On Tuesday, June 18, 2002, at 10:58 AM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> [For "an alternative interpretation of Chomsky's final paragraph," why
> not
> read what he writes? --CGE]
because it's so much easier--and requires far more googly cleverness!--to assign guilt by association. clearly if the british fascists quote chomsky approvingly, out of context or otherwise, then chomsky approves of them and supports holocaust denial/revisionism along their lines, regardless of anything he might actually say anywhere else. so why bother reading it?
j
>
> ...[elsewhere] I was asked whether the fact that a person denies the
> existence of gas chambers does not prove that he is an anti-Semite. I
> wrote back what every sane person knows: no, of course it does not. A
> person might believe that Hitler exterminated 6 million Jews in some
> other
> way without being an anti-Semite. Since the point is trivial and
> disputed
> by no one, I do not know why we are discussing it.
>
> In that context, I made a further point: even denial of the Holocaust
> would not prove that a person is an anti-Semite. I presume that that
> point
> too is not subject to contention. Thus if a person ignorant of modern
> history were told of the Holocaust and refused to believe that humans
> are
> capable of such monstrous acts, we would not conclude that he is an
> anti-Semite. That suffices to establish the point at issue.
>
> The point is considerably more general. Denial of monstrous atrocities,
> whatever their scale, does not in itself suffice to prove that those who
> deny them are racists vis-a-vis the victims. I am sure you agree with
> this
> point, which everyone constantly accepts. Thus, in the journal of the
> American Jewish Congress, a representative of ASI writes that stories
> about Hitler's anti-gypsy genocide are an "exploded fiction." In fact,
> as
> one can learn from the scholarly literature (also Wiesenthal,
> Vidal-Naquet, etc.), Hitler's treatment of the gypsies was on a par with
> his slaughter of Jews. But we do not conclude from these facts alone
> that
> the AJC and ASI are anti-gypsy racists. Similarly, numerous scholars
> deny
> that the Armenian genocide took place, and some people, like Elie
> Wiesel,
> make extraordinary efforts to prevent any commemoration or even
> discussion
> of it. Until the last few years, despite overwhelming evidence before
> their eyes, scholars denied the slaughter of some 10 million native
> Americans in North America and perhaps 100 million on the [South
> American]
> continent. Recent studies of US opinion show that the median estimate of
> Vietnamese casualties [resulting from the Vietnam War] is 100,000, about
> 1/20 of the official figure and probably 1\30 or 1\40 of the actual
> figure. The reason is that that is the fare they have been fed by the
> propaganda apparatus (media, journals of opinion, intellectuals, etc.,
> "scholarship," etc.) for 20 years. We (at least I) do not conclude from
> that fact alone that virtually the whole country consists of
> anti-Vietnamese racists. I leave it to you to draw the obvious
> analogies.
>
> In these and numerous other cases, one needs more evidence before
> concluding that the individuals are racists. Thus in the case of Wiesel,
> it is quite likely that he is merely following the instructions of the
> Israeli government, which doesn't want Turkey embarrassed. In short,
> denial of even the most horrendous slaughter does not in itself
> establish
> the charge of racism, as everyone agrees. Since that is obvious and
> undeniable, one naturally questions the motives of those who deny the
> truism selectively, and produce charges such as those you relay.
>
> You ask whether one wouldn't at least suspect the motives of someone who
> denies genocide (the Holocaust, in particular). Of course. Thus, I do
> suspect the motives of Wiesel, Bernard Lewis, the anthropological
> profession, the American Jewish Congress and ASI, Faurisson, Western
> intellectuals who systematically and almost universally downplay the
> atrocities of their own states, and people who deny genocide and
> atrocities generally. But I do not automatically conclude that they are
> racists; nor do you. Rather, we ask what leads them to these horrendous
> conclusions. There are many different answers, as we all agree. Since
> the
> points are again obvious, a rational person will proceed also to
> question
> the motives of those who pretend to deny them, when it suits their
> particular political purposes. In this respect too the Faurisson affair
> is
> far from "settled," as you put it; in fact, the issues have yet to be
> addressed. In fact, they will never be addressed, because they reveal
> too
> much about Western intellectual culture...
>
> [Chomsky,
> http://monkeyfist.com:8080/ChomskyArchive/essays/kolodney_html]
>
>