This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I don't necessarily think "he who controls the past controls the present, he who controls the present controls the future" is a hard and fast rule, but a lot of people care about that thing that happened 80 years ago. Look at OP, he cares so much he is on guard for anybody who doesn't even pay homage to it correctly. There is a growing body of censorship laws in Europe, and censorship of Holocaust Revisionism was and continues to be a top priority of the usual suspect lobbying for internet censorship. These groups themselves regard Holocaust Denial as a huge threat which would have catastrophic consequences if it proliferated.
So the "Who cares?" thing just doesn't do it for me because clearly people care about it very much. Everyone does. Denying the existence of gas chambers disguised as shower rooms is one of the biggest possible taboos in this day in age.
There are a lot of things that happened in the past which have absolutely no salience in the United States today, like the Holodomar. The Holocaust is important because it's a present-day mythology with a lot of political and cultural power.
Revisionism is a historical critique, which means it focuses on a lot of minutiae such as documentary evidence and interpreting the probability of the claims of the Holocaust narrative. But that's just a means to an end- the end being to undermine the mythology that rules over us. Look at how atheists used scientific and technical arguments to undermine Christianity, nobody can doubt the critical effectiveness of bringing a scientific critique to a myth body that fundamentally makes impossible claims.
This could be reversed, the Jews in the media who say that the proliferation of Holocaust denial would be an existential threat to Jews are also admitting the truth is highly threatening to their position. So the "who cares?" rings hollow when so many people care very much and consider it relevant for maintaining their station.
And that is not the claim of the Holocaust, the Holocaust is the claim that millions of Jews were brought to 5 "extermination camps" where they were tricked into walking into gas chambers on the pretext of taking a shower. The majority of the victims were allegedly buried, and then months later unburied and all cremated on makeshift open-air pyres in the matter of months. A claim that defies all logic and possibility, and fundamentally lacks documentary and physical evidence. The claim is false. It's a modern-day Exodus myth enshrined by the conjoined efforts of Hollywood and the apparatus of Stalinist propaganda, used as a tool for denazification, direction immigration policy and American perception of multiracialism, support for Israel, and much more than that.
The truth of a body of myth is not important in its influence or perception among the laity. The truth is relevant though for undermining the myth in the case where the myth fundamentally relies on the truth-value of claims that are false.
No, the official story is that the gas chambers only came at the late stages, more Jews were killed by firing squads and hunger. I suffered through extensive Holocaust education in school. They pre-emptively innoculate people against standard holocaust revisionist ideas, that's not the way to go. See here what they say:
https://www.memorialdelashoah.org/upload/minisites/ukraine/en/en_exposition4-radicalisation.htm
You're never going to beat these people when it comes to arcane factual disputes. Especially when they just go 'lol the history is settled now pay up' as some courts in Europe now do. It's much harder for them to outright fix in place the second half of the argument, the ideological stance that directly and clearly harms white interests in the present day. They prefer to keep that part elided and implied. Regardless of what the facts are, it's better to target the weaker part of the argument, that there is any reason to be guilty and sacrifice interests in the present due to what happened in the past.
Nothing we can do would persuade Turkey that they're in the wrong and should give Armenia reparations, let alone all the slaves they took and indoctrinated from Southern/Eastern Europe. They just don't care and would happily say 'Turkey strong' in response. Imagine that you get rid of Holocaust rhetoric but they move onto 'oh your slavery and colonialism was so awful' or 'all your coups and invasions were so awful' or 'think of the humanitarian virtue in ensuring Africa has 4, 5 and even 6 times the population of Europe' to justify dissolving nations and erasing culture. This guilt-tripping and distorted moralism is the core of the problem. It's impossible to counter every sin and argument these people can produce, real or imaginary. Far better to say 'not my problem' and leave them speechless and impotent.
The strongest argument in favour of Europeans getting to keep their own countries and have pride in their own achievements is not 'wooden doors, Wannsee Conference notes being unclear, chimneys moving around after the war, masturbation machines in the extremely cringe postwar literature', the strongest argument is Rotherham, Detroit, crime stats, all the academics gleefully looking to abolish the white race, a glance at the lawyers, donors and judges who pursue antiracism and their demographics... I have a massive reserve of useful and immediately relevant facts, as compared to bitterly contested, esoteric facts that haven't done anything useful in decades.
I don't have to trawl through 80 years of history. I can find things that happened last week and use them to support my case.
I said the official story, about half were claimed to have been killed with gassings inside shower rooms, more than any other single method. Many died from disease, and many died in hunger and shootings as well, Revisionist do not deny that part happened, only the gas chambers. Yes, many Ukranian Jews were killed by Ukranians themselves because they were associated with the Soviet apparatus by the Ukranians.
You can walk and chew gum, it's fine if others want to emphasize that argument. But the Revisionists are correct, so the fact they have the truth of it is worthy of pursuing in its own right. If you don't find it interesting that's of course up to you. I find it interesting for a lot of reasons, although I do not believe it's a silver bullet.
I don't think you really responded to my point that they heavily rely on that 80-year old mythos, as evidence by OP's post. They find it very important, and they find denial if it to be highly threatening. So they themselves do not believe you that it's just history that is unimportant.
It's not history, it's a mythology. Part of that mythology is that, at Treblinka, in an effort to erase all trace of the crime, the small labor force there unburied and cremated 5,000 people per day on huge open-air pyres. According to DeepSeek R1, that would require 3,400 cords of dry wood to be delivered, constructed, burned every single day for 120 days straight. With no documentary evidence at all. And no witness reference to any deliveries of fuel at all. And no physical evidence. And no contemporary witness reports, just rumor and testimony after the fact. And no scientific excavation of any mass graves to study the alleged cremated remains of 800,000 people in a precisely known location.
It's not history, it's a mythology. And it does fall apart in the face of facts very easily. It's not going to last forever. Again, I don't think it's a silver bullet. But it's a relevant mythology that is severely undermined when challenged on a factual basis. That's why they are so afraid of it, and they aren't afraid of you talking about crime stats or Detroit which every conservative does.
If you're taking flak, you know you're over the target. "Detroit and crime stats" is harped on by every other conservative, Revisionism is responded to with absolute hysteria. That's a hint that it's more important than you think.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link