I asserted that a number of Arabs and Muslims suffer from what can be called "Holocaust envy" (at <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20060508/038013. html>).
So do many American Indians and others who suffered -- or still suffer -- from oppressions that are downplayed or dismissed altogether by many. You see, the Holocaust has become _the_ standard of evil,
^^^^^ CB: Has it ? I thought , among others, the Holocausts in the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, the European genocidal usurpation of the Western Hemisphere, and the African slave trade/Jim Crow were each equal with the Nazi mass murder of Jews as standards of evil.
The main problem is sort of the opposite or obverse or something of "envy" _of_ the Holocaust. The main problem is non-Indians or non-Arabs characterizing the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews as incomparably unique, and more grievous than all the other holocausts and genocides.
^^^^
and many are tempted to analogize their oppression to the Holocaust
^^^^^ CB: I'm thinking the other way around: analogize the Holocaust to these earlier genocides and oppressions.
-- hence the prevalence of the term "genocide" among leftists, too, not just among genocide-mongers of the Right.
That's why I think Michael Steinberg's argument in <http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/steinberg080506.html> is so cogent.
Another reason is that a combination of moralism and capitalism tends to have us believe that intentional wrongs are more of a problem than unintentional wrongs. A case can be made that, morally speaking, intentional wrongs are worse than unintentional wrongs. But, in terms of consequences, unintentional wrongs are often much worse than intentional wrongs. Some can be induced to understand this point intellectually, but many find it unsatisfying, trapped as they are in conventional morality.
^^^^^ CB: It's more a combination of anti-colonialism and anti-racism as important components of the anti-capitalist critique. Nothing un-Marxist or un-historical materialist in using law and morality in anti-imperialist political education.
^^^^^^^
I suspect that these two reasons led Ward Churchill to develop his apparent belief in, for instance, a case of an intentional spreading of smallpox where he couldn't find written records for it. (I don't think he deliberately tried to lie -- he probably talked himself into believing it, as many -- including scholars -- do about what they want to believe.)
^^^^^^ CB: I don't know if I can take that university investigative committee's word on these issues. Have its members been investigated by radical thinkers and activists ? There are many unsavory and dishonest characters in these academic bureaucracies and dictatorships.