Beyond the surface of history myths

[Evie]

(See my edited post. Parts of what you quoted remained from earlier versions of that post, which I forgot to delete)

 

[ParkCungHee]

(See my edited post. Parts of what you quoted remained from earlier versions of that post, which I forgot to delete)

Ah, in that case, our views are perfectly in line.

 

[Conroe]

My claim was that concentration camp was not a euphemism, that people at the time were aware of what the term meant, aware of the conditions that would be entailed, and the results would be entirely unsurprising.

Is this really a true statement? People should not have been surprised by what happened in Dachau? The reason that I ask is the reaction of the troops liberating the camp. They were so appalled by what they saw that they started executing the camp guards. The reaction of the local civilian population would also seem to be one of surprise.

You can compare the Camps at other levels however, they are similar in structure and functioning, similar in design and intent. You can certainly compare the two, in those respects.

No, you still cannot compare the two using your criteria. The structure and design of the British camps did not include crematorian ovens or a courtyard used for executing prisoners. As for intent, the original intent of Dachau (at least in 1933) was to isolate political prisoners. This, of course, was expanded in later years after the Nazis solidified their political power base. Contrast this to the British intent, which was to house and feed refugees displaced by the fighting.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Is this really a true statement? People should not have been surprised by what happened in Dachau? The reason that I ask is the reaction of the troops liberating the camp. They were so appalled by what they saw that they started executing the camp guards. The reaction of the local civilian population would also seem to be one of surprise.

Look, if you want to go rewrite the historical record to erase all meanings of concentration camp in the public conciousness prior to 1945, eliminate all the Perjoritive uses of the term in public discourses, Eliminate all refrences to the similar system established under Lenin under the exact term "concentration camp" that was well known, then be my guest. Publish you're findings, and get it peer reviewed. But I've really had enough of you trying to rewrite the entire history of the term because "HUR! I WENT ON TEH TOUR, SO I KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING BOUT!"

No, you still cannot compare the two using your criteria. The structure and design of the British camps did not include crematorian ovens or a courtyard used for executing prisoners.

You just love playing the No true scotsman falicy.

 

[Conroe]

You just love playing the No true scotsman falicy.

You can't back up your claim, therefore I'm an idiot? Please! All I'm doing is giving specific examples to refute your claim that the two camps are similiar. A claim you made in response to Plotinus' statement that it is "usually misleading to refer to the Boer or other versions without clarification."

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

He's not saying they are identical, he is saying that despite not being identical they can both legitimately be called concentration camps. That is what the True Scotsman fallacy means, not that he thinks you are dumb, but that something can't be defined in terms of what it is and something else excluded on those same grounds. To wit:

A: All true Scotsmen drink whiskey.
B: My neighbor is from Glasgow, he is a Scotsman, he doesn't drink whiskey.
A: he must not be a true Scotsman, because all true Scotsmen drink whiskey.

You are saying that the Boer installations aren't true concentration camps because they weren't designed specifically to kill people, even though that is not what the definition of a concentration camp is.

 

[Conroe]

You are saying that the Boer installations aren't true concentration camps because they weren't designed specifically to kill people, even though that is not what the definition of a concentration camp is.

No, what I'm trying to say is that there is no comparison between what happened in the British camps to the attrocities committed by the Nazis. And evidently, I'm not doing a very good job at it. :shrug:

 

[ParkCungHee]

You can't back up your claim, therefore I'm an idiot? Please! All I'm doing is giving specific examples to refute your claim that the two camps are similiar. A claim you made in response to Plotinus' statement that it is "usually misleading to refer to the Boer or other versions without clarification."

Fair enough, so other Nazi concentration camps that don't have courtyards can't be compared fairly?

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

No, what I'm trying to say is that there is no comparison between what happened in the British camps to the attrocities committed by the Nazis.

No, we know that, but the Boer camps could legitmately be called concentration camps, and they were no picnic either - what the British did was pretty bad, even if the intent wasn't complete extermination.

 

[ParkCungHee]

No, what I'm trying to say is that there is no comparison between what happened in the British camps to the attrocities committed by the Nazis. And evidently, I'm not doing a very good job at it. :shrug:

Because they don't have courtyards. Would you say therefor, that its unfair to compare Nordhausen to Buchenwald?

 

[Evie]

No comparison between the atrocities commited by the nazi in general and what happened in the British camps is correct.

No comparison between what happened at Dachau specifically and what happened in any specific British camps is however bull. Dachau was worse, but they definitely had far more similarities than differences.

"It had a courtyard to execute prisoners" is a relatively minor difference all things considered (as is "it had an oven"), given that execution does not appear to have been the norm at Dachau.

 

[Conroe]

Because they don't have courtyards. Would you say therefor, that its unfair to compare Nordhausen to Buchenwald?

Whatever. It had been an interesting debate with you. But now it is just getting silly. I think I'll say so long and take my leave.

 

[scy12]

This thread that appears as disvalidation of Myths is guilty for appearing several Myth in it self. I consider it untrustworthy and a failure. Unless it restarts with good intentions , no need to comment further.

 

[privatehudson]

If I may just interject for a moment on the issue of concentration camps.

Certainly the term "Concentration camp" was in use before WW2 and used to describe camps like those the British had during the Boer war. What I think the experience of the Nazi camps (extermination or death) did though was bring home to everyone just what the terrors of concentration camps as a whole, and extermination camps specifically were. The Boer camps were known about by the public but I would wager nowhere near as well as the Nazi camps.

People began to use the term to refer generally to any type of camp and to a certain degree the public have lost the sense of the difference between an extermination and concentration camp. When they hear that the British created camps during the Boer war they tend to think the worse and assume the British were trying to wipe out the Boer population. Certainly I've seen similar arguments thrown about in relation to connecting what happened in Ireland during the famine and the Holocaust.

A sideline to this problem is that people often use an argument like "well the British invented concentration camps anyway, so why try the Nazis at Nuremberg?" (note I'm not saying anyone here has, but I've seen it on other forums enough). This gives rise to a sense of annoyance as such people are implying by their statement that there is no real difference between the British camps and any of the Nazi camps when blatantly there was.

 

[Evie]

Scy12, how about you point out those myth instead of simply calling the thread a failure?

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

Then you're complaint shouldn't be with the Catholic church. Philosophy pulled out of Darwin not only existed, but was mainstream.

That doesn't make it correct. I'm going to say it again.

Anyone who tries to apply scientific theories as a philosophical guide to life is foolish. One simply has nothing to do with the other. The fact that everyone does it only means that there are a lot of fools.

There's no "feat" about distinguishing between different disciplines whilst still thinking they agree. On the contrary, it happens in every university today. We distinguish between (say) chemistry and physics, each of which had a different subject area and a different method of study. But their findings don't - or shouldn't - contradict each other, on the assumption that those findings are true. Similarly, medieval philosophers believed that study of the natural world and study of God's revelation were completely different fields, but their findings would not contradict each other, because obviously if two statements are true, then they can't contradict each other. If you really find that such a peculiar position then I'm not sure what to say.

The difference is that physics and chemistry are just distinct fields within science, while religion and science are two different things. I'm sure medieval philosophers didn't see it that way, but faith and reason aren't the same. I'm sure there are still lots of people who think they should compliment each other.

For the last time, Galileo was not persecuted for heliocentrism by the Catholic Church. He was "persecuted" (and even the use of that word is pretty tendentious) for breaking a personal guarantee to the pope that he would stop insisting that he could prove heliocentrism. That is why Galileo's purported proofs, and not the theory itself, are central to the whole case. If you really can't understand that then there's no point arguing about it any further.

Again, this is a technicality. The central issue was heliocentrism. You can argue that he was audacious for speaking up even when under duress, but that's a different argument.

Riccioli also named lunar craters after Ptolemy and Brahe. Does that mean that he thought that Ptolemy, Copernicus, and Brahe were all right?

In fact Riccioli didn't agree with Copernicus. He believed that heliocentrism was an interesting and viable theory which happened to be wrong. And he thought that Copernicus was an important figure in astronomy, even though he thought that Copernicus was wrong.

I bet Riccioli wouldn't have liked to have been in Galileo's position, and in deferrence to another Italian, Machiavelli, he made sure to say all the right words in public.

Of course most Catholics had de facto accepted heliocentrism some time before 1757 (which is when Pope Benedict XIV removed heliocentric books from the Index).

Really? As in the index of banned books? What's the source for this information?

EDIT: Never mind, I found it. So it only took 100 years after his death to rehabilitate him.

This doesn't address the question at hand and is just bald assertion anyway. Whom exactly are you accusing of "rationalisation" - Irenaeus and Tertullian, or the later Christians who used their development of the notion of orthodoxy to persecute those they considered heretical? What is your evidence that the positions of those you criticise were based solely upon emotion? The point we were meant to be debating was whether the suppression of heresy was an invention of Constantine and his heirs. I provided reasons to suppose that it was not. You haven't given any good response to those reasons.

Constantine didn't invent heretical suppression, but it helps a church to have government backing when it does some. As far as rationalization goes, I apply it broadly to theology. Theology, to me, is the study of hopes and dreams and attempts to rationalize them.

 

[DNK]

Scy12, how about you point out those myth instead of simply calling the thread a failure?

I'm going to have to second this motion.

Interesting thread...

 

[ironduck]

Temples for Roman gods were mentioned.. it's interesting that most of the ones that exist today do so because they were converted into (catholic) churches and therefore automatically protected. I don't know what the reasoning was back then, but I figure it was partly a way of very clearly showing what was the proper religion now (if you come to the temple you no longer come for the old gods, you come for the new one), and partly because they were really nice buildings.

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

Temples for Roman gods were mentioned.. it's interesting that most of the ones that exist today do so because they were converted into (catholic) churches and therefore automatically protected.

Yes, they were protected... from Christians!

 

[ironduck]

What's interesting is that if the catholic church hadn't protected them, more of them would likely have been destroyed or fallen apart. The church actively restored them through the centuries. They did similar things with other things such as triumphal pillars, placing saints on top of them.