As many have observed, over the years JW-related boards and NGs have suffered from the attacks of some people with apparently extremist views that, while being baffling, distasteful, and on occasion even hateful to the majority, are based on SHEER KOOKERY, IDIOCY, IGNORANCE or LACK OF CLEAR THOUGHT. There is more "proof" that the earth is flat than there is for most such nonsense; however, Flat-Earth nonsense does not, as far as I know, harm people (unless such people are attempting transglobal navigation, when they will eventually encounter a major flaw in flat-earthist dogma), while racial/religious/sexual/class-based bigotry or hatred does, and is very upsetting to most sensitive persons (whether or not they belong to the grouping being attacked). But censorship is not the answer, as to do silence them by force of law or other authority adds a certain appeal to their shoddy kookery, especially where the inexperienced are concerned. The purpose of their propaganda is usually recruitment and if unchallenged it can and does influence some young, impressionable or gullible people into becoming increasingly intolerant and adopting, to a greater or lesser degree, such disgraceful views. So, they must be calmly refuted by those of us who can. Of course the other side will not play fair. They will refuse to debate in a reasoned way, perhaps because they are genuinely too dumb and uneducated to do so, but surely and in any event because they have no real grounds at all upon which to genuinely argue. Therefore, it is common for these people to resort to ad hominem, threats, strawman argumentation, cut-and-pasteism, gross absurdity, ground-shifting, reliance on ambiguity, the "nudge and wink" smear, "proof by assertion in quadruple-size type and with 'as we all know,'" and incitement of the reasonable and normally calm reader to rage and then, after a great deal of provocation, retaliation (to be followed by repeated claim by the perpetrator that he/she is the real victim because of expressing his/her beliefs). This whole charade may even be accompanied by sundry attempts - sometimes extending to implied or actual threats to identify, track down and incite the commission of violence on the opponent - to silence those who have the knowledge to refute their erroneous and weird beliefs. They see no hypocrisy in demanding their opponents being censored, while themselves crying out that their message, however unpopular, should be heard because of "freedom of speech". Super logic!
During my cybernetic journeys, I often and in all variety of places encounter such fanatics possessed of their weird beliefs. Especially where these weird beliefs are actually harmful to innocent third parties, I usually have the effect, without even trying, I can't understand it, of getting them to commit all sorts of errors, which then prove very useful over the following years in ensuring that they are dealt with appropriately, or - better still - come to their senses.
So what is the relevance of this to the ex-JW/anti-WTS cause?
Well, for an adult to have believed in the Watchtower kookery proves that someone can be utterly fooled by a bunch of outrageous lies, distortions and half-truths, breathtakingly audacious hypocrisy and cunningly-contrived and worded propaganda. I do not mean this to be rude to that person. Virtually each one of us reading this has either been such a person and/or loves or has loved such a person, who believed in TRULY WEIRD things.
Given this, is it surprising that some here, having escaped from Mother's disgusting bosom, fall for another pack of untruths? Cults are there aplenty, some worse than Watchtowerism (though not so widespread). And snares too.
I contend it is not at all surprising. While some - having seen that the one they would have sworn was their "Spiritual Mother", God's self-appointed wife, was in fact the Great Whore of Babble-On, the Disgusting Thing of scripture, the False Prophet, the Beast of Revelation and an AntiChrist par excellence - become ultra-cautious and ultra-skeptical, others FAIL TO LEARN FROM THEIR OWN GRAVE MISTAKES AND PAST GULLIBILITY AND/OR STUPIDITY. And so history repeats itself. The surface detail is different, but they make the mistake again.
One rather thoughtless poster here remonstrated with me that posters here are far too smart to fall for such weird cults - hilariously overlooking the FACT and perfect counter-example of the posters here who HAD fallen for the very same weird cult... Then the usual nonsense about untrammelled and unlimited rights to free speech are produced (usually by the very young; experience soon teaches them that ALL freedoms come with responsibilities), which would result in anarchy and a world consumed with hatred. Limits have to be put somewhere.
And I view asses with weird views they can neither properly explain (without borrowing entirely from the works of other asses) let alone defend as being fair game for a hungry puss. I approve of their being given an appropriate venue to express their idiocy. Which I, and others more competent than I, can then leap upon and feast on. But there have to be some rules to which they must adhere, else discussion is impossible. After all, if all we wished to do was imbibe their cultic kookery, one could visit the error-filled websites of their Cult Leaders. What makes it fun for us (and hopefully actually helpful for them, for they may be viewed as victims of some cult or other) is when they actually try to explain their own beliefs and "reasoning" and ""logic"" and """facts""" and """"analysis"""" and """""history""""". Then, "we" can unravel their kookery nicely, humorously and conclusively, and the chance of them making any recruits is as remote as the chance of Usenet JWs making converts when that viprous Prominent Bethelite apostate is rampant.
Here is a book written about this sort of thing. It is "Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time" by Michael Shermer, published in 1997 by W.H. Freeman & Co. It is available at http://www.amazon.com and I recommend it as a good read.
Here is a little about it, from http://www.skepdic.com - an excellent site.
Skeptics have been treated to several publications in recent years which might indicate that there is some hope for rationality after all. Sagan's Demon-Haunted World and Randi's Encyclopedia, for example, have done quite well. Michael Shermer's book is yet another attack on irrationality and unreason to find its way into print. Yet, lest we get too optimistic we might take a lesson from one of Shermer's debunking experiences.
In the prologue, Shermer gives an account of James Van Praagh whom he calls "the master of cold-reading in the psychic world." He describes Van Praagh's success and how he wowed audiences on NBC's New Age talk show The Other Side. Shermer then tells us how he debunked Van Praagh on Unsolved Mysteries. Yet, none of the others in the audience was sympathetic to Shermer. One woman even told him that his behavior was "inappropriate" because he was destroying people's hopes in their time of grief. (Van Praagh specializes in being contacted by anybody's dead relatives.) Van Praagh is still going strong, having appeared recently (Dec. 10, 1997) on the Larry King Live show. He said he could "feel" Larry's dead parents and even pointed out where in the room these feelings were coming from. James took phone calls on the air and, once given a name, he started telling the audience what he was "hearing" or "feeling". He fished for positive feedback and got it, indicating that he really was being contacted by spirits who wanted to tell their loved ones that being dead ain't so bad when you've got a guy like James to talk to on Larry King Live. Larry didn't ask Van Praagh why he thought that billions and billions of dead souls were turning away from eternal life to get inside Van Praagh's head. Had Van Praagh told Larry that his parents were sorry for abusing him as a child and now request that Larry go public about his sadistic sexual practices with animals, Van Praagh would be history. But the charlatans of the world wouldn't be where they are if they tried to tell people what they don't want to hear. As long as they feed the hopes and dreams of their victims, the psychics will flourish. Of course, if they can't handle their finances they'll go broke like the Psychic Friends Network did. Otherwise, if they keep feeding the fish, the fish will return.
So, why do people believe weird things? "More than any other, the reason people believe weird things," says Shermer, "is because they want to. . . .It feels good. It is comforting. It is consoling." Secondly, weird beliefs offer "immediate gratification." People like weird beliefs because they are simple. Weird beliefs also satisfy the quest for significance: they satisfy our moral needs and our desire that life be meaningful. Finally, he says, people believe weird things because weird things give them hope.
You would think Shermer would know, for he has walked through the valley of weirdness as a believer and a challenger. He's been abducted by aliens and had colonic irrigation. He's been to the chiropractor to get aligned and balanced. He's been to many alternative health practitioners to get "purified" and "detoxified". He's been Rolfed and wrongly diagnosed by an iridologist.
He's also been on a number of talk shows where he has faced not only psychics but those who deny that the Holocaust ever happened. He's confronted creationists and spiritualists on national television. He started Skeptic magazine and the Skeptic's Society. He has written many articles on various weird beliefs. In short, Michael Shermer has entered the lion's den, walked through the valley of death and known firsthand the wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Even so, Shermer seems to have overlooked or underemphasized some fundamental reasons why people believe weird things. Ignorance, for example, seems to be the main reason many people believe weird things. They simply do not know any better. If they had some knowledge about physics, chemistry, biology, memory, the brain, the body, etc., they would not even consider many of the crackpot ideas put forth for their consideration. Only a person ignorant of physics and neurology could consider it reasonable that wearing a takionic headband will improve thinking or that alpha waves are a sign one is entering a transcendent state of consciousness. A great deal of New Age quackery about "energy" medicine depends upon people being ignorant of quantum physics. It is unlikely that Shermer would have tried the detoxification regimes he did had he been more knowledgeable.
Ignorance might explain why 90% of Deepak Chopra's followers believe him when he tells them that happy thoughts make happy molecules, but it doesn't explain why Chopra himself believes the mind can have a causal effect on the molecular level. He is a trained physician and knowledgeable of biology. It does not seem to be a very satisfactory explanation to say that he and other New Age gurus believe that disease can be controlled by thought because they want to believe so. The will to believe explanation seems too facile. Even William James, who has given us this expression from the title of an essay, did not try to explain most weird beliefs by claiming they were acts of will. James reserved using will alone to determine belief for those cases where (a) a decision must be made and (b) the evidence is equal on either side of the issue. Furthermore, he recognized that only some beliefs are living options for each individual. A devout Christian could no more accept the possibility that Mohammed is the Prophet of God than a devout Muslim could accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. Not every claim is a living option for every person. Sheer willfulness should only be used to explain choosing one living option over another when the evidence for each is equal. Such a situation is definitely not the case for believing in the power of thought to control disease. The evidence is overwhelmingly against such a belief. What is of interest is why certain incredible and improbable claims are living options for some people and not for others.
It is obvious that the difference cannot be explained in terms of differing intelligences. Duane Gish and the creationists, Willis Carto and the Holocaust deniers, and physicists John Barrow and Frank Tipler--to name just a few of those Shermer takes on--are at least as intelligent as their opponents. When an intelligent person believes something for which there is little more than faith to support the belief, what else can you say except that the person believes simply because he or she wants to?
For example, Barrow and Tipler think they have a new and improved argument from design which uses only physics to prove God exists. And Tipler thinks he has proved the immortality and the resurrection by physics alone. Yet despite his enormous intellectual endeavors to prove Christianity by physics, Tipler comes off a bit disingenuous when he admits that the only thing really going for his theory at this point is its "theoretical beauty." Since beauty is in the eye of the beholder, that is not saying much. In short, for all his brilliance, Tipler's theory is an elaborate construction which can only be accepted on faith. Since there are probably only a handful of people who could even understand his argument, refuting it seems unlikely to be very rewarding, but Shermer gives it a go. The argument is very complicated and likely to produce more yawns than hurrahs.
Likewise for his essay on Ayn Rand and her cult of followers. Other than being an example of colossal self-deception and egoism, the debunking of a second-rate metaphysician and the cult of adoration which grew up around her is of little more than historical interest. He might as well have done an essay on the Beatles and their adoring fans. Rand did not claim Objectivism is a science, but a philosophy. It's not a very interesting philosophy, nor was it innovative, despite what she and her followers believed.
The argument against Carto and his anti-Semitic band is much easier to swallow and to follow, and the rewards are much more gratifying. For all those sucked in by the tempting arguments of the pseudohistorians of Nazism, chapter 14 of Shermer's book is a must read. He not only explains the methodology of the the Cartophiles, he responds with specific evidence to their arguments. For example, one of the favorite appeals of the Holocaust deniers is to demand some proof that Hitler gave the order for the extermination of the Jews (or the mentally retarded, mentally ill, and physically handicapped). Holocaust deniers point to Himmler's telephone notes of November 30, 1941, as proof that there was to be no liquidation of the Jews. The actual note says: "Jewish transport from Berlin. No liquidation." Whatever the note meant, it did not mean that Hitler did not want the Jews liquidated. The transport in question, by the way, was liquidated that evening. In any case, if Hitler ordered no liquidation of the Berlin transport, then liquidation was going on and he knew about it. Hitler's intentions were made public in his earliest speeches. Even as his regime was being destroyed, Hitler proclaimed: "Against the Jews I fought open-eyed and in view of the whole world....I made it plain that they, this parasitic vermin in Europe, will be finally exterminated." Hitler at one time compared the Jews to tuberculosis bacilli which had infected Europe. It was not cruel to shoot them if they would not work or if they could not work. He said: "This is not cruel if one remembers that even innocent creatures of nature, such as hares and deer when infected, have to be killed so that they cannot damage others. Why should the beasts who wanted to bring Bolshevism be spared more than these innocents?"
In my view, however, the racist community doesn't believe its false notions about the holocaust for any of the reasons for weird beliefs listed by Shermer. They believe them because such beliefs are empowering. They make the believer feel superior and they allow evil to be rationalized as good. Ultimately, many weird beliefs are the beliefs of groups, not isolated individuals. Understanding the dynamics of social belief is no small undertaking and certainly goes beyond wishful thinking and laziness. The Holocaust deniers feed off of each other's anti-Semitism. But what gave birth to their hatred of the Jews? Resentment and projection of their own inadequacies onto another race? Perhaps. That was Sartre's argument, following Nietzsche's lead, in anti-Semite and Jew. We might say, though, that at least some weird beliefs are based upon wanting to believe them because they fit in with one's prejudices.
Shermer does an admirable job of presenting Duane Gish's case for "scientific creationism" and then dismantling it. Here, too, I think the creationists want to believe Gish because his claims fit in with their own prejudices. One of my correspondent's, Claud Roux of France, wrote me about an all-night debate he had with a creationist.
I started a dispute with this person which lasted until dawn...I was absolutely baffled by how much this person was insensitive to any arguments which would contradict his strong beliefs about a world made in 7 days... I couldn't find any flaw in his armor so that I could introduce a hint of questioning in his mind...If I gave him a scientific argument, this would be considered as a lie nourished by an army of scientists. In fact, there was a strong belief in all that he said that science was another religion opposed to the traditional religions. The discussion with this person was not a debate over the pertinence of a theory, but rather a fight between two different religions, science being a religion invented by the devil to "disbalance [desequilibrer]" the world. His personal fight was not to prove that science was wrong but to prove that science was evil...
Science is evil because it is perceived to be very threatening to the creationist's religious beliefs. That intelligent people might adhere to weird beliefs mainly because they offer solace and refuge from other, terrifying beliefs, implies that the mind is often used to construct delusions as a kind of safety net. Let me give another example for another correspondent. Carol Lazetsky of Austria via England wrote me about a friend of hers who had received a Ph.D. in biology. The biologist's parents are also biologists and were pioneers in the legalization of euthanasia movement in Holland. Lazetsky writes that the daughter biologist with the Ph.D. was having a problem with her parent's stand on euthanasia.
. . . and she started to have some sort of therapy. I then moved to Ireland and we lost touch, however, I had a few letters in which she touched upon the fact that she had become involved with the church and seemed to be getting some relief from her problems. We lost touch even more and then I had a letter from her after moving to Austria. Her letters had become more and more frantic and her thoughts seemed to have become disjointed, until 2 years ago at Christmas I had a letter which was totally incomprehensible and muddled up. I was worried when I got the letter but didn't react much since I felt I could do little from so far away. However, the alarm bells really started to ring when I received a brochure from her a year later when she told me that she had started working from home and had set up a therapy studio for reflexology. There was a whole load of glossy brochures with maps of feet and a rsum of her stating her qualifications as a biologist (which seemed to make her business sound believable). She then told me she was "studying" a lot to open up a "Spinal Correction" practice and was into all sorts of "New Age" theories including crystals, auras and chanting. Her marriage had nearly fallen apart because of her new ventures, but her husband was getting used to it, she said.
I find this all very alarming and dangerous since it seems to me that these practices have robbed her of her identity and her reason. They nearly robbed her of her family and they are most definitely robbing her purse. I felt that as we had once been good friends that it was only decent of me to be honest with her and I wrote and told her how I felt about what she was doing. I knew that I may not hear from her again, but I thought it would be insincere of me not to write and tell her what I thought. I never heard from her again.
One facile explanation is that the young biologist has gone mad. This may be true and it may explain her conversion from scientist to pseudoscientist, her new interest in religion and New Age mysticism, and her disjointed thinking. The chemicals in her brain may have become redistributed, causing her to have a serious thought disorder. This is possible and we should not dismiss this possibility out of hand just because there is a stereotype of the mad as out of control, completely irrational, babbling idiots. The mad are often quite intelligent and restrained, even polite or reclusive, even if their thoughts are illogical and their judgment unsound. However, there is another possibility here. Perhaps she is not mad, but deeply troubled. She had followed in her famous parents footsteps and become a scientist. But her parents are leaders of the euthanasia movement and euthanasia is something which repulses her. Rather than risk becoming "evil" like her parents, she leaves science and goes into something much safer. She enters a world of deluded but very happy, hopeful and caring people. The reasons for choosing reflexology rather than iridology or some other form of quackery are probably unimportant. It is probably by sheer accident that she fell into one bit of nonsense rather than another. The point is that we search in vain for why she believes in reflexology if we search for a logical explanation. To say she believes because she wants to believe is trivial. She believes because she does not want to follow in the footsteps of her scientific parents, because she does not want to bring evil into her life, because she wants hope and wants to do good. Perhaps.
There is probably a long list of reasons why people want to believe certain things, but in the end they all amount to the same thing when looked at from the other side: it is generally pointless to produce counterarguments to their beliefs except to persuade some third party who might listen to both sides and realize which side has the stronger evidence.
Another significant factor in weird beliefs, not mentioned by Shermer, is communal reinforcement. If others believe the same non-sense, it is often very difficult or dangerous to challenge the beliefs. For example, I have my philosophy of law students read a racist essay by an intelligent, educated lawyer and leader of the Confederacy during the Civil War. The essay makes one false claim after another regarding the physical, intellectual and moral nature of black people. Each of the claims is put forth with comments indicating that everybody knows this and it is scientific fact. My students invariably ask: How could anyone believe this stuff? The answer is simple: if your parents, teachers, ministers, and everyone else in your circle believes it, and contrary opinions are banned, why wouldn't you believe it, too?
Other beliefs seem to be adhered to simply because they are possible. Even though the evidence is overwhelmingly against them, why do people believe in such things as dowsing? Many, of course, believe because they do not understand how easy it is to deceive ourselves. They do not understand the need for controlled studies to eliminate self-deception from influencing our beliefs. Yet, others seem to believe such things simply because they are possibly true. They are unaware of the fallacy of the argument to ignorance. However, simply because a claim is possibly true--in the absolutely loosest sense of the term 'possibly'--does not mean it is reasonable to use an act of will alone to accept the claim. In fact, for reasonable people, such claims are not living options because they contradict what has been established beyond a reasonable doubt. However, even though the evidence seems to be preponderantly on one side, there will always be those who claim that they do not believe that the evidence against a belief is overwhelming. That was James' view of the evidence regarding belief in God; the evidence for was proportionate to the evidence against, he thought. But he never proved that the evidence was equal for atheism and theism. He assumed this to be the case. It seems to me, however, that it is only politeness which grants him this point. The evidence is overwhelmingly against anything like the God of the western religions existing. How a Bernie Segal or a Deepak Chopra or a John Mack can steadfastly maintain their weird beliefs in the face of overwhelming evidence against them seems explicable only if one assumes they are acting on faith alone.
Even so, why do some people have faith? Why do they choose to believe preposterous, incredible, improbable claims? Shermer's explanation in terms of hope, simplicity, immediate gratification, and providing meaning to one's life seems to cover most of the reasons for faith. But the desire for power should also be included in this list of fideistic motivators. Such beliefs give the illusion of control over things which are either out of one's control or which require diligent effort and intellect to effect reasonable control.
However, what is most valuable about Shermer's book is not his attempt at the psychology of belief, but his criticisms of specific weird beliefs. He has especially detailed criticisms of creationism and Holocaust denial. There are fairly straightforward chapters on Edgar Cayce, near-death experiences and alien abduction. There is a chapter on the repressed memory witch hunts, among other things.
He even has a section on altered states of consciousness (ASC) which he prefaces with a remark that most skeptics will question his account of ASC. Shermer considers the hypnotic state to be an ASC, for example. He doesn't do much to bolster his case by quoting a straw man argument from Kenneth Bowers who trivializes Nicholas Spanos' cognitive-behavioral explanation in terms of role playing by calling it "the faking hypothesis." Playing a social role is not the same as "faking." Next, he considers sleep to be a state of consciousness, rather than unconsciousness, because we dream while sleeping. Finally, he produces a set of EEG readings to designate what he calls six different states of consciousness, one of which is the coma. He says: "If a coma is not an altered state, I do not know what is." Let me fill in the enthymeme using modus ponens. "A coma is not an altered state. Therefore, you do not know what an altered state is." On Shermer's criteria, sneezing would be an altered state. So would coughing. Each is likely to produce a distinct EEG reading. I find his argument puzzling, since he defends the view that sleep, deep sleep, drowsiness and coma are altered states of consciousness by appealing to the fact that they produce different squiggles on an EEG. But he defines an altered state subjectively, in terms of self-consciousness and self-control. "When there is a significant interference with our monitoring and control of our environment," he says, "an altered state of consciousness exists." People who are interested in altered states of consciousness, such as Charles Tart, think they are gateways to transcendent truths. I would agree that ASCs are brain states, but not every brain state is an ASC. I certainly would not include sleep or coma as ASCs because they are not states of consciousness at all. I understand the term ASC to refer to an altered state of consciousness. Unconscious states, such as sleeping, coma, concussion, fainting, etc. are not ASCs because the person is unconscious by definition. I take it for granted that to have an altered state of consciousness one must be conscious. On Shermer's analysis, I suppose death would be the ultimate altered state of consciousness: the flatline EEG.
Overall, Shermer's collection of essays is a welcome addition to the growing body of skeptical literature that has for so long been wanting but is beginning to shed a little light in the darkness.
Here follow a handful of other essays (for a change, this is a largely cut-and-paste post from me!) on the subject of the particular brand of weird kookery that may have infected this board.
The first one gives a pretty balanced account of the "problem".
Deniers in Revisionists Clothing by Ben S. Austin
Denial is not Revision
Crucial to understanding and combatting Holocaust denial is a clear distinction between denial and revisionism. One of the more insidious and dangerous aspects of contemporary Holocaust denial, a la Arthur Butz, Bradley Smith and Greg Raven, is the fact that they attempt to present their work as reputable scholarship under the guise of "historical revisionism." The term "revisionist" permeates their publications as descriptive of their motives, orientation and methodology. In fact, Holocaust denial is in no sense "revisionism," it is denial.
Historical revisionism is a perfectly legitimate, respectable and necessary approach to historical analysis. Each new generation has at its disposal new information, new facts and new methods not available to its predecessors. Contemporary historians, armed with new documentary, archaeological and anthropological data, are in a much better position to assess the slavery era in the American south than were historians writing during slavery or in the decades immediately following Emancipation. Similarly, we are in a much better position today to assess the Vietnam War than we were in the 60s or the 70s. Our understanding of the role of women in U.S. and world history is largely the product of historical revisionists who dared to challenge the historical invisibility of women. African-American historians are now doing the same thing with regard to important contributions of African-Americans. The canons of scholarship and academic integrity make it incumbent upon historians to involve themselves in the on-going re-evaluation of historical events and issues. Even if they have an ideological "axe to grind," revisionist historians render a valuable service by bringing the issues into public discussion and clarification. But, as far as I am aware, no historian denies that slavery was ever practiced in the United States, that the Vietnam War never happened, or that women and blacks made important contributions to U.S. culture and history. Historical revisionism attempts to enhance and extend our understanding of history through continual re-interpretation of existing historical data.
Holocaust deniers have coopted the terms "revisionism" as an attempt to make themselves appear respectable and legitimate. In fact, there is not a qualified historian in the bunch. Greg Raven, editor of the Journal of Historical Review, a self-proclaimed "revisionist" journal, has a Masters degree in history and David Irving does not even have a college degree. Arthur Butz, one of the leading Holocaust deniers, is a professor of Engineering and Computer Science at Northwestern University. Fred Leuchter, the self-styled chemist who is central to the Zyclon-B controversy is not a chemist and, at the trial of Ernest Zundel in Canada, the judge refused to admit his testimony as an expert witness. At that same trial, Leuchter's testimony, and his credibility as a "revisionist," fell apart under cross-examination. See Lipstadt's analysis of the trial.
Perhaps a brief historical review of the emergence of Holocaust denial will set the stage for what comes later in this essay. The first important proponent of Holocaust denial was the French communist, Paul Rassinier (Crossing the Line, 1948). Essentially, Rassinier made two major arguments. (1) There is a natural human tendency to on the part of victims to exaggerate what has happened to them and (2) the "atrocities" that did occur were not the fault of the Nazis but of the victims themselves -- particularly the inmate guards whom the SS placed in charge of the camps
The themes introduced by Rassinier were rather quickly seized upon by antisemitic, pro-Nazi spokesmen in the United States such as the religious right-wing evangelist, W.D. Herrstrom, national socialists such as George Lincoln Rockwell and revisionist historians such as the widely read Harry Elmer Barnes at Smith College. Barnes was especially influential because of his reputation as a legitimate historian.
By the late 1960s the ideas of Rassinier, Barnes and an English professor at LaSalle College, Austin J. App, had caught the attention of the extreme political right in the United States and in Europe.
The Institute for Historical Review
One of the earliest, and most notorious, was Willis Carto. Long an avid neo-Nazi and racial purist, Carto founded the extreme right-wing Liberty Lobby and the fascist publication company, Noontide Press. Early in his career, he was associated with the right-wing political organization, The John Birch Society. After being kicked out of the Birch Society by its Director, Robert Welch, in 1959, he formed the Washington-based Liberty Lobby and its magazine,Spotlight. In 1969 Carto published an anonymous book entitled The Myth of the Six Million. The book was obviously written by revisionist historian David Leslie Hoggan. Similar activities began in England with the publication of a little 27-page booklet entitled Did Six Million Really Die? by Richard Verrall (pseudonym, Richard Harwood). This brief restatement of the Hoggan book was published by Spearhead, a neo-Nazi paper of the British National Front. Both of these publications were presented as "historical revisionism" when, in fact, they were Holocaust denial. Both downplayed Nazi atrocities and blamed the Holocaust "myth" on an international Zionist conspiracy.
In the United States, Holocaust denial attempted to move in the direction of scholarship with the 1974 publication of The Hoax of the Twentieth Century by Arthur R. Butz. Butz, an MIT trained PhD in engineering was, and still is, a member of the engineering faculty at Northwestern University. Familiar with the niceties of scientific presentation and having a legitimate claim to scholarship (in engineering), Butz lent an air of legitimacy and respectability to Holocaust denial. He argued that alleged gassings at Auschwitz and other death camps simply could not have occurred and, therefore, constitute a "hoax." In the face of testimony to the contrary from the accused war criminals at Nuremberg, Butz argued that they were coerced into such testimony by the clever and powerful lawyers for the victorious Allies and by their belief that, since the world already believed they were guilty, they would have a better chance by pleading guilty.
Butz' book stirred a significant controversy in the popular press, a fact which did not escape the sharp eye of Willis Carto. In 1978 he funded the creation of the California-based Institute for Historical Review (IHR). The IHR promptly created a publishing outlet of its own, The Journal of Historical Review, a very slick magazine produced in the format of a legitimate scholarly journal. One of the first official functions of the IHR was the organization of "international revisionist conferences" which purported to bring together revisionist "scholars" from around the world. In actuality, its purpose was to bring together deniers from all over the world.
At that first convention the Institute director, Lewis Brandon (whose real name is William David McCalden, an Irish-born neofascist and racialist, issued a challenge to anyone who could prove with hard evidence that any Jew was ever gassed by the Nazi regime. Even though the challenge was never serious and was merely a media ploy, Brandon offered a $50,000 reward to anyone who would step up and meet the challenge. It would be over a year before someone did accept the challenge. We will return to that case and it's outcome later in this essay.
Holocaust Denial in an Age of Skepticism
The impact of these deniers in "revisionist" clothing is greatly abetted by certain characteristics of our times. As we approach the close of the 20th century, we find ourselves living in an age of skepticism -- about everything. There are clear signs that Americans have lost trust in government. This is not so much a result of scandalous, or alleged scandalous, behavior on the part of highly visible political leaders. It goes much deeper than that. In fact, it appears that American citizens have a remarkable capacity to overlook and forgive personal mistakes of political leaders. John Kennedy's alleged "womanizing" has done little to detract from the appeal of Camelot. Speaker Gingrich's recent admission of wrong-doing with regard to tax payments did not prevent him from being re-elected to the position of leader of the Senate. It seems that American may make these human foibles the grist of conversation and the butt of endless jokes; however, they do not figure prominently into our political choices. At a much deeper level, however, a prolonged and senseless war in Southeast Asia, the ramifications of Watergate, Koreagate and arms deals with Iran may have shattered faith in government beyond redemption.
A popular bumper sticker reads, "Ignore the media, think for yourself." It also appears that we have lost faith in the public media to tell us the truth about domestic and world events. News programs are presented to us in the format of a talk show where every question has at least two and usually many more sides. The end result is the conviction that there is no truth about anything.
At the university level, the canons of ethical neutrality obligate the professor to objectively present all sides of every issue and allow the student to make up his/her mind regarding courses of action and reaction.
Some years ago, a Canadian theologian, Pierre Berton, wrote a fascinating book entitled The Comfortable Pew. He called upon church leaders to reclaim a position of moral leadership and moral authority which, in the relativistic climate of modern times, they had abdicated. In Berton's view, the pews of our churches have become very comfortable indeed in the face of situational morality and relativistic ethics.
The combined effect of these trends may well be that the general population no longer believes that anything is right or, for that matter, wrong. Everything is relative, including truth. Every story has "another side. It seems to me that the postmodern deconstruction strategies of recent years has created an intellectual climate in which it is (a) easy to level questions against any historical construction and (b) easy to believe that history is a matter of perception, language, and political agenda. It seems to me that revisionism is part and parcel of this whole movement. The movement runs the gamut from Oliver Stone's powerful insinuation that, since there is some reason to doubt the conclusions of the Warren Commission, there is a major conspiracy to kill the president of the U.S. -- a conspiracy involving the Mafia, the Vice President, the CIA, the FBI, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Congress (sort of a long jump!) to the Afrocentrist interpretations of history advanced by Leonard Jeffries and Louis Farrakhan. Is the end product of deconstruction the conclusion that there is no ultimate historical reality -- any truth can be recast.
While none of the above is intended to insinuate that postmodern deconstruction is, ipso facto, Holocaust denial, I am claiming that Holocaust denial is postmodern deconstructionism and is feeding hungrily upon the success of deconstructionist methodology, particularly in a population (world-wide) that is being led to believe that everything is, at least, relative and, at worst, the product of some evil conspiracy. Nearly all revisionist history is critical of existing historical constructions, whether it was the post WWI European historians who used the approach to attack the Versailles Treaty and, in effect, exonerate Germany of wrong-doing, the work of William A. Williams which was leveled against U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War, or the Institute for Historical Review which uses the same methodology to insinuate against the death of 6 millions Jews at the hands of Hitler.
The crucial question is: are there canons of evidence which are, in fact incontrovertible? The power of revisionism and the intellectual climate is has fostered is nowhere more clearly seen as in the assault upon the Holocaust. If the most thoroughly documented event in human history is assailable through insinuation, is there any way to defend any historical "construction?"
Deborah Lipstadt reports that a 1993 Roper Poll found that 22 percent of American adults and 20 percent of American high school students believe that it is possible that the Holocaust didn't happen. A 1993 Newsweek poll found that fully 40 percent of American adults express doubts regarding the generally accepted magnitude of the Holocaust. Similar reports have come from Italy, Austria, France, Great Britain and Canada. While these results are disturbing, they must be put in perspective. First, the deniers are grossly in error when they take credit for these doubts. Deniers would have us believe that their "revisionist scholarship" has had the effect of cleaning up the historical account of World War II. In fact, their arguments have been overwhelmingly refuted point by point by scholars such as Lipstadt, Dawidowicz, Marrus, Browning and others. The increased skepticism regarding the Holocaust is highly correlated with the rise of neo-Nazi and neo-fascist ideologies throughout the western world.
It should also be remembered that the world is now fifty years removed from the immediate realities of the Holocaust as headline news. A new generation has almost completely replaced the one which experienced the war and its aftermath first-hand. This new generation has its own problems, issues and priorities including Vietnam, the restructuring of the world in a post-cold war era, Desert Storm, the Middle East crisis and a host of domestic economic and political woes. These realities added to an atmosphere of general skepticism and mistrust of authority structures have had a far greater impact on modern sensibilities that all the combined efforts and insinuations of the Holocaust deniers posing as historical revisionists. With these observations in mind, we turn our attention to their implications for the future.
The Crucial Role of Eyewitnesses
In the fifty years that have passed since the end of World War II and the liberation of Holocaust survivors from the Nazi camps, the most powerful and effective answer to the deniers has been the personal, eye-witness testimony of the survivors themselves. The evidence presented by people who can stand up and say, "I WAS THERE!" None of the deniers were present to witness the facts they deny. Survivors had the power of first-hand experience to counter the claims of the deniers. "LOOK AT THIS BLUE TATTOO!"
The celebrated case of Mel Mermelstein versus the IHR is an excellent example of this issue. In 1979, the Institute for Historical Review , at its annual convention, offered a $50,000 reward to anyone who could step forward and prove that there were gas chambers at Auschwitz and that any Jews were gassed there. In 1980, a Jewish survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Auschwitz prisoner A-4685, answered the challenge by presenting affidavits detailing the deaths of his mother, father, brother and two sisters at the camp. The IHR refused to pay the reward so Mr. Mermelstein sued the Institute. The case never actually went to trial. Both sides agreed to a summary judgment by the court, and the court decided for Mel Mermelstein.
The Honorable Thomas T. Johnson, on October 9, 1981, took judicial notice as follows:
"Under Evidence Code Section 452(h), this court does take judicial notice of the fact that Jews were gassed to death at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland during the summer of 1944" and "It just simply is a fact that falls within the definition of Evidence Code Section 452(h). It is not reasonably subject to dispute. And it is capable of immediate and accurate determination by resort to sources of reasonably indisputable accuracy. It is simply a fact."
The text of the hearing before the Superior Court of the State of California is presented below:
SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
FOR THE COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES
MEL MERMELSTEIN. No. C 356 542
Plaintiff,
JUDGMENT
INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL REVIEW, et al.
Defendants.
Pursuant to the Stipulation for Entry of Judgment executed on July 22, 1985, the Court renders the following judgment:
1. Defendants LIBERTY LOBBY, WILLIS CARTO, ELISABETH CARTO, LEGION FOR SURVIVAL OF FREEDOM, INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL REVIEW, and NOONTIDE PRESS, and each of them, are jointly and severally liable to plaintiff MEL MERMELSTEIN for the sum of One Hundred Fifty Thousand Dollars ($150,000.00), reduced to the sum of Ninety Thousand Dollars ($90,000.00) payable as follows:
(a) Fifty Thousand Dollars ($50,000.00) on August 1, 1985,and delivered to the law offices of ALLRED, MAROKO, GOLDBERG & RIBAKOFF;
(b) Twenty Thousand Dollars ($20,000.00) on September 1, 1985;
(c) Twenty Thousand Dollars ($20,000.00) on October 1, 1985.
2. Should any of the installments not be made by the defendants against whom judgment herein is entered within the time period provided, plaintiff, at his sole option and discretion, shall have the following options:
(a) To rescind the Stipulation for Entry of Judgment and proceed to trial and any payments received by plaintiff to that date from defendants shall not be returned to said defendants; or
(b) Plaintiff may request entry of Judgment against each of said defendants, jointly or severally, in the sum of One Hundred Fifty Thousand Dollars ($150,000.00).
3. Defendants LIBERTY LOBBY, WILLIS CARTO, ELISABETH CARTO, LEGION FOR SURVIVAL OF FREEDOM, INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL REVIEW, and NOONTIDE PRESS, shall issue and execute, by a duly authorized representative, a Letter of Apology to Mel Mermelstein, as follows:
"Each of the answering defendants do hereby officially and formally apologize to Mr. Mel Mermelstein, a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald, and all other survivors of Auschwitz for the pain, anguish and suffering he and all other Auschwitz survivors have sustained relating to the $50,000 reward offer for proof that "Jews were gassed in gas chambers at Auschwitz".
DATED: AUG 5, 1985
ROBERT A. WENKE, JUDGE
SUPERIOR COURT
APPROVED AS TO FORM AND CONTENT:
G. G. BAUMEN
Attorney for Defendants
INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL REVIEW,
LEGION FOR SURVIVAL OF FREEDOM,
ELISABETH CARTO and NOONTIDE PRESS
VON ESCH & ASSOCIATES
Attorneys for Defendants
LIBERTY LOBBY and WILLIS CARTO
The Court then issued the following order to the defendants as an official:
STATEMENT OF RECORD AND LETTER OF APOLOGY TO MEL MERMELSTEIN
"WHEREAS, the Legion for Survival of Freedom, and the Institute for Historical Review, sent by letter dated November 20, 1980, directly to Mel Mermelstein, a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald, an exclusive reward offer in a letter marked "'personal'" dated November 20, 1980, offering Mr. Mermelstein a $50,000 exclusive reward for "'proof that Jews were gassed in gas chambers at Auschwitz'" "and further stating that if Mr. Mermelstein did not respond to the reward offer "'very soon"', "the Institute for Historical Review would ' publicize that fact to the mass media' ..."
"WHEREAS, Mr. Mermelstein formally applied for said $50,000 reward on December 18, 1980; and
"WHEREAS, Mr. Mermelstein now contends that the Institute for Historical Review knew, or should have known, from Mr. Mermelstein's letter to the editor of the Jerusalem Post dated August 17, 1980, that Mr. Mermelstein contended he was a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald; knew, or should have known, that Mr. Mermelstein contended that his mother and two sisters were gassed to death at Auschwitz; and knew, or should have known, of his contention that at dawn on May 22, 1944, he observed his mother and two sisters, among other women and children, being lured and driven into the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau, which he later discovered to be Gas Chamber No. 5; and
"WHEREAS, on October 9, 1981, the parties in dispute in the litigation filed cross-motions for summary judgment resulting in the court, per the Honorable Thomas T. Johnson, taking judicial notice as follows: "'Under Evidence Code Section 452(h), this court does take judicial notice of the fact that Jews were gassed to death at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland during the summer of 1944'" and "'It just simply is a fact that falls within the definition of Evidence Code Section 452(h). It is not reasonably subject to dispute. And it is capable of immediate and accurate determination by resort to sources of reasonably indisputable accuracy. It is simply a fact.'"
"WHEREAS, Mr. Mermelstein and other survivors of Auschwitz contend that they suffered severe emotional distress resulting from said reward offer and subsequent conduct of the Institute of Historical Review; and
"WHEREAS, the Institute for Historical Review and Legion for Survival of Freedom now contend that in offering such reward there was no intent to offend, embarrass or cause emotional strain to anyone, including Mr. Mermelstein, a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald Concentration Camps of World War II, and a person who lost his father, mother and two sisters who also were inmates of Auschwitz;
"WHEREAS, the Institute for Historical Review and Legion for Survival of Freedom should have been aware that the reward offer would cause Mr. Mermelstein and other survivors of Auschwitz to suffer severe emotional distress which the Institute for Historical Review and Legion for Survival of Freedom, now recognize is regrettable and abusive to survivors of Auschwitz.
The following letter was sent to Mr. Mermelstein:
"Each of the answering defendants do hereby officially and formally apologize to Mr. Mel Mermelstein, a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald, and all other survivors of Auschwitz for the pain, anguish and suffering he and all other Auschwitz survivors have sustained relating to the $50,000 reward offer for proof that "Jews were gassed in gas chambers at Auschwitz".
DATED: 7/24/85
G. G. Baumen
Attorney for Defendants
Legion For Survival of Freedom,
Institute for Historical Review,
Noontide Press, and Elisabeth Carto
DATED: 7/24/85
MARK F. VON ESCH
Attorneys for Defendants
Liberty Lobby and Willis Carto
Needless to say, the IHR and the Liberty Lobby have not issued any more challenges of this kind. However, they have claimed, and probably correctly, that the press coverage and publicity they received was worth the price they had to pay. One suspects that this was the motive behind the challenge from the beginning. But additional court cases of this kind would certainly lead to similar outcomes and a growing body of adverse judgements against them would not be in their best interest.
Nor do they need to employ these tactics. They know full well that the time is rapidly approaching when there will be no more Mel Mermelsteins, or Magda Herzbergers or Elie Wiesels to offer their unique eye-witness testimony. Another couple of decades and there will be no more living survivors of the Holocaust. My great fear is that the deniers will exploit that reality with great effectiveness. This underscores the importance of written testimony in the form of memoirs. Every survivor who can possibly do so should be encouraged to write their memories as clearly and as accurately as possible. We will have among us for yet another generation the children of survivors, such as Joey Korn, who will have a legitimate case for entering court armed with their parents' eye-witness reports.
Conclusions
Contemporary Holocaust deniers are not revisionists -- not even neo-revisionists. They are Deniers. Their motivations stem from their neo-nazi political goals and their rampant antisemitism. Unfortunately, their arguments are being given credence in a world torn by relativism. Why should we care what they say? Some would argue that the only thing that is at stake in this controversy is the offense caused for those who survived the Holocaust and for the children of those who did not survive. If this were the only issue, we would say to those personally offended, "We are sorry your feelings are hurt. We regret that this assault against your precious memories has been perpetrated by these insensitive people." But, alas, far more is at stake. As the oft-quoted statement by philosopher, George Santyana, must ever remind us that "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it." Keeping alive the memory of the Holocaust is the only safeguard, for Jews and non-Jews alike, against such ultimate inhumanity.
Pathetic lies are told about counterclaims made re the Mermelstein case. The fact is, he legally got his money, and kept it, and never had to pay it back, and did not pay it back. Now, the halfwits have learned, so they play "bait and switch" instead. No more easy cash refuting their crap!
Since a lot of this crap is aimed at showing how Jews (or "non-biblical Jews", or some other sort of mythic or dehumanized being) is the wicked plot-maker, here is a little background about something related (also from the Skepdic source):
Protocols of the Elders of Zion
"The only statement I care to make about the Protocols is that they fit in with what is going on. They are sixteen years old, and they have fitted the world situation up to this time. They fit it now." --Henry Ford, 2-17-21, whose newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, cited the Protocols as evidence of an alleged Jewish threat until at least 1927
"To what extent the whole existence of this people is based on a continuous lie is shown incomparably by the Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion...." -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a forgery made in Russia for the then Okhrana (secret police), which blames the Jews for the country's ills. It was first privately printed in 1897 and was made public in 1905. It is copied from a nineteenth century NOVEL by Hermann Goedsche (Biarritz, 1868) whose admittedly fictitious plotline claims that a secret Jewish cabal is plotting to take over the world.
The basic story was composed by Goedsche, a German novelist and anti-Semite who used the pseudonym of Sir John Retcliffe. Goedsche stole the main story from another writer, Maurice Joly, whose Dialogues in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu (1864) involved a Hellish plot aimed at opposing Napoleon III. Goedsche's original contribution consists mainly of introducing Jews to do the plotting to take over the world.
The Russians used big chunks of a Russian translation of Goedsche's novel, published it separately as the Protocols, and claimed they were authentic. Their purpose was political: to strengthen the czar Nicholas II's position by exposing his opponents as allies with those who were part of a massive conspiracy to take over the world. Thus, the Protocols are a forgery of a plagiarized fiction.
The Protocols were exposed as a forgery by Lucien Wolf in The Jewish Bogey and the Forged Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion (London: Press Committee of the Jewish Board of Deputies, 1920). In 1921, Philip Grave, a correspondent for the London Times, publicized the forgery. Herman Bernstein in The Truth About "The Protocols of Zion": A Complete Exposure (1935) also tried and failed to convince the world of the forgery.
The Protocols were published in 1920 in a Michigan newspaper started by Henry Ford mainly to attack Jews and Communists. Even after they were exposed as a forgery, Ford's paper continued to cite the document. Adolf Hitler later used the Protocols to help justify his attempt to exterminate Jews during World War II.
The Protocols hoax continues to fool people and is still cited by certain individuals and groups as the cause of all their woes.
That was easy, wasn't it? The novel exists, can be tracked down, and the alleged secret protocol thereby shown to be nothing more than a creative work of fiction. Does that stop kooks from believing in it? No, surely no!
Harmless until it inspires genocide. [End of Part One]