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Old 06-01-2006, 07:14 PM   #25
Cain
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Join Date: Aug 2004
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Spat Out Plath
Try [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Irving#External_links]here[/url], although the author has taken much of this back now.
Has he really? I thought he was still very hardline.

The only reason Holocaust denial gains any acceptance as an actual "point of view" is because it cloaks anti-Semitism in a historical revisionist cloak of respectability. Due to the rise to prominence of revisionism and relativism in prompting an open exchange of ideas and interpretations of history, it has become much more difficult for people to criticize points of view about historical subjects on the grounds that they are absurd. Thus, Holocaust denial gains from nearly every kind of treatment one can give it. Ignore it and refuse to give it any sort of credence as an actual point of view, they will say you simply refuse to admit the truth. Debate it on its own "merits," you imply that the point of view actually has merit, which it doesn't. Treat it as a legitimate point of view, and well....

The worst part is that people who fall within "educated" boundaries fall for its cloak of respectability. Students doing research on the Holocaust for school projects, for instance, come across denier websites and assume it's truth, or another point of view. Considering that the mass media surrounding Nazism has been rather unnuanced in its depiction of Nazis (i.e. Auschwitz concentration camp guards were representative of all Nazis), which leads to equally untrue stereotypes and certainly no real understanding of Nazism beyond "it's evil," even serious students who begin to uncover discrepencies with common notions of Nazism can therefore be hoodwinked by Holocaust denial into thinking that it's all "history written by the victors."

Last edited by Cain; 06-01-2006 at 07:22 PM.
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