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@Polonius: I'm on board for your analysis that psychologically defective or immature people are manipulated by sinister demagogues. What I don't like is the "scientistic" explanation-cum-justification of the defect/immaturity/manipulation.

Manchu wrote:I've never once heard of anyone saying only Jews were put in the camps.

Often they are just omitted rather than denied. Including in legislation. German law now decrees had any film maker depicting the Second World War must make a historical Holocaust reference as a postscript, this need not mention non Jewish victims. Downfall is a good example of this.

When the Holocaust memorial in Berlin was constructed it included references to non Jewish victims, which was protested by some Jewish groups. There was similar resistance to other memorials.

Most cinematic depictions only include Jews with regards to the death camps, including Shoah and Schindlers List..

I beleive a lot of Jews, and others, would be offended by this, but to some its good political copy. Its also working: to the majority Holocaust = Nazi persecution of Jews.

Orlanth wrote:to the majority Holocaust = Nazi persecution of Jews.

Agreed. Many people don't even realize that Hitler's first victims were actually Germans. Not necessarily German Jews, but plain Germans, usually those with birth defects or "mental ailments" or mental retardation. "Racial hygiene", as he put it.

Well, I don't think it undermines anyone's suffering to say that the Holocaust affected Jews more than all other affected groups combined. A lot of groups have tried to co-opt the Holocaust. In an astoundingly egocentric statement, for example, John Paul II once claimed that the Holocaust was an attempt to attack Christianity "at the root."

I'll agree that groups like people suffering with Down's Syndrome are often overlooked. But these days, there seems to be a consensus that a person with Down's Syndrome has no value at all so I'm not surprised by that.

Orlanth wrote:There are two types of Holocaust denial, only one of which grabs the attention unfortunately.

1. Those who deny the Holocaust took place at all.

2. Those who deny non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

The second is truly as much a problem as the first. Its one thing to perpetuate the memory of the Holocaust, its another to airbrush out non-Jewish victims in order to generate a myth of 'uniqueness in suffering'.
Sadly this occurs rather a lot, even to the extent to protests against memorials that are inclusive of other victims of the Holocaust.

The only value in this is to foster a belief that Jews and by extension Israelis have a special mandate to act aggressively against perceived hostility. I frankly find that a dangerous sentiment , one that soils international relations and sparks racism. As the generation that witnessed the events passes away a sanitised story is easier to swallow and thus risks becoming a permanent problem.

You forgot "
3. Those who admit to Nazi persecution of Jews, but refuse to accept the level of persecution and murder that actually occurred.
I see this mostly. I almost never see #1 or #2.


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mattyrm wrote: feth me, so much beating around the bush here.. Its like you guys want Matty to get banned again!

Seeing nobody has said the mind numbingly obvious answer in less than a hundred words, there are basically only three types of holocaust deniers, but really only two because most fall under the umbrella of number one.

1. General Anti semites, skinheads, neo-nazis etc.. pretty much anyone who says so because it makes Jews look bad.

2. Some Muslims (see above)

3. Stupid people.

In a nutshell, the only people that deny it do so because they dislike Jews. They say loads of daft gak, Jew lies, Jew plot, Jew conspiracy, whatever.

And then there are the (much easier to like) ignorant fools who didn't take history class at school.

Pick one, cos seriously. That's fething it. If you like Jews and you went to school, you don't deny the holocaust.

Don't thank me, I live to serve.

Say what you will, but Matty has the truth of this issue.

Manchu wrote:@Polonius: I'm on board for your analysis that psychologically defective or immature people are manipulated by sinister demagogues. What I don't like is the "scientistic" explanation-cum-justification of the defect/immaturity/manipulation.

Well, there are lots of scientific explanations for lots of deviant behavior. Killing the men of another tribe and raping their women is a great way to spread your genes. Doesn't mean we can't be aware of the behavior and stem it.

I also think the "crank" ratio is probably pretty low. What's higher and more worrying aren't the true believers, but those that selectively reject/demand evidence to reach their conclusion. Intelligence Design is one of the best run conspiracy theories, in that there are very well articulated attacks on the evidence for evolution, paired with very reasonable sounding demands for more evidence. I think some of the biologists that study ID might be legit cranks, but the average person that rejects evolution does so based not some sort of primal rejection of groupthink, but because of a more understandable and identificable cognitive bias.

All my theory tries to do is explain the very hard core of the true believers. It explains why bad ideas simply don't die. That's all. Why the flourish is another issue.

Frazzled wrote:

Orlanth wrote:There are two types of Holocaust denial, only one of which grabs the attention unfortunately.

1. Those who deny the Holocaust took place at all.

2. Those who deny non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

The second is truly as much a problem as the first. Its one thing to perpetuate the memory of the Holocaust, its another to airbrush out non-Jewish victims in order to generate a myth of 'uniqueness in suffering'.
Sadly this occurs rather a lot, even to the extent to protests against memorials that are inclusive of other victims of the Holocaust.

The only value in this is to foster a belief that Jews and by extension Israelis have a special mandate to act aggressively against perceived hostility. I frankly find that a dangerous sentiment , one that soils international relations and sparks racism. As the generation that witnessed the events passes away a sanitised story is easier to swallow and thus risks becoming a permanent problem.

You forgot "
3. Those who admit to Nazi persecution of Jews, but refuse to accept the level of persecution and murder that actually occurred.
I see this mostly. I almost never see #1 or #2.

That is the most prolific.

Orlanth wrote:

Manchu wrote:I've never once heard of anyone saying only Jews were put in the camps.

Often they are just omitted rather than denied. Including in legislation. German law now decrees had any film maker depicting the Second World War must make a historical Holocaust reference as a postscript, this need not mention non Jewish victims. Downfall is a good example of this.

When the Holocaust memorial in Berlin was constructed it included references to non Jewish victims, which was protested by some Jewish groups. There was similar resistance to other memorials.

Most cinematic depictions only include Jews with regards to the death camps, including Shoah and Schindlers List..

I beleive a lot of Jews, and others, would be offended by this, but to some its good political copy. Its also working: to the majority Holocaust = Nazi persecution of Jews.

Well, Schindler's List was actually about Jews. Shoah is a Jewish word and is focused on that as well. Discussing one group does not exclude other groups.

Manchu wrote:Well, I don't think it undermines anyone's suffering to say that the Holocaust affected Jews more than all other affected groups combined. A lot of groups have tried to co-opt the Holocaust. In an astoundingly egocentric statement, for example, John Paul II once claimed that the Holocaust was an attempt to attack Christianity "at the root."

I'll agree that groups like people suffering with Down's Syndrome are often overlooked. But these days, there seems to be a consensus that a person with Down's Syndrome has no value at all so I'm not surprised by that.

The simple fact of the matter is that no group's suffering should be ignored, regardless of "how bad the other guy had it", which very often becomes the case. As said before, there were certain jewish groups that rejected the idea of adding nonjewish groups being added to a memorial. In my own history classes, WWII history focused solely on the persecution of jews, never mentioned the Romani, Serbs, Slavs and other groups that were targets of nazi. The holocaust was a horrific atrocity, one that should not be co-opted by any group and should certainly not forget any of its many, many victims.

Well, it also depends on the goal of whatever history is being written.

A history of suffering wouldn't even begin or end with the Holocaust. Plenty of other actions caused more suffering over more time. (the holodmor, the Great Leap Forward).

But... the holocaust was the final straw that led to the establishment of the modern Israeli state. That's had a profound impact on world history since 1948.

It's not the suffering that makes the holocaust so relevant, but the aftermath.

By the way, that's one of the reasons behind middle eastern holocaust denial: to delegitimize the moral reasons behind establishing Israel.

And yet the main goal and plan was the elimination of Jewish people. The elimination of others was contingent on the worldview that wanted to get rid of Jews. If the Nazis didn't need a whole pseudo-scientific justification and industrialization for murdering Jews, I doubt they would have gotten around to anyone else (minus political prisoners). I can tell you a lot about the Holocaust, the whys and the hows, without mentioning gypsies or homosexuals; I can't tell you anything meaningful at all about it without mentioning Jews.


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Polonius wrote:It's not the suffering that makes holocaust denial so relevant, but the aftermath.

I thought that desperately needing fixing.

Manchu wrote:And yet the main goal and plan was an elimination of Jewish people. The elimination of others was contingent on the worldview that wanted to get rid of Jews. If the Nazis didn't need a whole pseudo-scientific justification and industrialization for murdering Jews, I doubt they would have gotten around to anyone else (minus political prisoners). I can tell you a lot about the Holocaust, the whys and the hows, without mentioning gypsies or homosexuals; I can't tell you anything meaningful at all about it without mentioning Jews.

Well, anti-semticism was a driving force behind Nazi power. The core intellectual (if we want to call it that) idea was broader than that. It was the idea of Aryan racial superiority.

They began killing the disabled long before they began killing jews. I think the idea of genetic purity was a big reason behind a lot of the other groups.

Were Jew disproportionately murdered in dedicated camps? As opposed to worked to death?

This isn't the chicken and the egg. Anti-semitism came first. The 19th-century social darwinism was its prop, cloak, and loudspeaker.

Manchu wrote:

Polonius wrote:It's not the suffering that makes holocaust denial so relevant, but the aftermath.

I thought that desperately needing fixing.

I'm not sure why. Not all suffering is equally important.

I could argue that because Western Jews are in positions to remind the West about the Holocause far more than Western Armenians and Ukrainians, that explains some of the disparity.

I still think that the aftermath of a soveriegn and Jewish Israel makes the Holocause incredibly historically relavent, independent of the quantity and quality of suffering.

@Polonius

Your statement: "It's not the suffering that makes the holocaust so relevant, but the aftermath."

The relevance of the Holocaust is not contingent upon the existence of Israel except if one is only interested in the existence of Israel -- you know, like an Iranian president who denies that the Holocaust ever happened.

Polonius wrote:

Manchu wrote:And yet the main goal and plan was an elimination of Jewish people. The elimination of others was contingent on the worldview that wanted to get rid of Jews. If the Nazis didn't need a whole pseudo-scientific justification and industrialization for murdering Jews, I doubt they would have gotten around to anyone else (minus political prisoners). I can tell you a lot about the Holocaust, the whys and the hows, without mentioning gypsies or homosexuals; I can't tell you anything meaningful at all about it without mentioning Jews.

Well, anti-semticism was a driving force behind Nazi power. The core intellectual (if we want to call it that) idea was broader than that. It was the idea of Aryan racial superiority.

They began killing the disabled long before they began killing jews. I think the idea of genetic purity was a big reason behind a lot of the other groups.

Were Jew disproportionately murdered in dedicated camps? As opposed to worked to death?

I'm not certain if other groups had a "final solution" determination. I know the populations that died the most: Slavs didn't have an official, efficient, and dedicated program designed to kill them off. However, the Soviets/Russians, Warsaw Pact and most History Channel notes on the Eastern Front depicted that a plenty during/after the war so it mitigates that argument by a good bit.

I'm going to weigh in here and say that, for the population of Germany who AREN'T Nazi's, i'm sure this is a MAJOR black eye in their public fare.

perhaps its a defense mechanism of shame rather than pride.

MAYBE some people are SO emberassed and SO upset by their nations history, they'd rather deny the whole thing rather than deal with pain.

this is a classis denial for grief sufferers. and lets not forget Stockholm Syndrome.

Rimmy wrote:and lets not forget Stockholm Syndrome.

With reference to Holocaust denial, why again?

Manchu wrote:Interesting analogy, Polonius. It's worth pointing out that human ideas, unlike genes, have moral implications. Spinning Holocaust denial, or intelligent design, or whatever as a form of intellectual vigilance is at best itself intellectually immature and at worst simply reprehensible.

manchu...including ID with holocaust denial is a bit of a stretch. Although I do recognize the context in which you framed your point.




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Polonius wrote:It's like any conspiracy theory. Some people simply reject the position of consensus due to a psychological quirk. Others leap on that for personal advantage.

I read a theory once that conspiracy theories are evidence that ideas, like genes, might be valuable later even if not useful now. If you look at mutations, they are the source of progress. You put up with a lot of bad changes before the good stuff exists. Even things that long ago were eliminated can reappear. Look at the dorsal fins of both dolphins and fish. For hundres of millions of years, those genes laid dormant before being useful again.

the theory is that ideas shouldn't disappear, to prevent ideological homogenity. Group think is essentially inbreeding, when you look at ideas ad being analagous to genes. Now, groupthink isn't always bad. We all agree that murder is bad. so, the resistence to consensus opinions could be an evolutionary attempt to simply preserve ideas in case they might be useful later.

Why does everything with you have to be coiled in some sort of evolutionary framework?

My opinion is rather more mundane... and I agree with your "others leap on that for personal advantage" point. As others have pointed out in the thread, It's a purely political reason why people deny the holocaust. Neonazis, Islamofascists they have to deny it to gain sympathy.

GG

generalgrog wrote:manchu...including ID with holocaust denial is a bit of a stretch. Although I do recognize the context in which you framed your point.

Although I believe that touting ID as science is fundamentally immoral (it boiling down to a systematic violation of the ninth commandment, really), I agree that it's minor league despicable compared to Holocaust denial.

Manchu wrote:

Rimmy wrote:and lets not forget Stockholm Syndrome.

With reference to Holocaust denial, why again?

the idea that the survivors of the Nazi regime who were NOT prisoners of the camps, but rather soldiers themselves, or perhaps their descendants, could very well feel so much guilt about surviving that ordeal or benefitting from it in any way that denial is their coping mechanism.

remember that grief will do many strange things to a persons psyche. "rational" thought is really a relative term. people NOT undergoing to major traumatic events in their lives would see denial of one of the worst human tragedies in modern times absolutely horrendous. Perhaps though to a person trying to survive that guilt, the "rational" thing to do, is put it completely out of your mind (no pun intended)

(note: too many of my friends are social workers and I deal a LOT with psych docotors on grief and PTSD here at the VA)

I thought Stockholm Syndrome was where hostages start to like their captors?

It is. What Rimmy describes sounds much more like Survivor Guilt.

Manchu wrote:I thought Stockholm Syndrome was where hostages start to like their captors?

It is.

In psychology, Stockholm Syndrome is an apparently paradoxical psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and have positive feelings towards their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them.

streamdragon wrote:It is. What Rimmy describes sounds much more like Survivor Guilt.

whoops my bad.

ok so taking into consideration my errors (as I am NOT a social worker) that was my entire point.

So these people, skinheads and Iranians, are denying the Holocaust because they feel guilty for surviving it? Are there a lot of Holocaust deniers who are Jews or were actual captives?

Manchu wrote:And yet the main goal and plan was the elimination of Jewish people. The elimination of others was contingent on the worldview that wanted to get rid of Jews. If the Nazis didn't need a whole pseudo-scientific justification and industrialization for murdering Jews, I doubt they would have gotten around to anyone else (minus political prisoners). I can tell you a lot about the Holocaust, the whys and the hows, without mentioning gypsies or homosexuals; I can't tell you anything meaningful at all about it without mentioning Jews.


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Polonius wrote:It's not the suffering that makes holocaust denial so relevant, but the aftermath.

I thought that desperately needing fixing.

No, the main goal was to purify the Aryan race. This meant he elimination of the disabled, the communist, the gay, the gypsy and the Jew.

No, that is incorrect. Hitler was an anti-semite long before he found out about psuedo-scientific racism.

Having read Mein Kampf, I assure you that the holocaust happened because Hitler wanted to purify the Aryan race and to eliminate his political opponents.

And the exact reason why he hated the Jews was because they betrayed Germany in the first world war...

DeadlySquirrel wrote:Having read Mein Kampf, I assure you that the holocaust happened because Hitler wanted to purify the Aryan race and to eliminate his political opponents.

And the exact reason why he hated the Jews was because they betrayed Germany in the first world war...

Exactly in what way did German Jews betray Germany in WWI?