Holocaust Denial - I never gave much thought to it before but this thread has been enlightening
This would have been a good topic for CDZ I'm thinking, where it could be fully explored with out the reflexive rhetoric from both sides.
What some people think Holocaust Denial is:
- questioning any part of the commonly accepted narrative of the Holocaust
History is always under revision - new facts come to light, events get re-examined as time puts distance between historians and the event, new interpretations are made, etc. There is nothing wrong with this - history, as they say, is written by the winners. Some folks have real issues with that because it can overturn or modify an accepted "truth".
- using those questions as a vehicle to justify anti-semitism
This would be where intent would come in. There is nothing wrong with asking questions in the interest of honest dialogue. But if the intent is to justify anti-semitic opinions by labeling it a Hoax and placing it in Conspiracy Theory territory in an effort to minimalize what are very well documented atrocities - then is this honest dialogue or a self serving agenda?
- calling any attempt to question the commonly accepted narrative "anti-semitic"
This essentially shuts off dialogue - any dialogue - including historical exploration of the event - by labeling dissenters regardless of intent. It's effective and we see it often with issues of race - example: questioning Obama's policies and you get labeled racist. All this does is drive people into more extreme and defensive positions and shuts down discourse because everyone falls into familiar patterns of name calling and insults regardless of how they may really feel.
Can the official narratives be questioned and discussed and should they be? Of course!!!! Nothing should be off the table if we are to call ourselves a free society.
I remember in a discussion hearing the following based on a book that person had read. (I don't remember the details but this is the gist of it). Hitler did not originally plan to kill all those Jews. His original plan was to round them up and deport them into countries that would accept them. In the interim, they would be held in concentration camps. However - no one would take them, Germany couldn't feed them and they starved, died of disease etc. and he made the decision to exterminate them in gas chambers.
Now - is this a legitimate avenue of questioning? I think so. It indicates how events transpired to the horrific "solution". It does not absolve or "soften" what Hitler did which some would use to indicate he had "no choice".
So what if millions died of starvation/disease rather than in ovens? They are just as dead, and their killers are just as culpable of genocide. At any point in time they could have chosen to release them but they did not.
In my personal opinion - all aspects of the Holocaust should be open for discussion. Once you make it illegal you force it underground. You also "legitimize" the views of people who's real intent is to promote conspiracy theory style bs that they are being persecuted and therefore, their views are "truth" being repressed. These kind of views are self enforcing because they've been placed into an echo chamber. Far better for them to be out in the sunlight and openly rebutted. There are a lot of well documented facts regarding the Holocaust.
In a way, it's kind of like Evolution - and those deniers. There are still gaps in the theory, and details might be controversial but the big picture is accurate and resolving those details isn't going to change it.
With the Holocaust - the big picture, in my view, is a horrific demonstration of what Man can do to his Fellow Man on an unimaginable scale, covering an entire continent, in a supposedly civilized modern era. This should not be lightly overlooked.
