Why is it so bad to deny the holocaust?
- Thread starter Jon-of-arc
- Start date
Denial of the (capital H) Holocaust is, at root, organised and politicised in a way that these are not. It's not an isolated phenomenon but part of a wider agenda, in a way that these are not. That's the difference.
I know, it's a difficult one, and poor liberal me is wracked with guilt because of it. My view is that liberal, democratically-minded people of all stripes (that means Left and Right) should be free to discuss it 'til the cows come home, but I draw the line at opening the door to fascists. But how can we possibly tell one from the other?
Dunno. So let's just play safe and ban it 'til we can work it all out.
I don't pretend to have all the answers.
We could just gas them all.
Yuwipi Woman
Whack-A-Mole Queen
what have I started? Still, better than when I did this on the imdb "schindlers list" board a couple of years ago. Was slated as a racist by most, and a couple of neo-nazis even tried to befriend me...
Good debate everyone. I am more confused now than when I started (although there have been some very good answers which get closed to explaining it than anyone on imdb did....). Will respond to a few of the posts, but am off out soon and won't have time to do each one.
Good debate everyone. I am more confused now than when I started (although there have been some very good answers which get closed to explaining it than anyone on imdb did....). Will respond to a few of the posts, but am off out soon and won't have time to do each one.
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
Vague ramblings here... people "questioning" the holocaust that I've seen fall into four main groups....
1. Someone (usually someone unfamiliar with Google) has heard something vaguely on the internet or wherever about the numbers not being right. They say "are these numbers right then?" They get pointed at various bits of documentary evidence and say "oh, of course, sorry, it's obvious when you look at it isn't it, that bloke who told me that must have been well dodgy, I'll be more careful next time". Not dodgy, need to pay attention but have learnt a lesson that people talk shit about this stuff.
2. Various "truth seeker" types who compulsively deny anything the "establishment" says. Often youngish but not by any means always. Will frequently fail to accept clear evidence even when twatted around the head with it repeatedly. Will follow the usual route of ignoring questions and dragging up irrelevant/inconclusive/plain wrong things that they've found on Google. Are not, though, motivated by a problem with Jews. This is not actually a very large group IME; they seem large but they usually turn out to be one of the following....
3. People who do have a general problem with Jews but won't say it directly because they're not quite sure about it themselves. On further examination they may have odd theories about Mossad, or banking, or whatever - somehow, any theory involving Jews as being liars and cheats and manipulators seems to be accepted. Confused about the exact details and may contradict themselves, but there's a definite thread running through everything that they may or may not be aware of. Can sometimes in fact be...
4. Proper anti-semites who know precisely what they mean, though clearly won't say it, not outside of safe environments anyway. Unless they are really stupid. Sometimes Nazis, but I've seen some with mystical justifications for instance. They may or may not believe that the holocaust happened but if they don't, they may well wish it did. The motivation for denying the holocaust is to portray Jews as liars and to draw people into categories 3 and 4 - often show interest in category 2.
1. Someone (usually someone unfamiliar with Google) has heard something vaguely on the internet or wherever about the numbers not being right. They say "are these numbers right then?" They get pointed at various bits of documentary evidence and say "oh, of course, sorry, it's obvious when you look at it isn't it, that bloke who told me that must have been well dodgy, I'll be more careful next time". Not dodgy, need to pay attention but have learnt a lesson that people talk shit about this stuff.
2. Various "truth seeker" types who compulsively deny anything the "establishment" says. Often youngish but not by any means always. Will frequently fail to accept clear evidence even when twatted around the head with it repeatedly. Will follow the usual route of ignoring questions and dragging up irrelevant/inconclusive/plain wrong things that they've found on Google. Are not, though, motivated by a problem with Jews. This is not actually a very large group IME; they seem large but they usually turn out to be one of the following....
3. People who do have a general problem with Jews but won't say it directly because they're not quite sure about it themselves. On further examination they may have odd theories about Mossad, or banking, or whatever - somehow, any theory involving Jews as being liars and cheats and manipulators seems to be accepted. Confused about the exact details and may contradict themselves, but there's a definite thread running through everything that they may or may not be aware of. Can sometimes in fact be...
4. Proper anti-semites who know precisely what they mean, though clearly won't say it, not outside of safe environments anyway. Unless they are really stupid. Sometimes Nazis, but I've seen some with mystical justifications for instance. They may or may not believe that the holocaust happened but if they don't, they may well wish it did. The motivation for denying the holocaust is to portray Jews as liars and to draw people into categories 3 and 4 - often show interest in category 2.
Well, I don't think that anyone who isn't a nutter would be going far out of the 6 million mark. maybe 4 million? But people who say it is just 150,000? sorry, they're nutters....
chazegee
Number two.
This for me is gold proof, I never see any Jews even arguing the toss as it's such a given.
Denying it completely/ saying that it was 100,000-ish max
What forms of completely denying it is acceptable? Who with?
Well I just thought it was something slightly surreal, yet people would sort of get what I meant. Like I know how to do a very specific google search. I argue well on boards. I can do a bit of HTML and forum code. I have a facebook and a myspace. I edit wikipedia. I'm just an all round internet guru!!!
I mean why is it such a taboo? amongst historians, the media, the general public.
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
Well, because it's so fucking obvious that anyone really seriously attempting to do it must have some other motive, which often turns out to be an extremely dodgy one, and often also involves the promotion of far-right groups. Surely.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
I wonder if you can get into trouble if you deny the Rwanda genocide.
p.s. Turkey denies the genocide of the Armenians.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
I don't know if Japan denies the chinese genocide in places like Nanking, but they seem to like to pretend that it doesn't exist.
I guess that would be a form of denial.
I guess that would be a form of denial.
*sticks neck on block*
Isn't this thinking along the same lines as those that propogate this crap tho?
Its all a zionist conspiracy, world banks run by Jews?
"Any denial is all part of an orchistrated plot to bring back a Fourth Reich."
(Paraphrased to make it shorter, not to misrepresent your views)
Both sound like David Icke lizard fantasies, this whole idea that there is a world wide order pushing; their agenda, 12 man running the planet. Then you look at the G8 and you see just how pathetically bad people with power behave and how much they cuddle it and clasp it and furtively fight for every inch of THEIR ground....they would sell you out in a second.
Just makes me believe that most conspiracy theories that go beyond 6 blokes and some explosive materials they have stolen, are mostly fantasies.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
Yeah, but whatever happened to free speech, even if what you're speaking is shit?
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
Nothing happened to "free speech". What does this have to do with "free speech"? The question is "why is it bad, why is it taboo".
Y_I_Otter
Dangerous Terroirist
The average person who accepts the normative interpretation of the Holocaust more or less as read will most often have only a cursory knowledge of the specific events. When a denier comes along with some old, oft-debunked canard that sounds, on the surface, plausible, it's usually necessary to go into some detail to refute it properly. Most people have neither time nor the intellectual curiosity to plumb the depths of what is unquestionably a very depressing subject. In the end, what they "believe" will be determined mainly by their disposition towards Jews generally.
Fair enough, that is a valid point. But why specifically denying the holocaust? Why not laughing at it? Why not exagerating it? There are many bad things that you can do/say when discussing the holocaust. Why is this particular behave lauded so much?
}Im off out...
xx
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
Ok. I'm thinking from a canadian perspective, because it's actually illegal here to deny the holocaust.
Why is it bad, taboo?
Because you look like an idiot denying something that happened. It's like joining the Flat Earth Society.
Why is it bad, taboo?
Because you look like an idiot denying something that happened. It's like joining the Flat Earth Society.
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
I'm not quite sure of the point here. Killing kittens is thought of as a bad thing, but there are lots of things you can do with kittens, you can stroke them or call them names or feed them....
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
Because by denying the holocaust you're promoting the interests of groups which are still actively engaged in attacking not only Jews but many others. It's not like denying that the moon landings happened, there are direct follow-on consequences.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
I'd not make it a crime. The ridicule and unshakeable antisemite tag will do.
Y_I_Otter
Dangerous Terroirist
Actually, it's not illegal to deny the Holocaust in Canada. There is no law on the books analagous to those in effect in countries like Germany and Austria. It's often claimed by deniers that this is so, based on the legal travails of people like Ernst Zündel and David Irving, but that's a blatant falsehood.
No different to flying spaghetti monster people. Or elvis fanatics.
Being thick is not a crime...
weltweit
Well-Known Member
Thing is Hitler was a Nazi, he with his cronies devised a "final solution" to rid Germany of Jews (and others) who he had already demonised and rounded up into ghettos and which his regime then set about disposing of in an "ordentlich" manner including recycling their worldly possessions including the ash that remained after they had been processed through the gas chambers and the incinerators.
The German civilians living around the camps claimed not to know what was going on in these camps despite that the ash that remained of the bodies was spread onto their fields as fertiliser.
Hitler and his regime were undoubtedly evil in this act, it was awful, industrial and wholly without pity.
..
However, in an earlier time, Ghengis Khan the mongol emperor when he took control of a city, on one of his rampages, would slaughter every living thing within excepting a couple of witnesses who he would send on to the next city on his route, to tell them the news of the awful butchery.
We do not think anymore of Ghengis Khan as evil, he was an emperor, but what he did was arguably just as bad as what Hitler did. Ghengis Khan butchered the complete populations of cities.
How could that be less evil than Hitler?
The German civilians living around the camps claimed not to know what was going on in these camps despite that the ash that remained of the bodies was spread onto their fields as fertiliser.
Hitler and his regime were undoubtedly evil in this act, it was awful, industrial and wholly without pity.
..
However, in an earlier time, Ghengis Khan the mongol emperor when he took control of a city, on one of his rampages, would slaughter every living thing within excepting a couple of witnesses who he would send on to the next city on his route, to tell them the news of the awful butchery.
We do not think anymore of Ghengis Khan as evil, he was an emperor, but what he did was arguably just as bad as what Hitler did. Ghengis Khan butchered the complete populations of cities.
How could that be less evil than Hitler?
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
Er, well, it is a bit different isn't it? Elvis fanatics, not normally known for organised campaigns of violent intimidation.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
No, he/they didn't.
Bakunin
I am Noodle's bitch.
I assume the name of one David Irving (washes keyboard clean) will pop up at some point during this debate.
As an historian myself, don't get me started on what the likes of Irving have done to the cause of honest and accurate historical study because I could go on for hours.
Although, to be honest, it should be pretty obvious to all concerned what David Irving's affiliation and motives are.
I don't believe in having the denial of the Holocaust as a matter of law, no, but I do believe in the deniers being subject to the utmost hostility and ridicule from anyone with reputable historical credentials. The sad thing about Irving is that he might once, and before his agenda came to light, have been considered as a potentially promising historian. Until, that is, he perverted his talents, and the cause of decent and honest historians everywhere, into becoming a propagandist for the far right.
As an historian myself, don't get me started on what the likes of Irving have done to the cause of honest and accurate historical study because I could go on for hours.
Although, to be honest, it should be pretty obvious to all concerned what David Irving's affiliation and motives are.
I don't believe in having the denial of the Holocaust as a matter of law, no, but I do believe in the deniers being subject to the utmost hostility and ridicule from anyone with reputable historical credentials. The sad thing about Irving is that he might once, and before his agenda came to light, have been considered as a potentially promising historian. Until, that is, he perverted his talents, and the cause of decent and honest historians everywhere, into becoming a propagandist for the far right.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
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