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 -
The infamous David Stein isn't an antisemite. He's walking Jewish stereotype, but although he gets called a denier, his position essentially boils down to mainstream history is mostly correct, but "Auschwitz wasn't an extermination camp*" and total Holocaust death toll was somewhere above 3.5 million but not much more.
He is iirc mostly anti holocaust industry, thinks it unseemly that so many people keep using the historical event for political purposes today.
He's also the only 'holocaust denier' (according to ADL) who has been declared by a panel of US judges to not be a denier. (came up in some disciplinary process against a judge who ranted on Facebook too much, against a lot of people, one of whom was Cole. They looked at what Cole writes and said he's not a denier).
I follow him because he writes very good essays on the absolute state of California.
He's also about the only Holocaust 'denier' on record who also made a living making (non-controversial) documentaries about the Holocaust. Under another name. Apparently he has very solid historical knowledge of the events.
*I've never particularly cared to find out the specifics, as Holocaust revisionism is a fairly boring topic, but it's pretty fucking weird as e.g. the Budapest transports involved lots of people of no economic value, and Germans at that stage of the war weren't in the least squeamish, so .. what would they have done at Auschwitz with all the little kids and old people ? I really hope it's not some semantic dodge; e.g. Auschwitz wasn't an extermination camp because they only straight-up murdered those they couldn't put to work.
The usual dodge with "Auschwitz wasn't an extermination camp" is that there were multiple camps at Auschwitz, and only one of them (Auschwitz-Birkenau) was an extermination camp.
I've followed it some more and it looks like Stein is being stereotypically Jewish and engaging in some weird form of hairsplitting.
He says it's most likely the Hungarian Jews who weren't in work-shape were murdered, though the evidence for that isn't the best.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link