The Denial Industry
Oct 3rd, 2008 | By Paul Dennett | Category: Culture, Society, & Religion, The BlogHolocaust denial is controversial as a criminal offence, since some civil libertarians, and certainly all Holocaust deniers, assert that to criminalise Holocaust denial is an unreasonable restriction on freedom of speech, and a transparent attempt to limit public debate. In fact, the justification for the criminal prosecution of Holocaust denial rests on other grounds than that of freedom of belief or expression. Holocaust denial is not objectionable because it gets history wrong - plenty of people do that all the time. Nor is it so regarded because it falsifies the historical record, per se. Ultimately, Holocaust denial is regarded as criminal in some jurisdictions because it cannot be sustained without recourse to anti-semitic conspiracy theories (If the Holocaust was a hoax, then to perpetrate such a hoax over a period of decades would require a phenomenal amount of money, organisation and media control - it therefore presupposes an international conspiracy in the interest of the Jews.). As such, Holocaust denial can and should be regarded as a special case of incitement to racial hatred against Jews.
Even the most ardent defenders of freedom of expression will in general concede that incitement to hatred or incitement to any illegal activity is a legitimate concern of the law. However, we have clarified already that it is not the denial of the Holocaust itself (despicable as that undoubtedly is) but the implication that lies behind it, that makes Holocaust denial “criminal”. There are reasons for thinking that it may be preferable to do away with the charge of Holocaust denial altogether, and prosecute it instead under a charge of incitement to racial hatred (this would be the charge under British law - other jurisdictions will presumably have similar legislation on the books).
It is reasonable to ask why anyone would take the trouble to make this distinction. Holocaust denial as a theory has few defenders other than the anti-Semites on the political extremes of right and, occasionally, the left. Isn’t this just a question of splitting hairs?
The primary reason we are experiencing this peculiarly American phenomenon of evolution denial (the doppelganger of Holocaust denial), is that a small but vocal minority of religious fundamentalists misread the theory of evolution as a challenge to their deeply held religious convictions.
ExxonMobil is the world’s most profitable corporation. Its sales now amount to more than $1bn a day. It makes most of this money from oil, and has more to lose than any other company from efforts to tackle climate change. To safeguard its profits, ExxonMobil needs to sow doubt about whether serious action needs to be taken on climate change. But there are difficulties: it must confront a scientific consensus as strong as that which maintains that smoking causes lung cancer or that HIV causes Aids. So what’s its strategy?
The website Exxonsecrets.org, using data found in the company’s official documents, lists 124 organisations that have taken money from the company or work closely with those that have. These organisations take a consistent line on climate change: that the science is contradictory, the scientists are split, environmentalists are charlatans, liars or lunatics, and if governments took action to prevent global warming, they would be endangering the global economy for no good reason. The findings these organisations dislike are labelled “junk science”. The findings they welcome are labelled “sound science”.
For a start, let it be noted that ExxonMobil is a legal organisation. It sells oil, which is not only legal, but a fairly essential activity. We are not talking about a Colombian drug cartel here. It does, however, make a very large amount of money, and the allegation George Monbiot is making above is that it is paying various organisations which have a particular view about climate change (which also is not illegal). Let’s not beat about the bush - what Monbiot is talking about is climate change denial. The implication moreover, is that many or all of these bodies would not be making these points if they had not effectively been bought by ExxonMobil. Otherwise, why bother to throw cash at them? It is reasonably common these days to see it suggested that scientists or other interested parties with an unorthodox view of climate change are in the pay of the oil companies.
Does any of this sound familiar at all? A vastly wealthy industry on an international scale using its money and influence to manipulate the media? Doesn’t that sound rather like a global conspiracy to you? We’ve yet to see anyone try to rope the Jews into this one. Maybe it will happen one day - or maybe there just aren’t enough Jews in Texas to make it fly.
Let’s take a step back. On the one hand we have Holocaust denial, which promotes anti-Semitic conspiracy theories on the back of a “revisionist” view of history (and which can justifiably be prosecuted as a form of incitement to racial hatred). On the other hand we have concepts such as evolution denial (which is a synonym for creationism and useful only as a smear tactic) and climate change denial - which amounts to a conspiracy theory in its own right - and which poisons the well of public debate. Ultimately, Holocaust denial itself is trivialised by such misuse of the concept. Sadly, denial is still not a river in Egypt. We can well do without it.