubs and insults, but the loss of childhood friends is painful. They are unreplaceable.
Many boys of my social mileau (Hungarian Jews in Argentina) married local native girls and lost themselves in the vast mass of Argentine proletariat. The maintenance of Jewish identity in Argentina guarantees that one will not sink to the bottom, the community will always sustain its members afloat in the middle class, it will push young people to study and to get started in life. In Argentina I met many Jews arrived in the twenties who had married native girls and lost their connection to the community. One found them in the most remote localities, quite satisfied with life and thoroughly Argentinian. They were proud of their Jewishness, even if they had nothing at all Jewish left.
This raises the question of why so many young Jewish men act against their self interest - they could marry Jew girls and then their social status and religious ties and that of their offspring would be maintained, or they can marry native girls and sink into the proletarian sea. Why would anyone do the latter? I think it is because "falling in love" (which is largely just a matter of sexual attraction) takes precedence over practical considerations and 20th century society has encouraged the idea that "love" is the proper basis for marriage, over and above all other considerations, so that parents don't even try to bother to fight when this happens, as they once would have.
I just learned that my nephew, who is studying to be a gastroenterologist, is about to marry a non-Jewish girl. I know this would have disturbed my late parents (his grandparents) greatly but they are not around to see this and the young man's parents feel that they cannot speak out against the match. The girl is of a good family - she is studying to be a psychologist and her parents are a newspaper reporter and a high school teacher. Yet, I can't help but feel that the match is somehow ill fated - that the lack of shared culture and history will affect the relationship in the long run.
On the other hand, my wife's brother and sister each had bad marriages to Jewish spouses and then divorced and married (nominal) Christians and their second marriages have both been more successful than their first. The brother has 2 children from the 2nd marriage and at least one of them (the girl) shows a lot of promise - Jewish ambition and intelligence combined with Aryan looks. The other is the opposite, unfortunately, and I don't know what will happen to him in the long run - chorizo vendor perhaps.
This reminds me of the joke (completely untrue) of the time Marilyn Monroe met Einstein. She proposed that they should conceive a child together, who would have her (blond goyish) looks and his (Jewish) brains. Einstein thought for a moment and said , "what if it's the other way around?"
K
It was some dumb society woman and George Bernard Shaw, and it actually is completely true.
Anon.
I think I know why Jewish boys marry lower class girls. They are much more less demanding than Jewish girls.
Put yourself in the shoes of a 18 - 25 years old Jewish boy facing life, terrified of having to produce money and compete with successful profesionals and businessmen. Just to be member of a Jewish sport club in Buenos Aires you had to pay the equivalent of the salary of a working man. Jewish schools very very expensive. Jewish summer camps were prohibitive. Talking about my generation, many young people just was afraid of not being able to keep up with Jewish social frameworks and provide for an intimidating Jewish princess.
Post a Comment