The salient features of this form of argument are:
(1) a series of claims with little or no underlying evidence, and
(2) the use of as many insults and offensive insinuations as possible to:
(a) emotionally charge the argument,
(b) psychologically distance the target audience from the writer's opponents,
(b) recast complex issues of fact into primitive and simplistic moral terms, and
(c) to challenge the reader to take sides immediately.
This form of argument is irrational but effective. It relies almost exclusively on autosuggestive principles, rather than reason, to make its point.
Keeping this in mind, let's look at the first five sentences of the parody argument.
………………
So what about this form of argument?
Is this approach effective? Yes.
“…irrational but effective”.
The first clause of the sentence begins with a suggestion that the proponent of the opposing view is ignorant ("Apparently Mr. Zundel is unaware"),…
Is this irrational? “Poor” Fred Leuchter was more than suggested to be a “denier from ignorance” on an earlier thread.
Effective? From an “autosuggestive” principle? Or does the writer know from “appearance” (“..apparently…”) that Mr. Zundel is ignorant? Is this a claim with little or no underlying evidence (point 1 above)?
How do WE know that it is effective? By the same “autosuggestive principle”?
“… while characterizing the writer and his supporters as morally superior persons ("courageous and politically incorrect truth-seekers"). By making this distinction, the writer also suggests that his opponents are not courageous, are "politically correct," and do not seek the truth”.
If there is a law criminalizing such unauthorized “truth-seeking”, then maybe the writer is right? What would be irrational about it?
One of those “claims with little or no underlying evidence”? The law book supplies evidence.
“Courage” is often “autosuggestive”, so why deny the “denier” some pep-talk?
If this is an example of “the use of as many insults and offensive insinuations as possible”, then we must wait ‘til we have read his debunkers in order to estimate its “effect”.
Is it productive of any understanding of historical issues? No.
Without pausing, the next clause of the sentence moves on to a lurid claim ("recent research . . . has revealed startling evidence that the bombing of Dresden and other German cities during the conflict known as World War II is in fact an elaborate German propaganda hoax.").
But that “startling evidence” would be productive of a historical understanding, wouldn’t it?
Perhaps “the lurid” (hey, that’s an “offensive insinuation”, isn’t it?) “claim” belong to those “claims with little or no underlying evidence” of point 1 above?
That would certainly be irrational, and ineffective, to make such a claim with little or no underlying evidence!
But Mr. Thompson thinks not!
OK -- the reader's hooked! A hoax! Not just a hoax, but a propaganda hoax; an elaborate propaganda hoax. And it's German, too! An elaborate national propaganda hoax, revealed by recent research and startling new evidence. The reader's eyes have narrowed now. It's a good thing, too. Since the reader's attention is focused on the hoax, he may not ask awkward questions, like "what research?" or "what evidence?"
The reader can’t search the evidence for the hoax!! His/her “eyes have narrowed now”. He/she is autosuggested by the hook of the hoax. The word has served to “emotionally charge the argument”, and to “psychologically distance the target audience from the writer's opponents”.
It has “recast complex issues of fact into primitive and simplistic moral terms”, and
served “to challenge the reader to take sides immediately”.
The word “hoax” perhaps has the same mesmerizing effect on the potential revisionist as the word “denier” on his debunkers?
“Denials of genocide make no sense unless one sees in them renewed opportunities for the same passions, meanings, and pleasures that were at work in the genocide itself, now revived in symbolic processes of murdering the dignity of the survivors, rationality, truth, and even history itself." - Dr. Israel Charny
http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/charny.html
Terms like “Hoax” and “Denial” serves to:
(a) emotionally charge the argument,
(b) psychologically distance the target audience from the writer's opponents,
(b) recast complex issues of fact into primitive and simplistic moral terms, and
(c) to challenge the reader to take sides immediately.
>>The reader's eyes have narrowed now. It's a good thing, too. Since the reader's attention is focused on the hoax, he may not ask awkward questions, like "what research?" or "what evidence?"<<
Change “hoax” to “denial”, and your eyes will perhaps be “narrowed”, too!
(2 and 3) "Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that a few buildings might not have burned down, and that maybe a few people weren't singed or even killed as a result."
What is the writer really doing here? He is acknowledging that something happened, so no one can say he's denying the bombing took place. But the words of the acknowledgement not only minimize, but trivialize the event. The unstated suggestion is that the event was grossly and deliberately exaggerated to promote the "elaborate German propaganda hoax." What is the basis for the writer's characterization of the Dresden firestorm as something in which a few buildings might have burned and some people might have been "singed or even killed"? He doesn't say.
(4) "But revisionists are scorned, and even laughed at, when we ask difficult questions about what really caused the tragedy, and how many people were really killed."
Here, the writer abruptly changes the subject. He mentions "the tragedy," but only to focus attention on the revisionists who are trying to get to the bottom of this "hoax." How can the "tragedy" also be a hoax? It can't. The writer is being sarcastically insincere.
5) "Meanwhile, so many establishment lies about this alleged event have been exposed by revisionist research that its hard to take the normatively accepted version seriously."
Ah! Now we can see that it's not a "tragedy" at all, but an "alleged event." Not only that, but the subject of lies! Establishment lies! Establishment lies which have been exposed by revisionist research. So many establishment lies that it's hard to take the "normatively accepted version" seriously. What about the "tragedy"? The writer finds it hard to take the "tragedy" seriously. And he's obviously an intellectual -- the reader can tell from the phrase "normatively accepted version." The reader is starting to wonder whether he has been taken in by the "establishment" -- have they been lying again? Who or what is the "establishment"? The writer doesn't say. He leaves it up to the imagination of the reader to fill in the description with some personal boogeyman.
The strawman does say what his voodoo doctor want him to say, though. He is just as “effective” or “irrational” or “autosuggestive” as is necessary for the parody to be “effective”.
This is not to deny that this type of Holocaust denier exists. Several contributors at TRF has met him on other boards.
Ward Churchill has met the type, too.
http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/in ... rchill.htm
http://www.socialismanddemocracy.org/33 ... rchill.htm
As has been said, it depends on whose ox is being gored. And then, any bull will do.