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Between Consent and Descent: Horace M. Kallen and Psychophysical Inheritance
American Jewish History Pub Date : 2019-01-01 , DOI: 10.1353/ajh.2019.0003
Matthew Kaufman

In 1915, Horace M. Kallen (1882–1974) first advanced an idea that would become known as “cultural pluralism,” a counter-narrative to the reigning “melting pot” ideology, in his well-known essay “Democracy Versus the Melting Pot.” That essay was such an important public declaration of the arrival of secular Jewish ethnic identity in America that it continues to serve as a sounding board to which theoreticians of ethnicity respond.1 Although Kallen helped to lay the conceptual foundation for what would later come to be called “ethnicity,” he nevertheless appears to have embraced notions of biological determinism that were rooted in the race science of the day. His concept of ethnicity (or, in the parlance of 1910s, “nationality”) during this formative period is typically viewed as having passed its expiration date because notions of ethnicity now eschew biological association.2 The centrality of biological determinism to Kallen’s thinking is brought into focus through a rather memorable passage in “Democracy Versus the Melting Pot”: “What is inalienable in the life of mankind is its intrinsic positive quality—its psychophysical inheritance. Men may change their clothes, their politics, their wives, their religions, their philosophies, to a greater or lesser extent: They cannot change their grandfathers.”3 Many commentators have pointed to this phrase as illustrative of how Jewish ethnicity was, for him, “an immutable category.”4 This contention seems to find support from Kallen’s additional assertion that “Jews or Poles or Anglo-Saxons, in order to cease being Jews or Poles or Anglo-Saxons, would have to cease to

中文翻译:

在同意和血统之间:贺拉斯 M. Kallen 和心理物理遗传

1915 年,Horace M. Kallen (1882-1974) 在他著名的文章“民主与熔炉锅。” 那篇文章是关于世俗犹太民族认同到达美国的重要公开声明,它继续充当种族理论家回应的共鸣板。 1 尽管卡伦帮助奠定了后来的概念基础尽管被称为“种族”,但他似乎已经接受了植根于当时种族科学的生物决定论的概念。他的种族概念(或者,用 1910 年代的说法,“国籍”)在这个形成时期通常被视为已经过了它的到期日期,因为种族的概念现在避开了生物关联。 2 生物决定论在卡伦思想中的中心地位通过“民主与融化”中的一段相当令人难忘的段落得到了关注锅”:“人类生活中不可剥夺的是其内在的积极品质——它的心理物理遗传。男人可能会或多或少地改变他们的衣服、他们的政治、他们的妻子、他们的宗教、他们的哲学:他们不能改变他们的祖父。”3 许多评论家指出这句话是对他来说犹太族裔的例子。 ,“一个不变的类别。”4 这一论点似乎得到了卡伦的附加断言的支持,即“犹太人或波兰人或盎格鲁撒克逊人,
更新日期:2019-01-01
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