Eugene Volokh on the Holocaust: "A consensus that endures when challenges are banned"

[Sannhet]

The Washington Post story "Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel Barred from Moving to the U.S." (see the CODOH Forum thread on the Zundel Ban topic), as written up by Eugene Volokh, inspired several dozen comments at the Post. The comments are at least two-to-one in favor of Zundel. The pro-Zundel comments generally appeal to freedom-of-conscience, with a minority explicitly revisionist. Mr. Volokh himself responded to one comment with very interesting remarks which I find to be supportive of the work of revisionists, (at least) on the principle of freedom-of-inquiry. (Reproduced below.)

Eugene Vololkh (Jewish; born in Kiev in 1968; in the USA from circa 1975; he was a Wunderkind who earned a computer science degree by age 15) has been a well-known and influential blogger since the early 2000s:

The Volokh Conspiracy is a blog, founded in 2002, covering legal and political issues from an ideological orientation it describes as "generally libertarian, conservative, centrist, or some mixture of these."

I can only respect Mr. Volokh for his commendable, cool-headed defense of freedom of inquiry on the Holocaust.

Here is the exchange:

gasman22
4/24/2017 10:58 AM EDT
If it is forbidden to express dis-belief in something, then one must doubt all who express belief in the same.

Sarcastro
4/24/2017 11:10 AM EDT
And yet, I've managed not to see secret Holocaust deniers in every European I meet.
Weird.

Eugene Volokh [Washington Post contributor; confirmed]
4/24/2017 12:58 PM EDT
I think gasman22's point isn't about doubting sincerity, but about doubting accuracy. How can we be reasonably confident that some historical or scientific assertion is true? Usually, we need to trust the consensus of experts who have studied the matter. If historians tell me (say) that in 1917 the U.S. government did this-and-such as part of our entry into World War I, I usually need to rely on their consensus. And if I think that historians are free to make and consider all sorts of arguments about the question, and yet the consensus remains, I can be fairly confident that their consensus is right (not completely confident, but fairly confident).

On the other hand, say that I learn that the U.S. government has made it a crime for people to deny the conventional wisdom. Now I can't have real confidence that the conventional wisdom stems from serious consideration of all the arguments by historians -- maybe there are some great arguments that would have dislodged the conventional wisdom, if only they could have been made. That's how forbidding the expression of disbelief leads to doubt about the validity of the belief.

Now this is less a problem for the Holocaust than for most things, just because the Holocaust has been so heavily studied, including in times and places where criticism of the conventional wisdom has not been outlawed, and because the Nazis left so much evidence for people to go through. But even for the Holocaust, there is some element of this problem. A consensus that endures despite the possibility of challenges is much more reliable than one that endures when challenges are banned -- given the risk that the consensus is enduring only because challenges are banned.

[Hannover]

Volokh said:

Now this is less a problem for the Holocaust than for most things, just because the Holocaust has been so heavily studied, including in times and places where criticism of the conventional wisdom has not been outlawed, and because the Nazis left so much evidence for people to go through. But even for the Holocaust, there is some element of this problem. A consensus that endures despite the possibility of challenges is much more reliable than one that endures when challenges are banned -- given the risk that the consensus is enduring only because challenges are banned.

Volokh seems to think that censorship only occurs when there are specific laws against specified topics. Naive to say the least.

A shame that he is not taking into consideration the legal blackballing and harassment of those who stray from the dogma in countries where 'denial' is not illegal.

Volokh is in denial of the control of 'academia' and the media by Zionists, but then he is a Jew ... so why should he question something that is so beneficial?

... because the Nazis left so much evidence for people to go through.

Statements like that are so typical, but also very easily swept away by simply asking: 'What Nazi "evidence" are you bloody talking about'?

Demand specifics and then take them apart piece by piece. It's not that deep.

- Hannover

Why have supremacist Jews have been marketing the '6,000,000' lie since at least 1869?

[cold beer]

I'm going to sound clueless, bring me up to speed, where is Zundel now?

[Sannhet]

I'm going to sound clueless, bring me up to speed, where is Zundel now?

Replied here.

[Sannhet]

... because the Nazis left so much evidence for people to go through.

Statements like that are so typical, but also very easily swept away by simply asking: 'What Nazi "evidence" are you bloody talking about'?

Demand specifics and then take them apart piece by piece. It's not that deep.

Someone like Volokh has to cover himself with statements like this. There is a possibility that he knows that the Holocaust is, at its core, untrue, but not willing to become a pariah, to die on that hill as others have. The other possibility is that he has simply never bothered with even the most cursory investigation, which I find harder to believe given his intellectual curiosity and activity.

[Hannover]

There's no doubt that Volokh is aware of 'holocaust' Revisionism.

-H.

[hermod]

Someone like Volokh has to cover himself with statements like this. There is a possibility that he knows that the Holocaust is, at its core, untrue, but not willing to become a pariah, to die on that hill as others have.

I don't think that this guy needed to write "this is less a problem for the Holocaust than for most things" and "the Nazis left so much evidence for people to go through" to be able to state that any reliable consensus requires freedom of inquiry without becoming a pariah. Superfluous if I'm asked.

[Sannhet]

Superfluous if I'm asked.

I agree, but Volokh should still be commended for suggesting that Zundel should, by law, be allowed to join his wife in the U.S. The reasons given, he says, are bogus: That he has committed crimes (revisionism is legal in the U.S.; the nebulous "promoting aggressive behavior against Jews" is just histrionics).

Volokh knows that Zundel being allowed into the First-Amendment-protected USA, he will no longer be under a ban on his free speech as in Germany. We have heard nothing from Zundel since his release from prison, and as long as he is in Germany, he cannot speak.

Volokh's tacit defense of Zundel's right to speak makes up for his snide comments (which he likely knows to be false) about the huge amount of evidence for the Holocaust.

[Breker]

Good cop, bad cop.
Volokh is a little like the Deborah Lipstadt types who on one hand say they support free speech, but on the other they make statements which have the effect of slandering revisionists. Thereby encouraging the continued persecution of revisionists, and to rationalize the anti free speech laws that have been put in place much of Europe.
B.

[Review]

The Washington Post story "Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel Barred from Moving to the U.S." (see the CODOH Forum thread on the Zundel Ban topic), as written up by Eugene Volokh, inspired several dozen comments at the Post. The comments are at least two-to-one in favor of Zundel. The pro-Zundel comments generally appeal to freedom-of-conscience, with a minority explicitly revisionist. Mr. Volokh himself responded to one comment with very interesting remarks which I find to be supportive of the work of revisionists, (at least) on the principle of freedom-of-inquiry. (Reproduced below.)
....

Here is the exchange:

......
because the Holocaust has been so heavily studied, including in times and places where criticism of the conventional wisdom has not been outlawed, and because the Nazis left so much evidence for people to go through. ....

We just had the Washington holocaust memorial museum researcher claiming the opposite:

"We are putting together numbers that no one ever compiled before, even for camp systems that have been fairly well researched - and many of them have not been."

Nazis may have killed up to 20m
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11117

In 70 years they can't even agree if it was 6.5 , 11 or 20 million dead, yet - the science is supposed to be thorough, robust and settled ?

[Sannhet]

Eugene Volokh wrote:
...because the Holocaust has been so heavily studied...

We just had the Washington holocaust memorial museum researcher claiming the opposite:

"We are putting together numbers that no one ever compiled before, even for camp systems that have been fairly well researched - and many of them have not been."

Nazis may have killed up to 20m
https://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11117

In 70 years they can't even agree if it was 6.5 , 11 or 20 million dead, yet - the science is supposed to be thorough, robust and settled ?

True, and I will again quote CODOH-Forum member Hegwood:

"The preservation of the lie is accomplished by presenting it as a mish-mash
of place names and horror stories without ever connecting them."

In other words, Volokh confuses 'talked about' with 'studied.'

Q. What do you call someone who actually studies the Holocaust in depth?
A. You call him or her a Revisionist.

[Hektor]

Volokh said:

Now this is less a problem for the Holocaust than for most things, just because the Holocaust has been so heavily studied, including in times and places where criticism of the conventional wisdom has not been outlawed, and because the Nazis left so much evidence for people to go through. But even for the Holocaust, there is some element of this problem. A consensus that endures despite the possibility of challenges is much more reliable than one that endures when challenges are banned -- given the risk that the consensus is enduring only because challenges are banned.

Volokh seems to think that censorship only occurs when there are specific laws against specified topics. Naive to say the least.

A shame that he is not taking into consideration the legal blackballing and harassment of those who stray from the dogma in countries where 'denial' is not illegal.

Volokh is in denial of the control of 'academia' and the media by Zionists, but then he is a Jew ... so why should he question something that is so beneficial?
....

Depends also on what censorship means. In the pure sense it means that any publication has to be shown to government officials for review who have to approve it, before it can be legally published. Nowadays this kind of censorship is rather rare, even in one party states or other repressive regimes.

The next form is legislation on the books and in application that you can use to jail or ruin authors and publishers. So when someone publishes something the regime doesn't like. Somebody else lays charges and the cops as well as state prosecutors start investigating him taking him to court on this, where a verdict may fine or jail him. It's a deterrent to enforce preemptive obedience to some sort of code.

But both techniques aren't necessary to suppress unwanted opinions or unwanted ideas getting a foothold. Even, when publishing is tolerated, most fringe publication won't get any broader attention anyway. Hence there won't be any debate about this, especially when it challenges an idea that is quite powerful by being taught on schools and universities, having a media presence and even leaders bowing down to it. This is what the Holocaust has achieved in Germany and several other European countries.vi

It's omnipresence and "moral content" takes care that censorship already takes place in people's minds and personal communication. The moral content is actually a emotional load the Holocaust-themed believes have gotten over time.... with a kick-start, when first Allied visual publications from concentration camps and from the psychological warfare departments hit the news in 1945. I'd assume that earlier Holocaust-themed reports were taken with a grain of salt, as they sensed that this is just more atrocity propaganda to promote the war effort of the Allies.

That those reports and "evidence" from camps like Dachau, Belsen and Buchenwald didn't prove anything regarding the core Holocaust claims was conveniently ignored with time. Deportation, internment of Jews and catastrophic conditions in camps at the time when Germany was collapsing militarily and economically is not in dispute by Revisionists, although this is often implied in debates wherein Holocaust enforcers are participating.