Theos-Talk Archives (July 1998 Message tl00022)

Bruce MacDonald wrote:

> I would like to thank Kym Smith for driving home the point of my editorial
> more forcefully than I could ever have done.  I have no problems with the
> views that Kym Smith professes but I have great difficulty with the acts
> that Kym would justify in the name of those beliefs.  The emotional
> arguments put forward in the above e-mail illustrate perfectly the concerns
> that I expressed in the editorial and again to Daniel Caldwell.  Perhaps the
> Canadian government should be nervous?  I am sorry, but I feel that this
> emotional blindness has to stop before people are so tied up in laws,
> regulations, and government intrusions that Western democracies become
> little more than hypocritical examples of totalitarian states.  If the
> writer below is sympathetic with the Canadian government and its laws and
> feels justification in beating "smiling Tibetan monks" into historical
> submission, what can we expect next in the misguided name of compassion.
> Shall we banish the flat-earth "nut-rolls" to the north pole?  Shall we beat
> soundly all those that deny Darwinian evolution?  Perhaps electric shock
> therapy would smarten those UFO nuts up nicely, after all they should not be
> allowed to go around scaring nice citizens with their alien-abduction
> nonsense.  If we could only shut these crazies up, wouldn't it be a nice world?
> We could have the uniformity of opinion that becomes guaranteed through the
> Thought-Police in "1984."  The citizens are close to being trained to spy on
> one another, we now only need the Thought-Police to complete our paradise.
> 
> When emotions get involved in a debate, the debate invariably degenerates at
> some point into a series of personal attacks.  I feel that we now have
> reached that point.  It is regrettable that some people are so bound up in
> ensuring that there is a uniform belief with respect to the holocaust that
> they can look at an argument that uses the holocaust as an example (despite
> never giving a personal opinion on the issue and assumed by omission as
> having stated one), miss the argument entirely and get caught up in the
> example.  When people become emotionally tied up into a subject they REACT.
> Theosophy is about living in the present, spirituality is about living in
> the present; materialism is about repeating the same act over and over again
> given a similar stimulus.  This is what animals do, stimulus-response.  The
> memory becomes a template for future behavior.  This is why you can train
> animals, they are so predictable.  I would hate to think that there was
> anyone out there training humans.

Daniel Caldwell replies:

Bruce, I would like to make several comments on your last two postings.

I will repeat:  I agree 100% with your Summer 1998 FOHAT editorial that
"truth needs no laws to protect it."  And I certainly also agree that we
do not
need governmental/societal "Thought Police."  

But my reason for writing to you and the editorial staff of FOHAT was to
inquire about what other *less explicit* points you were possibly
attempting
to make in your Summer 1998 editorial.

And what concerned me was your positive assessment and portrayal of
David Irving's work *without any indication that the substance of his
contentions and research has been critiqued by many writers and
historians.*

Concerning your two editorials in the Spring and Summer 1998 issues of
FOHAT:  

In these editorials you make various comments on two historians:

K. Paul Johnson and David Irving.

Both have written books in which they attempt to give a "better" and
"truer"
picture and understanding of certain historical figures and 
events surrounding these figures:  

(1) Johnson on Blavatsky and Masters, etc.; and

(2) Irving on what Hitler knew about the Jewish Holocaust, etc.

As I have stated previously,  you come down quite hard on Johnson's
research
and conclusions.  In fact, you give a quite negative assessement and
portrayal of Johnson's scholarship.  And you even do some
"psychoanalysis" 
on Johnson's motivations, etc.  

Yet your portrayal of Irving is quite different.  Your assessment is
positive.
I won't quote the various phrases you use to describe Irving, but they
are
all quite praiseworthy.  

***Why such different portrayals of these two historians???***

Again in your editorial involving Johnson you were quite willing to
mention the critiques that David Pratt and I had written showing some
of the shortcomings in Johnson's research.  

But in your editorial on David Irving and Wilhelm Staeglich, you
mentioned
none of the critiques and counterarguments against their research.
And this editorial of yours gave the impression that few if any
counterarguments, etc. had even been made to their research conclusions.

You may respond that your two editorials were on 
different themes, hence the different treatments.

Nevertheless, I believe:

(1) you were quite harsh on Johnson and his research. You even
indulged in pseudo-psychoanalysis of Johnson's
psyche, motivations, etc. 

but 

(2) you praised Irving and his research but did not inform
your readers about the substantive critiques of Irving's
work and opinions on Hitler and the Holocaust.

*This is what bothered me and still bothers me.*  

Bruce, would you be willing to admit that the negative assessment
you gave to Johnson's work could also equally apply to Irving's
work concerning Hitler and the Holocaust?

I think it would be quite easy to take the general criticisms I made
in my K.PAUL JOHNSON'S HOUSE OF CARDS? and show that such criticisms
apply equally (if not more) to Irving's work. 

One more issue and related question.

Again, in your editorial and in your emails to me, you did NOT
state the title of Irving's book.  What book are you
referring to when you write:

"When, at the height of his career he decided to do research on the
topic
of German concentration camps, he was quite surprised at what he found.
He discovered that PHYSICAL EVIDENCE AT THE CAMPS and the archival
evidence 
that he examined ran contrary to popular conceptions on the holocaust.
. . . David Irving's research and evidence for his thesis are readily 
accessible through his book."  Caps added.

Which book?????  Year of publication and edition??

Once I know the title YOU are referring to, then
I will have several other comments.