Denial

Frank Furedi

Each month, Frank Furedi will pick apart a really bad idea. This month he challenges ‘denial’, which he says has become part of a secular inquisition that stigmatises free thinking.

Every now and again, I find myself in the Campo di Fiori, my favourite public place in the city of Rome. I love the bustle of the open-air food market, the wonderful smells emanating from the restaurants and cafes, the chaos as young children vie with courting couples and pensioners for a bit of space. The square is dominated by the statue of Giordano Bruno, the heretic who, on 17 February 1600, was burned at the stake for denying the Immaculate Conception.

A pilgrimage to the Campo di Fiori can be a useful reminder of how the powers-that-be once dealt with free-thinking dissidents. Today, though, I no longer think only of the past when I look at the statue – for in the early years of the twenty-first century, Western societies have become prey to powerful illiberal, intolerant and anti-democratic influences. Those who question prevailing cultural orthodoxies are often treated as immoral, evil people and their arguments depicted as a form of secular heresy.

Many influential figures have a cavalier attitude to free speech, believing that ‘dangerous’ ideas should be repressed. Disbelief in today’s received wisdom is described as ‘Denial’, which is branded by some as a crime that must be punished. It began with Holocaust denial, before moving on to the denial of other genocides. Then came the condemnation of ‘AIDS denial’, followed by accusations of ‘climate change denial’. This targeting of denial has little to do with the specifics of the highly-charged emotional issues involved in discussions of the Holocaust or AIDS or pollution. Rather, it is driven by a wider mood of intolerance towards free thinking.

Free thinking always provokes the wrath of dogmatic moralisers. People devoted to experimentation and the exploration of new ideas, including philosophers and scientists, have traditionally faced being branded as heretics. Free thinkers cannot help but to question the prevailing dogma, which often involves a denial of the official version of the truth. Many of Europe’s leading thinkers have been persecuted for their heresy. The Jewish philosopher Spinoza was denounced as a heretic for his denial of revelation, and cast out of the synagogue. In 1633, Galileo was tried by the Roman Inquisition for his criticism of the Church’s cosmology. Threatened with death and torture, he was forced to renounce his beliefs, and was then sentenced to imprisonment for the rest of his life.

So what do you do if you have serious doubts about the received wisdom, but you know that your ideas will be denounced as heresy? The scientist Isaac Newton was faced with the dilemma of whether to assert, in public, his denial of the reality of a personal devil and demons. But he had a lot to lose if branded a heretic. Some of his colleagues who denied the Trinity were deprived of their academic positions. According to one account, Newton decided to keep his views private, because ‘heretics were seen as religiously subversive, socially dangerous and even morally debased’ (1). Others also tried to avoid the wrath of the heresy-hunters. Copernicus, who denied that the Earth was the centre of the universe, avoided punishment by postponing the publication of his book until his death. Most of his colleagues and other scientists followed suit, which meant that for almost a century Copernican astronomy was virtually silenced.

However, not everyone was prepared to play this game. Giordano Bruno was the most audacious denier of Church dogma and an advocate of Copernican theory. He refused to be silenced, instead publicly upholding Copernicus’ ideas. Even after seven years in the jail of the Roman Inquisition he refused to recant. He paid with his life. This was one heretic who was prepared to flaunt his heresy to the bitter end. ‘You are perchance more afraid to pronounce your judgement than I to hear it’, Bruno rounded on his persecutors at the last hearing of his trial (2).

In the Middle Ages, the crime of heresy was associated with the denial of one of the Catholic Church’s articles of truth. In theory, the Inquisition sought to get heretics to see the error of their ways and renounce their heresy. Only if they persisted in denying certain dogma would they be handed over to civil authorities for punishment – usually to be burned at the stake. When early humanist Michael Servetus, who was hunted by the Catholic Inquisition, fled to Protestant Geneva he was executed by the Calvinist authorities for his denial of the doctrines of the Trinity and original sin. Even in England, burning heretics at the stake continued after the Reformation. During the reign of James I, Bartholomew Legatt gained the attention of the Church of England for his denial of the Deity of Christ. He was declared an ‘obstinate, contumacious and incorrigible heretic’, and burned at the stake. His accomplice in the denial, Edward Wightnan, was executed on 11 April 1612 – the last heretic to be burned at the stake in England (3). In Scotland, too, denying the Trinity was a risky business. In 1697, Thomas Aikenhead was hanged for committing this blasphemy.

Today the old Inquisition stands discredited. The Catholic Church is increasingly defensive about its past record of heresy-hunting. Indeed, it is ironic that the Catholic Church, which systematically criminalised the act of denial in the past, is today accused of being ‘busily engaged in an Inquisition denial industry’. According to some of its secular Protestant critics, the Vatican’s selective recall of its past misbehaviour is an act of Inquisition Denial (4).

Heresy-hunting in the twenty-first century

Would-be Inquisitors can no longer rely on the power of the Church or the authority of religion to silence their opponents. Indeed, Western society seems incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong these days. We’re more comfortable with talking about values in the plural, rather than any single value that everyone can embrace; instead of the truth, society prefers to lecture about ‘truths’. On most issues, we are free to pick and choose our beliefs and affiliations. Educators tell university students – especially in the social sciences and humanities – that there’s no such thing as a right or wrong answer. Instead of enforcing a explicit moral code, the authorities seek to police behaviour through diffuse rhetoric that avoids dealing with difficult questions; they talk about ‘appropriate’ and ‘inappropriate’ behaviour, for example.

Paradoxically, the absence of moral clarity today gives rise to an illiberal and intolerant climate. At a time when moralists find it difficult clearly to differentiate between right and wrong, they are forced to find some other way to draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. So they seize examples of unambiguous evil – paedophilia, the Holocaust, pollution – in order to define potential moral transgression. Today’s heresy hunters strive to construct new taboos. The most ritualised and institutionalised taboo in Western society is to question the Holocaust, or to refuse to stand opposed to it. Numerous countries now have laws against Holocaust denial. In Austria, denying the Holocaust can lead to a 10-year prison sentence. Targeting Holocaust deniers allows politicians to occupy the moral high ground, which explains why, this month, German justice minister Brigitte Zypries called for a Europe-wide ban on Holocaust denial and the wearing of Nazi symbols.

More at: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/printable/2792/

denile it's not just a river in Egypt.

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"It's normal for these things to empty your wallet and break your heart in the process."
2012 SLK 350
1987 420 SEL

When I left Watchmaker's school my first job was working for a guy who had been in a camp,had the tattoo on his arm.

After I knew him well I asked him about his experiences.

His version{to which the usual disclaimers apply}was that he recalled no mass slaughter or systematic extermination,all were used for munitions and war material assembly.

Toward the end of the war the slender food resources had to be prioritised for the troops in the field and the civilian population,hence the pictures of rail-thin,corpse-like men and women.

According to him dysentery and starvation were the real culprits,believe what you will,but this has been repeated by other camp survivors I have been priviledged to know.

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Blasphemy!

My uncle, law degree from Harvard, '38, was an infantry officer in Europe from shortly after D-Day until well after the end of the war. Aside from (or in addition to) his combat experiences, he was on-hand for the liberation of one concentration camp toward the end of the war. He immediately volunteered to become an investigator for war crimes and helped prepare cases against a number of suspects. Having spoken to the old fart about his own investigations, I have no problem at all believing that terrible, unspeakable crimes occurred as an intentional aim of the Nazi government.

I think what you'll find is that experiences varied according to dates of internment, location of internment, capabilities of the prisoner, and needs of the regime. The Nazis kept volumninous records that are still extant concerning disposition of the prisoners -- we needn't take the word of prisoners or guards or liberators or townspeople. We have Nazi records which were used as evidence at trial and were uncontested by the defendants -- hence the "following orders" defense rather than "never happened" defense.

So the memory of a particular prisoner, like the memory of a particular soldier, does not describe the experiences of many people to any degree of accuracy. In contrast, the great detail of teh Nazi regime's OWN records give a detailed and systematic description of their own efforts in that regard.

Bot

Is heresy still a crime?

Try denying the nonsense radical feminists spout about "Women are never violent" and "Women earn only 74 cents to every dollar earned by a man." You'll find out how Galileo must have felt when called before the Inquisition.

Eventually the Inquisition's nonsense was refuted, but it took a while. We may have to wait a while too before deliberate lies and obfuscations like the two above can be safely exposed . . . other than on the Internet.
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-- Paul W. (The Benzadmiral)
('03 Buick Park Avenue, charcoal/cream)
Formerly:
'97 C230, smoke silver/parchment; '86 420SEL, anthracite/light grey; '84 280CE (W123), dark blue/palomino

A good friend of mine who is a Rabbi, is a survivor who was at Berkinow(sp) when he was 15. I heard him speak about being marched up to the work camps with guards on all four sides and his only wish was to be able to walk on a sidewalk alone, by himself. I believe it happened and i never take walking on a sidewalk by myself for granted...

__________________
"It's normal for these things to empty your wallet and break your heart in the process."
2012 SLK 350
1987 420 SEL

Please elaborate. I didn't follow what you were saying.

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" We have nothing to fear but the main stream media itself . . . ."- Adapted from Franklin D Roosevelt for the 21st century

OBK #55

1998 Lincoln Continental - Sold
Max 1984 300TD 285,000 miles - Sold
The Dee8gonator 1987 560SEC 196,000 miles - Sold
Orgasmatron - 2006 CLS500 90,000 miles
2002 C320 Wagon 122,000 miles
2016 AMG GTS 12,000 miles

Exactly.

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I don't doubt that that is what he saw and was aware of. I can't imagine the Nazis broadcasting news of what they were doing to anyone in Germany, much less anywhere else. I can only imagine their master plan was to get as much use out of Jews as they could until they could ship them to the death camps.

The movie Europa, Europa, German language film, tells a true tale about a young Jewish man who through a series of accidents finds himself living among Germans who were unaware that he was Jewish. He hadn't the barest clue of the full scale of the death camps but he knew he would be in some kind of danger were he discovered.

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Birkenau.
Birke = Birch
Au = lush, green banks of a small river

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What I meant is that the radical feminist party line is as much an entrenched "wisdom" nowadays as is the global warming scam. The rad-fems hold the same place as the Inquisition did in medieval and Renaissance times.

If you question the perceived "wisdom" of Betty Friedan and Andrea Dworkin as interpreted today, if you dare to deny them or even suggest they might be wrong, you're in for a lot of hassle and may even lose your job. See "Summers, Lawrence, President of Harvard" and "uproar" from two years ago.

So yes, heresy is still a crime.
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__________________
* *
-- Paul W. (The Benzadmiral)
('03 Buick Park Avenue, charcoal/cream)
Formerly:
'97 C230, smoke silver/parchment; '86 420SEL, anthracite/light grey; '84 280CE (W123), dark blue/palomino

Okay, gotcha, Paul. I agree with you. However, I will also say that I guess sometimes existing problems are addressed with hyperbole in order to gain attention.

The voice of reason issued in a calm tone of voice often gets lost in the din. So, radicals shout these things from the rooftops to be heard and many times overstate their case. Sometimes they don't HAVE a case.

At any rate it makes life more interesting. That's my two pesos, Amigo.

__________________
" We have nothing to fear but the main stream media itself . . . ."- Adapted from Franklin D Roosevelt for the 21st century

OBK #55

1998 Lincoln Continental - Sold
Max 1984 300TD 285,000 miles - Sold
The Dee8gonator 1987 560SEC 196,000 miles - Sold
Orgasmatron - 2006 CLS500 90,000 miles
2002 C320 Wagon 122,000 miles
2016 AMG GTS 12,000 miles

"Nobody expects the Spainish inquistion !"




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[http://languageandgrammar.com/2008/01/14/youve-got-problems-not-issues/ ]

"A liberal is someone who feels they owe a great debt to their fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money."

Elie Wiesel accosted at S.F. hotel

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Shown in this file photo is Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel speaking to members of the media after addressing members of the Security Council on the crisis in Darfur, Thursday, Sept. 14, 2006, at United Nations headquarters. Nobel Peace laureate and Holocaust scholar Eli Wiesel was dragged from an elevator and roughly accosted, possibly by a Holocaust denier, during a peace conference at a San Francisco hotel earlier this month, police said Friday, Feb. 9, 2007.(AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

SAN FRANCISCO -- Nobel laureate and Holocaust scholar Elie Wiesel was dragged from an elevator and roughed up during a peace conference at a San Francisco hotel last week, police said Friday. The author was not injured.

The assailant approached Wiesel in an elevator Feb. 1 at the Argent Hotel and requested an interview, police Sgt. Neville Gittens said.

When Wiesel consented to talk in the hotel's lobby, the man insisted it be done in a hotel room and dragged the 78-year-old off the elevator on the sixth floor, Gittens said.

The assailant fled after Wiesel began to scream, and Wiesel went to the lobby and called police.

Gittens said police are investigating the incident as a crime. He said investigators were aware of a posting at an anti-Semitic Web site in which a man claimed responsibility for the attack, but declined to comment further.

Wiesel couldn't be immediately reached for comment at Boston University, where he teaches, or through his institute in New York.

Wiesel, who survived the Nazi death camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald during World War II, has worked for human rights in many parts of the world and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986.