Horizon

I disagree, Alan.

I read the Salon piece last week, and remember it mainly for pointing out that accusations of censorship are more appropriate for a historian who threatens libel lawsuits to silence his critics, than for the critics himself.

Defenders of free speech should not overlook their causes' other offenses — that's the whole point of the fraud findings in the Churchill affair, isn't it?

I understand some of the sympathy shown for Irving in the "nobody could survive such scrutiny" comment. There's a difference between the richly-deserved debunking of Trent Lott's dixiecrat comments and the sort of "try until they trip" treatment Clinton got. But bad scholarship must be exposed, and libel tourism has no place in the world of ideas.

There are sour notes for me both in a few of the author's comments and those attributed to Lipstadt.

The author characterizes her "speaking against censoring Holocaust deniers" as "shameful".

On Lipstadt's part, the author reports that she considers debate with holocaust deniers to be dangerous.

These are dangerous ideas that look fine as long as they don't get pointed your direction. Irving was dishonest in his research. That closes the book for me.

There are sour notes for me both in a few of the author's comments and those attributed to Lipstadt.

Taylor writes: "Lipstadt is probably right in suspecting that Keegan and Watt were annoyed by what they saw as the impertinence of a woman and a Jew who did not know her place."

I don't know if his attribution of this idea to Lipstadt is accurate or not, but regardless it strikes me prima facie as outrageous. Who knows, Keegan and Watt may be a pair of complacent old fogies who had little time for a young upstart, and perhaps male chauvinism played its part too. But to suggest on no clear evidence that the authors dismissed Lipstadt as an 'impertinent Jew' is pretty unpardonable, isn't it? I'd be calling my lawyer if it was me.

It's this general sense that moral outrage justifies such things that I think really bothers me about the article. I seem to detect an attitude that anyone defending Irving basically does not deserve the rights of decent folk. I find that doubly irritating because there is no need for it (as Irving has sunk himself with his own bad research), and I am triply irritated that I find myself apparently defending such people against other people like Taylor. I don't think that should be necessary.

I do remember her slagging Keegan unnecessarily, and the quotes you both point out are inexcusable.

The debate question is interesting, though. Though the author does not make it, there's an argument for not wasting time and resources debating nutcases. In Ancient Near Eastern studies, this is sometimes called the pyramidiot problem. The pyramids attract so many charlatans and well-meaning cranks that very few serious researchers are willing do much work on them, as it's likely to be drowned out.

Back in 1997, the ANE-L imposed a moratorium on any discussion of historicity of the Bible. The moratorium question was raised again in 1998, and an interesting discussion followed: ANE-L 1998: nos. 160-170.

Irving's a crank and Charles Taylor's article is badly written.

ROBBIE, exactly which chunk of spam are we intended to remove to send you email? I tried jimmythebleeder last week with no luck.

That reminds me, I read a rather jokey but still fascinating book, the memoirs of some journalist who decided to join various nutcase groups: white supremacists, conspiracy theorists, etc.

It was especially pronounced with the white supremacists. Here's some meathead who lives in the middle of nowhere in Idaho with his dogs and no one likes him or knows him. He puts on a pointy hat, starts talking nonsense that he may not even really understand, maybe learns to goose-step, and suddenly he's on all the talkshows and everyone fears him. Now everyone takes him extremely seriously, they listen to him, he's important.

Point being that people take cranks like that way too seriously. Maybe that's what Lipstadt had in mind re debates.

ROBBIE, exactly which chunk of spam are we intended to remove to send you email? I tried jimmythebleeder last week with no luck.

Brummers, you delete kick out the spams (like MC5 yar?) so jimmybleeder at yeah?