Like I say, I think there are a lot of people with his background in England who share his general world view. That is to say, they don't particularly like Jews, would not want their daughters to date or marry Rastafarian, and they have a school boy grown fascination with WWII history. I'd even go as far as to say they have a sneaking admiration for Hitler. For that matter, they probably don't particularly like the French, Scotch or Irish.
Some kind of 'pile on' dynamic seems to happen when "the other side" finds a visual one and it all goes entirely out of proportion, even sucking in "$500,000 expert witnesses", $3,000,000 lawyers and High Court judges. It becomes a very bad Vaudeville act with an Irving playing the evil baddie.
I wonder how much of that $500,000 or $3m went to Auschwitz survivors ... so who is really the most obscene?What Hitchens said was that Irving was a "necessary" historian not good or bad nor right or wrong. I think historians, like scientists, have a right to and need to push things far enough to get it wrong and then back off. They need to be able to and allowed to think the unthinkable. A point the pea brains will never understand. From the videos, it seems Irving has backed off and so someone, anyone, should not be defined by one point in their career.
A lot of academia (and even moreso politics), at the lower levels, is based on ability to conform, which is not the greatest of virtues. At the end of the day, it takes an outsider to stir the pot up. How much of that "pile on dynamic" is about a feudal village mentality and outcasting? Again, not the greatest of states of mind.
Debacles tend to benefit their intended targets and their views not diminish them and so therefore are actually counter productive.
QUOTE(CharlotteWebb @ Wed 25th August 2010, 9:37am)
That said I agree with Hitchens about affording him the opportunity to publish ... I dislike the notion that certain viewpoints are illegal in certain countries because ...
QUOTE(Somey @ Wed 25th August 2010, 8:47am)
anyway, the guy is a fascist nutcase ...
The point being one does not know until one knows and part of that requires allowing an individual to say or write what they thinks and work it through to a conclusion.
What I found fascinating in the videos was the body language of the various proponents. Watching the above, who would you rather have make up your opinions ... or even have to dinner? A twitchy rabid Eric Breindel, a pained looking David Irving, student media Max Blumenthal or the wiki-warriors horde on the talk pages? From the above, the correct answer is probably Christopher Hitchins, see also:
Mick Jagger, Squids and Anti-Semitism. Forget the WP, who here has genuinely read enough of what to make an opinion of their own? How many people who have an opinion about WWII actually read German?
Personally, I will be a lot happier when all of his generation on all sides die off and WWII becomes insignificant to everyday life as, say, Ghengis Khan or the Roman Conquest. I'd just wish they'd stop replaying parts of it all over the world today.
Sadly, I think the internet, and God forbid the Wikipedia continues to exist, will end up keeping alive such disputes which in other ages would have died down sooner. As a spin off this topic,
Kevin B. MacDonald seems to have got himself caught in the radar.