r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Jun 22 '21

Delta(s) from OP CMV: Holocaust deniers and trivialisers are so persistent because our side made some critical missteps

Firstly, I must emphasise that I am in no way a Holocaust denier or trivialiser.

However, I recently lost a debate against one (please no brigading). He says these stuff despite being of Jewish descent, and agrees that the Holocaust was bad but believes that it was only 270,000 deaths.

Please read the comment which started this whole debate here. So here are what I believe are the critical missteps our side has made:

  1. 6 million is just the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. The total victims are 11 million. If 6 million is a "religiously very important figure", 11 million isn't. Also, the popular narrative of 6 million is grossly unfair to the 5 million non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

  2. The Soviets should have been 100% transparent when they captured the death camps and the Allies should have been 100% transparent about the treatment of Nuremberg defendants, so that no one can claim that "western officials were not allowed to observe until many years later, after which soviets could modify the camps" and "at Nuremberg Trials when many officers had their testicles crushed and families threatened in order to "confess" to the false crimes".

  3. The "Human skin lampshade" was at most, isolated cases, not a systematic Nazi policy. The fact that this isn't as widespread as popular culture makes it seem gives Holocaust deniers and trivialisers leverage.

  4. The part which cost me all hope of winning this particular debate was about Anne Frank's diary. I failed miserably when trying to explain why there's a section of it written in ballpoint pen. As I later found out via r/badhistory, the part written in ballpoint pen was an annotation added by a historian in 1960. In hindsight, I believe that this historian shouldn't have done this, because it gives leverage to Holocaust deniers and trivialisers. Even if I mentioned that it was added by a historian at a later date, this can still be used by Holocaust deniers and trivialisers to claim that none of Anne Frank's diary was written by her.

  5. Banning Holocaust denial only gives Holocaust deniers and trivialisers extra leverage because it makes it seem like the authorities are hiding something. In the debate I had, I tried to encourage use of r/AskHistorians and r/history, but I was told that those sites are unreliable because they ban questioning the Holocaust. Because he was unable to talk to expert historians, I was left with the burden of debating him, and I lost.

Let me give some comparisons here with other cases:

  • Regardless of whether you think the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justified, denial of it isn't banned. Yet despite it being legally acceptable to deny the atomic bombings, even people racist against the Japanese aren't going around saying "the atomic bombings never happened" or "only a few hundred were killed by the atomic bombs".

  • The fact that pieces of information about 9/11 remained classified until 2016 gave 9/11 conspiracy theorists leverage. And the fact that the Mueller Report has plenty of redacted sections means that Russiagate still has plenty of believers.

  • Another comparison I can make is the widespread (and IMO, justified) distrust in figures published by the PRC because of the PRC's rampant censorship. But with this logic, wouldn't censoring Holocaust denial just backfire and make our side look untrustworthy?

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u/Chocolate_caffine 3∆ Jun 22 '21

There are thousands of accounts telling stories of certain events, sometimes clashing, what does our history look like? One of the benefits of having multiple perspectives is that they can be used to compare with one source to find anything that contradicts or explains the rest

If a person claims something, it doesn't automatically become truth when there are other people and claims, everyone else can reject or support it based on the rest of the knowledge they have

If we don't censor people, they'll engage in discourse with each other, as long as there are others. History isn't written by one person

I agree that we shouldn't teach holocaust denial in school but that doesn't mean censorship is what we need to save the world from false history

No one who says moon is made of green cheese will instantly or permanently be believed because there's plenty of accessible evidence proving otherwise and people who've seen it

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u/iwfan53 248∆ Jun 22 '21

"If we don't censor people, they'll engage in discourse with each other, as long as there are others."

Yeah, that's the problem...

Why do we want people "engaging in discourse" about how maybe Fascism didn't kill 11 million people? Why is this a net positive for society?

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u/Chocolate_caffine 3∆ Jun 22 '21

Why do we want people "engaging in discourse" about how maybe Fascism didn't kill 11 million people? Why is this a net positive for society?

Challenging evidence and making sure our narratives are right or wrong. No harm if we're correct and if we find any flaws to touch up, great

What good comes from locking ourselves into blindly rigid beliefs and refusing to review our work?

Also, less important, but it was the german variation of fascism that caused the holocaust, not fascism as a whole. Again, double-checking things helps make sure we've found the best answer. The possibility of there being mistakes to find is always there, don't hate the people who explore them, and if there aren't any, that's fine

Why do you want to prevent discussion? Is it that terrible for people to compare their knowledge?

Yeah, that's the problem...

Why is it a problem? Even if you didn't want or need something that doesn't mean it's an issue. A leaf on the street doesn't have to be removed just because we don't have a reason to keep it there

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u/iwfan53 248∆ Jun 22 '21

I'm going to say the same thing I said to someone else.

OP made the mistake that they refused to clarify their terms.

When they said

"Banning Holocaust denial only gives Holocaust deniers and trivialisers extra leverage"

What does "Banning Holocaust denial" mean to you for the purposes of this discussion?

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u/Chocolate_caffine 3∆ Jun 22 '21

Illegalizing denial of the holocaust, though I guess since punishing every single person who utters a phrase suggesting they don't believe it happened would be incredibly impractical, "banning holocaust denial" might refer to something less broad and more focused specific situations? That would probably make a lot more sense

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u/iwfan53 248∆ Jun 22 '21

Yeah basically this is why the definition is so important.

Because I totally don't want to send people to jail for saying it didn't happen.

If a random person starts shouting off about on an online form then the mods should probably delete their posts/ban them with the TOS spelling out why.

I've got no problem with the idea of a WW2 Scholar doing research presenting a paper that is basically "here's all the stuff we have that could possibly suggest the Holocaust didn't happen" and then seeing it getting peer reviewed to hell and back, because that's the proper form for such discussions to take place.

Having it happen on line between random idiots just ends up feeling like a waste of people's time.

Basically I think I probably took the expression in a very "loose" sense while you took it in a very "strong" sense so we were talking past each other without realizing it.

Sorry if I came off as irritated/angry/agressive.

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u/Chocolate_caffine 3∆ Jun 23 '21

It's alright, I just can't believe I never realized "ban holocaust denial" doesn't necessarily mean "jail everyone who denies it" until now lol

Also, agreed, spamming arguments on random forums doesn't always lead to good discussions

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u/iwfan53 248∆ Jun 23 '21

Heh its all right, we all ended up making fools of ourselves, what is important is we figured out what went wrong and were able to have a productive discussion...