[Politics] Denying The Holocaust

[MarkMono]

Originally Posted by endless psych

Also what do you expect from sociology and criminology? Last discussion I had with a sociologist they claimed all porn stars were prostitutes.

Um, they literally are.

[endless psych]

Originally Posted by MarkMono

Um, they literally are.

Streetwalkers?

There was a distinction in what she meant, rather then a distinction in what they do.

EDIT:- Similar to the way that calling soldiers murders is technically correct.

[MarkMono]

They're certainly both engaged in prostitution.

Does your friend think that pornos are literally cast by kerb-crawlers picking girls up off the street? Well, if nothing else, that demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the workings of the film industry.

EDIT - Bad example. Murder is a legal term, not a moral one, so a soldier killing someone would not be considered a murder.

[endless psych]

Originally Posted by MarkMono

They're certainly both engaged in prostitution.

In that they both take money in exchange for sex. Although if you film it and distribute it, its somehow marginally more socially acceptable.

Does your friend think that pornos are literally cast by kerb-crawlers picking girls up off the street? Well, if nothing else, that demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the workings of the film industry.

Apparently so. Or at least a similar mechanism.

EDIT:- I'd argue that prostitute and porno star are different legal and moral terms. (Both relating to having sex for money)

[MarkMono]

Porn actors are literally engaged in acts of physical prostitution for money. So while they are not legally termed prostitutes, its not inaccurate to describe them as such. Prostitution is a necessary part of being a porn actor, but does not describe all aspects of the profession.

So your friend is right for the wrong reasons, utterly the wrong reasons. Escorts are also strangely socially acceptable, doesn't change the fundamental nature of the job though.

People get very touchy about things like this, mainly because everyone is complicit in the sex industry to a greater or lesser degree. They get even touchier when you point that out.

[erithromycin]

The Holocaust is incontrovertible, undeniable fact. Other acts of genocide from the Armenians to the Congo and beyond are similarly fact, but there is such a weight of evidence for the Shoah that to deny it is to effectively brand millions of people liars. It is to deny not just that an entire class and race of people were systematically eliminated; more than that, that a society sought to enforce its cultural norms by use of industrial processes of slaughter, of the sick, the infirm, the mentally ill, the 'sexually deviant', those who practised differing religions, those who it was politically expedient to kill; it is to deny that a society stood by and allowed it to happen. That tens of millions of people were complicit in the deaths of millions more. That people, modern people, are capable of turning a blind eye, of ignoring evidence. The horror of Holocaust denial is that it is more of the same. It is part of that same process, a sweeping under the carpet, a statement that it "wasn't that bad" is to make oneself complicit after the fact.

We are talking about turning people into freight.

The Holocaust is probably the greatest single act of genocide in human history. To ignore it, to deny it, is to say that we do not have a monster in our midst. It is to say that we as a species have not done horrible things, but we have. The least we can do to atone is to carry our shame around with us, to make everyone aware. People did this, people with mothers and fathers and thoughts and feelings and moments of joy and dreams of their future, people did this to other people. It should not have happened again, and it has not. There have been genocides since, atrocities there is no doubt. That mechanised slaughter, that Final Solution? No. Is that good enough? No.

You can yammer about freedom of speech as much as you choose, but it is established doctrine that that does not allow you to yell 'FIRE!' in a crowded theatre. Denial of the Holocaust is a danger to others, an attempt to excise responsibility for a horrible act from us all, a further distancing, dehumanising mechanism. The Holocaust and every other horrible thing we have done and can do must be remembered so we can try to be better.

I would almost go so far as to say that denying the Holocaust is an inhuman act, but it's not; it's far, far too human. We must be better than our basest natures. We must confront the painful truths. We must, because, well, what else is there?

[MarkMono]

Denial, consumerism and the shirking of personal responsiblity in favour of dumb obeisance.

You did ask.

[LesMTS]

Originally Posted by erithromycin

The Holocaust is incontrovertible, undeniable fact. Other acts of genocide from the Armenians to the Congo and beyond are similarly fact, but there is such a weight of evidence for the Shoah that to deny it is to effectively brand millions of people liars. It is to deny not just that an entire class and race of people were systematically eliminated; more than that, that a society sought to enforce its cultural norms by use of industrial processes of slaughter, of the sick, the infirm, the mentally ill, the 'sexually deviant', those who practised differing religions, those who it was politically expedient to kill; it is to deny that a society stood by and allowed it to happen. That tens of millions of people were complicit in the deaths of millions more. That people, modern people, are capable of turning a blind eye, of ignoring evidence. The horror of Holocaust denial is that it is more of the same. It is part of that same process, a sweeping under the carpet, a statement that it "wasn't that bad" is to make oneself complicit after the fact.

We are talking about turning people into freight.

The Holocaust is probably the greatest single act of genocide in human history. To ignore it, to deny it, is to say that we do not have a monster in our midst. It is to say that we as a species have not done horrible things, but we have. The least we can do to atone is to carry our shame around with us, to make everyone aware. People did this, people with mothers and fathers and thoughts and feelings and moments of joy and dreams of their future, people did this to other people. It should not have happened again, and it has not. There have been genocides since, atrocities there is no doubt. That mechanised slaughter, that Final Solution? No. Is that good enough? No.

You can yammer about freedom of speech as much as you choose, but it is established doctrine that that does not allow you to yell 'FIRE!' in a crowded theatre. Denial of the Holocaust is a danger to others, an attempt to excise responsibility for a horrible act from us all, a further distancing, dehumanising mechanism. The Holocaust and every other horrible thing we have done and can do must be remembered so we can try to be better.

I would almost go so far as to say that denying the Holocaust is an inhuman act, but it's not; it's far, far too human. We must be better than our basest natures. We must confront the painful truths. We must, because, well, what else is there?

That covers lying about the Holocaust, but shouldn't we have people who believe it didn't happen/was exaggerated able to put their evidence in the public arena with fear of nothing more than a sound debunking?

[Rowsbette]

Originally Posted by MarkMono

Thinking about it, is there any other real moral to 'The Holocaust'?

On a related note, I don't really like how people can talk about "learning something" from the Holocaust. I get the sentiment, but I don't like the implication that it took something so huge to make people realise that mass murder isn't actually that cool.

I agree that the penalties for "trivialising" it are far too hefty, but after reading The White Hotel I can understand why it's such a sensitive issue. I think the Holocaust is something that's been in people's consciousness for so long that we're pretty desensitized to it... I'm a bit ashamed that it took a work of fiction to really bring it home to me. Stuff like what happened at Babi Yar is just unfathomable.

[erithromycin]

True. Mayhap rhetorically.

You left out wilful animalism and the death of all precepts of civilisation though.

[LesMTS]

Originally Posted by Rowsbette

On a related note, I don't really like how people can talk about "learning something" from the Holocaust. I get the sentiment, but I don't like the implication that it took something so huge to make people realise that mass murder isn't actually that cool.

I agree that the penalties for "trivialising" it are far too hefty, but after reading The White Hotel I can understand why it's such a sensitive issue. I think the Holocaust is something that's been in people's consciousness for so long that we're pretty desensitized to it... I'm a bit ashamed that it took a work of fiction to really bring it home to me. Stuff like what happened at Babi Yar is just unfathomable.

I don't think it's suggested that we learn murder being bad from the holocaust. Rather what people are actively and passively capable of and under what circumstances.

[erithromycin]

Originally Posted by LesMTS

That covers lying about the Holocaust, but shouldn't we have people who believe it didn't happen/was exaggerated able to put their evidence in the public arena with fear of nothing more than a sound debunking?

There's nothing new to tread, to digest, is there? Sixty-four years of post-War investigation, vast and accurate records of people shipped from A to B who subsequently disappeared, corresponding volumes of ash and bones, procedural manuals and so on.

The evidence presented by those questioning the Holocaust is usually suspect, or based on misinterpretation. It's one of those overwhelming weights of evidence things. Take yon Bishop Williamson: he said "not one Jew was killed by the gas chambers. It was all lies, lies, lies." That's denial, plain and simple. Often the 'evidence' is discounting one source or another, but there are so many corroborating sources, testimony, documents, graves, buildings that the tale is as well told with half of the parts missing. For the most part the revisions don't tell us where the missing people went.

Now, don't get me wrong; I'm well aware that millions of civilians died during the Second World War as a result of displacement, fighting through their lands, starvation, susbsistence collapse, even plain ordinary machine-gunning by tank battalions. I'm well aware that millions of Russians died as the war raged across the Eastern front, in and out of uniform. They were casualties of Total War, caught up when the battlefields ran over their homes. Those killed in the Holocaust were not at the front, they were not killed by the war; they were killed by the actions of one society.

Beyond that, who gains if it were four million killed rather than six? Is that really any better? Honestly? That a wholesale mechanised process of slaughter was only 66% as efficient as was claimed in its own records? What a chance for celebration! Let us all rejoice that in a stroke of a pen lives were created and then destroyed. What powers we have!

Too often, not always, but too often, the revisionism is attached to some other claim. The Zionists inflated casualties to strengthen the case for Israel, ignoring the extant British Mandate in Palestine and all that goes with it? The Germans inflated the figures for morale and simultaneously tried to keep it secret from their population? It pales in comparison to the deaths of young women during The Burning Times? The legal system is capable of interpreting intent, it's why we distinguish the means by which one person causes the death of another. There's a difference between "why do we think 6 million died?" and "did 6 million really die?". It's semantic, yes, but it's important.

[LesMTS]

Originally Posted by erithromycin

There's nothing new to tread, to digest, is there? Sixty-four years of post-War investigation, vast and accurate records of people shipped from A to B who subsequently disappeared, corresponding volumes of ash and bones, procedural manuals and so on.

The evidence presented by those questioning the Holocaust is usually suspect, or based on misinterpretation. It's one of those overwhelming weights of evidence things. Take yon Bishop Williamson: he said "not one Jew was killed by the gas chambers. It was all lies, lies, lies." That's denial, plain and simple. Often the 'evidence' is discounting one source or another, but there are so many corroborating sources, testimony, documents, graves, buildings that the tale is as well told with half of the parts missing. For the most part the revisions don't tell us where the missing people went.

Now, don't get me wrong; I'm well aware that millions of civilians died during the Second World War as a result of displacement, fighting through their lands, starvation, susbsistence collapse, even plain ordinary machine-gunning by tank battalions. I'm well aware that millions of Russians died as the war raged across the Eastern front, in and out of uniform. They were casualties of Total War, caught up when the battlefields ran over their homes. Those killed in the Holocaust were not at the front, they were not killed by the war; they were killed by the actions of one society.

Beyond that, who gains if it were four million killed rather than six? Is that really any better? Honestly? That a wholesale mechanised process of slaughter was only 66% as efficient as was claimed in its own records? What a chance for celebration! Let us all rejoice that in a stroke of a pen lives were created and then destroyed. What powers we have!

Too often, not always, but too often, the revisionism is attached to some other claim. The Zionists inflated casualties to strengthen the case for Israel, ignoring the extant British Mandate in Palestine and all that goes with it? The Germans inflated the figures for morale and simultaneously tried to keep it secret from their population? It pales in comparison to the deaths of young women during The Burning Times? The legal system is capable of interpreting intent, it's why we distinguish the means by which one person causes the death of another. There's a difference between "why do we think 6 million died?" and "did 6 million really die?". It's semantic, yes, but it's important.

But just saying "we don't talk about that" creates fertile ground for those that want to spread misinformation. Not everyone's an armchair historian.
Entertaining these ideas in debate gets the reasons why it's such an incredible claim into the public arena.

[MarkMono]

Still not sure if I'm buying the whole 'Denying the holocaust is a good thing because it marks the people doing it out as demented nazi's' idea. Isn't that comparable to saying that heroin is a good thing because it culls idiots from the genepool?

[endless psych]

Originally Posted by LesMTS

But just saying "we don't talk about that" creates fertile ground for those that want to spread misinformation. Not everyone's an armchair historian.
Entertaining these ideas in debate gets the reasons why it's such an incredible claim into the public arena.

Remind me Les do you support the teaching of creationism in science classes or not?