hooooo boy,,,, am i right, folks, also link
For anyone who isn't familiar with him, Norm is a child of Holocaust survivors. He does not believe that the Holocaust is fake. He had S++ tier trolling and grudge holding abilities. He got fired from Harvard for bullshit "anti-semitism claims" after he eviscerated Alan Dershowitz and you can watch videos on Youtube of him nuking Zionist students at Harvard from orbit. He is basically doing a "by your logic" on this and calling out how Zinoist groups try and shield Israel from criticism by claiming that criticism is anti-semitic:
Postscript: This article was submitted to multiple “progressive” publications touting a principled commitment to freedom of speech. It was rejected by all of them. It’s a telling commentary on the commitment of the so-called Left to freedom of speech that it not only supports suppression of Holocaust denial, but also suppression of rational discussion— based on the most elementary principles of free speech—of whether or not it should be suppressed. What most amuses is that, whereas this mindless Identity Politics pretends to be defending Jews against Holocaust denial, this outrageous suppression of free speech has nothing whatsoever to do with Holocaust denial. If the integrity of the Jewish people’s martyrdom has been traduced, it’s overwhelmingly due, not to Holocaust deniers, but the machinations of Jewish organizations that have exploited the Nazi holocaust for financial and political gain. Per usual, the Holocaust is now being exploited to further an altogether different agenda. Indeed, immediately as Facebook announced its decision to suppress Holocaust denial, the Board of Deputies of British Jews called on Facebook to also suppress “anti-Semitism” by adopting a definition of anti-Semitism designed to shield Israel from criticism. But the infinitely stupid, gullible, cowardly, posturing, opportunist—and, let it not be omitted, vanguardist-totalitarian—so-called Left won’t see this, just as it didn’t see that the attacks on Jeremy Corbyn had nothing to do with anti-Semitism. Who can forget the hideous spectacle of ever-progressive Mehdi Hasan teaming up with repellant Holocaust-monger Jonathan Freedland to denounce anti-Semitism in the British Labour Party?
also the first episode of ALAB on allan dershowitz talks about him, and in context i can get what he is trying to do like my complain here is more i don't think students would in any way confront a teacher and would instead just keep their heads down and get through the class, also i respect him a lot because of that video where the girl is crying talking about how he says mean things about israel and he says "I don't respect the crocodile tears - if you had any heart in you, you would be crying for the Palestinians." like just one of the most savage things i've seen i don't think i would be able to do that
I agree that students would just be like "Yeah the Holocaust didn't happen" on their term papers because that's how they get A's, which is part of what is wrong with our universities and why they are vehicles for reproducing the bourgeoisie.
I guess I'll go read his argument because that's an odd thing for a man who is not a moron to say
OK Had a a quick read through. Will list the arguments not in order but in what I thought was persuasive. Not an endorsement because I think he's wrong in the end
-Universities should employ these cretins so students can dunk on them
-If you don't learn how to argue against something you're just being a little bitch who can't argue
-When you obscure the conflict you let people freely claim some crazy shit ranging from it was the Palestinians who were ultimately responsible to claiming holocaust valor
-If they're so bad you should have to confront them
-Students will be inoculated against it
-Slightly different to 2 but if you have settled on an opinion its much harder for you to see the other side of it and the denier is probably working harder than you on it so you have to up your game
I'm kind of broadly sympathetic to those points but
-Most college students are little bitches and will just attempt to take the best notes to get the best marks
-The holocaust denier will in no way sign up to be a punching bag
-If you do get a denier they're not going to play your honest game where the most rational wins
-How are you going to grade papers on that if the denier has a say in it
-There are chud students who will know he's wrong but use it as an opportunity to fuck with people
I guess you can say I'm being too protective of people but you're average 18 year old is not a young Marx and the only way the situation even happens is if the fash gets some advantage you haven't worked out a counter too. If our teenagers were in fact post grads or final year students, fine yeah whatever. Let them dunk on the nazi but there are better uses of their time like reading Marx
People on twitter are saying its some kind of troll so maybe I'm the moron. I don't think I was being unfair though.
One of the most common talents among University students is being able to transform themselves, and their opinions, to whatever they believe will get them the highest mark. This is probably the inevitable result of a world where your GPA, and consequently how much your profs like you, is a serious determinant of potential future opportunities.
All that's gonna happen if Unis hire Holocaust deniers is that Students will start writing essays about Wooden doors at Auschwitz.
I think that's my first point but more explicitly spelled out. Its very true for the teenagers but to be fair to Norm I think he's taking a more idealistic view of how students should approach debates and as Marxists we all know the appeal of a better world
Finkelstein still thinking honest debate gets you anywhere is kind of hilarious considering his career got cratered by Dersh completely behind closed doors.
Will this man ever learn anything?
Man, he's put more on the line and lost more than a lot of people. If he's still an idealist after all that god bless him even if we disagree with him on what the realistic outcome would be
sorry, I thought the dashes were making it different points and not a paragraph with dashes in it
most college students are in their late teens early twenties and don't know what the fuck they're doing
I agree with that. I listed what I thought were his best points and then I said why I think its a bad idea but my formatting isn't great so probably easy to mess
grand, it just popped up in the top right like you were mad at me. I'll cut Norm slack on this one because its never going to happen and he's mostly a god among men
yeah i just saw the image and searched for the link he is discussing about the ban and he just does not do threads so they seemed separate at first but this was his point before this
Indeed, immediately as FB announced its decision to suppress Holocaust denial, the Board of Deputies of British Jews called on Facebook to also suppress “anti-Semitism” by adopting a definition of anti-Semitism designed to shield Israel from criticism.
Just imagine a holocaust denier getting paid a university salary, full time with benefits, primarily for being a holocaust denier, while you get paid what you're paid for the work you do. Now repeat after me: "The chattering class deserves their pay. The chattering class deserves their clout. The chattering class deserves the space they occupy in my mind while I and people like me occupy no space in their mind."
Norman Finkelstein has been abused so much by zionists that he has gone absolutely fucking insane.
The first time I ever came across Holocaust denial shit was on Youtube over a decade ago. From looking at conspiracy crap on there, I kept getting recommended videos by David Irving "the whole truth and nothing but the truth". It was a huge eye opener to me that there were even people who deny the Holocaust even happened and this stuff was getting millions of views on Youtube years ago.
Holocaust denial was ultimately the end of a rabbit hole for my high school friends who got into conspiracy stuff at a young age and had been listening to Alex Jones since they were 15-16 years old. It shaped their world view and what will always hurt me is that they came so close to understanding that capitalism was the problem but were too brainwashed by conspiracy stuff telling them that it was some boogie man instead. I remember my best friend went from Alex Jones to David Icke, and then kept searching for something like a harder drug with this stuff. By the time we were both 22 years old he found that harder drug in holocaust denial and became a full blown neo-nazi. I haven't spoken to him in 6 years.
like he actually has a point on there this is the post after that he just really picked a bad example and as an old man refuses to do threads
"Those who desire to suppress [an opinion] deny its truth; but they are not infallible. They have no authority to decide the question for all mankind and exclude every other person from the means of judging. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility."
Paradox of tolerance. Platforming a holocaust denier will lead to more holocaust deniers, which will lead to more intolerance. Platforming fascists is always bad.
i don't disagree with you at all i think he believes the students will argue with a teacher instead of just not, so they can pass the class, like everyone does, which is pure idealism, but there is an actual discussion on the fb and twitter deciding what is and is not unacceptable could be real bad like, i am giving him the benift of the doubt because i feel like believes his shit like that students will rise against a shitty teacher and become better at arguing against this but i think his conclusions are wrong
Sure I'm not trying to demonize anybody I just take any chance to remind people don't debate fascists.
like it is a bit out of context like the main point on this tweet is bad by itself like no they should not but his point is a big anti israel bit as these types of bans could be used to repress and protect israel from critiscism
like norm is an asshole he does not care i feel like he is this dude https://www.facebook.com/merthyrrising/videos/dr-norman-finkelstein-i-dont-respect-the-crocodile-tears-if-you-had-a-heart-you-/1595577227192666/ he could have made this argument way better but then no one would care to talk about it right? like i feel like he is just fucking with people a bit which fine i guess
Norm is stubborn and unapologetic to a fault, sometimes doing himself and his message no favors. I remember he was on intercepted and scahill riffed a light joke on something norm said, and he just took whatever glib attempt at humor so poorly.
I think he does great work and I don’t ultimately think he did anything wrong or should have done anything different, but it is... unsurprising how he has been treated by academia.
He's looking for tips on denying reality to help with erasing Palestinian history
