Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Evolutionary Meaning or Utility of Art?

The evolutionary advantage of art may actually be quite elementary. Art, in the most basic sense, is that which gives pleasure to eyes and ears. Art is created by man but distills the essence of what we find beautiful or pleasurable in the physical or psychological realm. So, what is the evolutionary advantage of appreciating beauty? In the most basic sense, the ability to appreciate beauty makes complex organisms(humans being the most complex)want to live; it turns us into junkies of the pleasures of life. Before organisms pass down their genes through procreation–a process in which beauty and pleasure play essential roles(for higher animals anyway)–, they have to want to live in the first place. More complex an organism is, the more conscious it tends to be, therefore more self-conscious, therefore more vulnerable to emotional downswings and self-loathing, therefore more dependent on counter-forces to balance out the misery and uphold the rationale for living.

Without powerful reasons to live, higher organisms experience or encounter dissipation, thoughts of suicide, or reluctance to procreate. Humans have a tremendous will to live and ability to survive. The ability comes from our cognitive skills and physical dexterity. But, an intelligent and emotionally complex mind questions itself, the meaning of life, suffer from emotional turbulence, moral confusion, self-loathing, and so on. Instead of serving as a tool for survival and expansion, the human mind may cannibalize itself by obsessing on the negative aspects of life or asking circular questions about unfathomable matters. As higher organism is capable of greater depression and self-doubt, these tendencies must be counter-acted by capacity for greater pleasure, meaning, and enjoyment of beauty. Simpler organisms don’t have this problem because they either lack consciousness or possess consciousness focusing mainly on survival. As such, they do not fall into self-conscious suicidal traps.

Of course, too much of a self-serving will to live and enjoy pleasure can undermine the survivalist or evolutionary process; if the technology of virtual reality keeps progressing, people may lock themselves in fun-filled virtual worlds of great aesthetic and sensual pleasure and refuse to deal with real reality. Such are the dangers of technology, often explored in sci-fi works.
Anyway, capacity for pleasure makes people want to live. Consider anyone with suicidal thoughts. Why does he want to snuff out his life? Because he sees more pain–physical or psychological–than pleasure, more meaninglessness than meaning. But, why are people with suicidal tendencies still afraid or reluctant to jump off a cliff or shoot themselves? Other than the fear of physical pain, there is the fear of missing out on the joys of life. Life forms are addicted to the wonderment of life(and it could be argued that all appreciations of beauty or pleasure is a form of art appreciation). Even if suicidal people could die painlessly and be assured that their loved ones will be well-taken care of, they would still feel panic and fear in some part of their being.

Indeed, the very fact of being alive is filled with pleasure. It may not be intense or electrifying most of the time, but there is a degree of satisfaction and fascination in the very fact of being alive. Simplest organisms have an elemental life force that keeps the engine running. Consider insects whose life force within pushes them to consume, run from danger, and survive. Lower organisms can also be mindlessly ‘self-sacrificing’ for the perpetuation of the species as when bees or salmon go through the ‘ritual’ process of mass deaths so that a new generation can arise from it.
As organisms grow more complex, they gain consciousness and complex emotions. No longer driven by what might be called an automatonic life force, they need conscious reasons to thrive as organisms. A goldfish may thrive in the wild or in an aquarium, but a dog will grow sick if locked up in a small cage. A dog taken for a walk senses wonderment through smell, sight, movement, and so forth. The dog is aesthetically engaging with stimuli, and its life force is boosted by these joys. A snake may be content mainly to eat and sleep, but this isn’t true for organisms with higher and more complex–intelligence-wise and emotionally–forms of consciousness. It’s not just the dog’s hunting instincts on display but its ability(and necessity) to derive pleasure from interaction with the environment. There is HAPPINESS on the part of the dog. A dog gains greater life force through such activity. A dog locked up in a small cage may grow sick from lack of stimuli or attention. Of course, an animal has no concept of suicide and cannot attempt such a thing. But, a dog without a stimulating environment grows depressed, sick, and listless. We see the same thing in a child. A child is more excited about or engaged with life when he is given toys to play with or shown a cartoon. Toys and cartoons provide pleasure to a child. Pleasure makes the child more committed and more ‘addicted’ to life. In a way, art is toys for adults. Even puritanical religions that suppress sensual pleasures find roundabout ways to introduce music into prayer. Islam bans pictorial representations of men and animals, but this is compensated by a very flamboyant(one may even say ‘sensual’)use of Arabic on the walls of mosques.

Being locked up in prison is dreary not only for its limited space and lack of freedom but for its sheer lack of aesthetic stimulation. It’s all steel bars and concrete walls. Prison offers the basic necessities for survival, but prisoners serving long life sentences don’t really get a kick out of life. Of course, most inmates still don’t welcome the death because the very fact of being alive still has its pleasures. Meals are pleasurable. Social interaction is pleasurable. Using the prison library has its pleasures. Looking up at the sky and clouds during exercise period also has its pleasures. And, closing one’s eyes and recalling good times is also pleasurable. And, even if one is not surrounded by beauty and pleasure, one can think of beautiful things. One can construct an art gallery in one’s own mind. One can dream of beautiful natural scenery or naked ladies; one can compose music in one’s head or replay favorite songs in one’s mind. These may not be artistic activity in the technical or professional sense, but art is linked with all such emotions, desires, and mental habits.

One of the great pleasures of life is food. Hunger drives us to eat by causing pain and discomfort, but we also like to eat because it is pleasurable. The pleasure that comes from eating makes us look forward to the next yummy meal; that makes us value life and want to live. No matter how depressed you are, the prospect for another delicious dish or good sex makes you cling to life. Gourmet food is art for the taste buds, and sex is a kind of aesthetic/pleasurable experience for one’s eyes, ears, hands, and private organs. Not for nothing did Pauline Kael see cinema as a kind of sex. It was an art form that sensually engaged the most organs all at once. Cinema wrapped and connected with us in like the arms, legs, and private organs of a sex partner. In the film "Purple Rose of Cairo", we have a very unhappy woman with a nasty hubby and nothing happening in her life. If she were a lower organism with no or simple consciousness, it would be enough for her to eat and sleep. But, she’s an higher organism, and as such, filled with doubt, depression, misery, and so on. Yet, what keeps her wanting to live, what makes her cling to life? The ‘art’ of cinema. No matter how stupid or lowly a film may be, it may have some magical life-nourishing purpose for some. Of course, like I said, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. If one becomes addicted to the movies, one may prefer life-at-the-movies over life-in-reality. And, that is also the problem with the woman in "Purple Rose of Cairo". The movies keep her alive, but they also cut her off from what we consider meaningful living. Same is true of food. Delicious food makes us want to live to eat more delicious stuff. But, addiction to this yumminess may make us fat and unhealthy, in which case, too much of a good thing will turn us into fat slobs who die of heart attack at a young age.

The art of cooking is kind of like art. Chefs distill the flavors that are most appealing to us and cook up dishes that maximize our pleasure. Some would even argue that fine cooking is indeed Art. What we generally consider as art–music, literature, painting, sculpture, etc–is consumed through our eyes and ears; food is consumed through our mouths. In both cases, we are seeking and finding pleasure through our senses.
Of course, this can’t be said of much of modern art whose purpose is to provoke, incite, experiment, or even offend. Such may be more of an acquired taste and may not serve the interests of the life force or the will to live. But, some higher intellects or pompous asses may require just that sort of thing to get their jollies in life, in which case even such arts may have their evolutionary purpose.

In addition, such works of art may serve the same kind of function as genetic mutations. Most mutations are useless or harmful, but once in a long while one comes along that may actually present new possibilities and advance the species. Similarly, avant-garde-ism, though generally stupid or useless, may occasionally break through the sound barrier of culture and establish a new template for something very exciting and useful. .
Even so, most people understand art as a thing of beauty, and art appreciation for the masses, even in today’s post-modern culture, is about finding pleasure from works of beauty, humor, and other things that make people feel good. Even art that seems ugly at first sight may be appreciated for its truth–moral beauty–or its wit(a kind of intellectual beauty or elegance). Woody Allen is ugly and his comedies range from gross to absurd, but we can all appreciate the impressive acrobatics of his intelligence.

Art gives us pleasure and fills with a sense of wonderment. We want to return for more. This makes us want to live. Take Franz Kafka who was one severely depressed person. Yet, what kept him going until he died of sickness? He found meaning through art. And, I’ll bet people who read his books but contemplated jumping off a cliff thought, ‘but if I drop dead, I won’t be able to read any more Kafka.’ That may sound like silly, but it’s probably not. And, it doesn’t have to be what we call Great Art. Even taking a stroll and feeling the breeze and looking up at the stars is an aesthetic experience. Art is merely an extension of this pleasure/wonderment principle which is so integral to the higher organism’s will to live. And, cherishing our memories is also a kind of aesthetic experience. The mind does to events and happenstance what time does to grape juice. It turns them into mental wine. It becomes transformed, mythologized, aestheticized, etc. It becomes precious. The past becomes like a museum. It becomes sacred, and the sense of sacred is linked with the idea of art. Art is the sacralization of pleasures that gain special meaning for us. It is distilled and bottled pleasure with the vintage tag.

Aesthetics is integral to just about everything we do. People look for beautiful men or women for sexual partners. People with money seek houses not only for their functionality but for the aesthetic pleasures the houses provide. Architects don’t just build huts where people eat or sleep but houses which people can show off as their private palaces. One of the great advantages capitalism had over communism was that communism stressed the basic necessities of life and not much else. Other than the lack of personal freedom and liberty, there was an overwhelming sense of dreariness, drabness, greyness, khaki-ness, and humdrumness in communist nations. Sure, there was the occasional colorful rallies, splashy slogans, and loud songs, but it was mostly dull, dull, and dull. Capitalism was more colorful. There were fancy clothes for women, even poor women. There were lipstick and hair salons for gals. Capitalist movies promised more fun and pleasure. Remember the movie "Moscow on the Hudson"? What is the first thing commies do in America? They run to Macy’s and try to buy all the ‘narcissistic’ goods as possible to take back home. So, the commies were not only starved for better food but more color in their lives. Even Western leftists almost never defected to commie nations; indeed, look at most leftists and they are just as vain with makeup and fashion as everyone else. Radical feminism tried to be anti-sensual and anti-aesthetic, but the whole edifice fell apart when Madonna came along and shook her ass. (Again, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. This is where the Judeo-Christian religion has played an important balancing role in Western civilization. The pagan love of art & appreciation of nature is vital, life-affirming, and all that, but too much of it can lead to the kind of thing we see in the movie Ten Commandments when people take it too far and worship the Golden Calf and have orgies. And, we need only look at our own retarded girls-gone-wild skankass culture and the problems in the black community to understand what happens when pleasure becomes the ONLY principle of life. This is why capitalism needs to be balanced by moral restraint, righteousness, and sobriety). And, this may have been the reason why Italian Fascism and German National Socialism were so popular among their folks. Though both promoted a limited or narrow aesthetic philosophy, neither waged a war on beauty and colorfulness. Both were ideologies centered around the cult of beauty. However, the problem of both, especially National Socialism, was that they tried to ideologize beauty in national or racial terms; as such they tended to be blind to the beauties of other cultures and traditions. And, let’s face it. The reason why Che Guevara has become a great icon among the Left is because he was a beautiful man. Never mind his politics; he was the Latin Lover of the Revolution. If Che had been 4' 11 and looked like Elephant Boy or Baba Booey(on Howard Stern Show), no way he would have gained such an iconic status.

As social creatures, we also want to share the object or source of our pleasure with other folks. This makes for communal interaction. Every artist is also begging for attention and respect/higher status in the community. Even politics is a kind of art. And, it also inspires people to have children in order to pass down and share the things of beauty and sacredness(cultural heritage) that they enjoyed and cherished onto the next generation. I repeat, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. A person so immersed in his or her own pleasures may see having children as a hindrance or obstacle to one’s self-centered pleasure-seeking freedom. That may explain why so many young people hooked on videogames, movies, internet, and so forth do not wish to ‘settle down’ and ‘grow up’ and put away pleasurable but childish things and get married and have kids.

There is probably also a danger in too much thinking. Intellect allowed mankind to come up with better reasons and tools for building and expanding civilizations and empires, but at some point, intellect turns on itself and begins to obsess with thoughts like, ‘maybe life is meaningless’, ‘maybe it’s all an illusion’, ‘maybe power is evil’, ‘it’s all in vain’, and so on. Just look at your average Ingmar Bergman film and you get my drift. High civilization elevates our sense of ourselves; it turns us into super idealists and into proud folks. But at some point, we realize that our reality don’t live up to our ideals. We either lose heart or we seek radical ways to create heaven on earth. Either way, we fail. We also realize, through science, that we are part of the animal world, that human processes are essentially biological processes despite our sense of highfalutin exceptionalism and spiritualism. We hit an intellectual roadblock but can’t regain our lost innocence again. Too much of anything leads to infertility and inertia. Just look at what happened to Jean-Luc Godard ever since he crawled into a cave to ‘think’ about cinema.

Even so, the pleasures of life, of which art is an important element, fill even the most depressed person with the life force. The will-to-life for higher organisms is largely based on the pleasure of living. The very fact of being alive is pleasurable and wondrous. Just being alive makes one feel special or blessed. Even when one’s bored as hell, it’s infinitely more interesting than being dead, which is to be a zero. Just being alive and feeling the buzz of life is, in an elemental way, a form of artistic appreciation. After all, our senses are always stimulated by something. We always react aesthetically to things around us. Even when we are surrounded by ugliness, we think artistically. We wish for things to be beautiful than ugly, pleasurable than painful(unless one is crazy enough to enjoy Chantal Akerman films). That is an artistic spirit within each of us–even if most of us don’t become professional artists. Even if we’re not professional artists, the way we arrange things in our homes, the way we dress, the way we react to other people’s looks, the way we respond to sounds, and so forth all involve an aesthetic or artistic process or appreciation. Even falling in love is a form of artistic process. A beautiful person is like a natural work of art. We love flowers for their natural beauty. Strictly speaking, art is artificial or man-made, but much of our art is a replica of what we find beautiful in the real world. Consider paintings of sunsets, flowers, beautiful women, etc. We preserve beautiful artworks because our pride and enjoyment of them serves to legitimize and validate our entire civilizations. Modern Greeks say, ‘our ancestors built the Parthenon, so our culture and tradition have a right to survive’. All political leaders lay claim to a certain cultural achievement which cannot be distinguished from art and creativity. The reason why blacks are so eager to lay claim to Ancient Egypt is because Egyptians were not only politically powerful at one time but because they built some of the most beautiful and astounding objects and structures known to man. Germans have been justly proud of their musical tradition. It’s as though most of us feel–if only subconsciously–that people that produced greater art and cultures have more right to exist than others. So, with both individuals and societies as a whole, art has a way of reinforcing the will to live and survive. Indeed, we would consider it a bigger tragedy if all of German culture were to vanish than all of East Timorese culture. All cultures are valuable, but loss of German culture would mean the loss of Goethe, Beethoven, Fritz Lang, etc. Loss of East Timorese culture would mean loss of wood carvings and necklaces made of coke bottle caps. (Just kidding if you happen to be East Timorese).

Art is merely the highest form of seeking and enjoying pleasure. It elevates pleasure by distilling or stylizing the essence of beauty we find in the world or in the structures of our mind. High art is an object of pleasure that has attained sublime proportions. As such, we sanctify it as something of eternal value, something worthy of universal and timeless appreciation. Societies do this with art, but we do it with our memories as well. There are certain experiences that we cherish over all others. In the psycho-temple of our minds, those experiences are given special place. They are remembered as the sacred moments of our lives. Without such memories, our lives would have much less meaning. In "Blade Runner", replicants seek memories, even filching them from others, in order to find a greater meaning for living. What is the thing that Batty(Rutger Hauer character)aches most about as his demise looms? It's the fact that all the wondrous and beautiful things he'd seen and stored in his memory will all be lost; death wipes out or utterly destroys the private art museum/cathedral in our minds; in a sense, art expresses or serves our desire to live forever; though we die, something about us--that which is most beautiful, noble, and excellent--will live on through art; it's as though a part of our soul(invested in the art we create, appreciate, or revere)will be reincarnated down through the ages; it's as though future generations who come to appreciate those works of art will, in some strange way, come to appreciate us as well; this is why family albums, diaries, and heirlooms become like 'art' within families.
If replicants in Blade Runner horde other people's photographs to imagine beautiful memories of their own, we watch movies to filch memories from others as well. In time, movie memories become our memories. We are all replicants hungry for images and memories of others. Such memories add meaning to our lives.
All life forms follow certain patterns. Without order, human society is not possible and that may explain our intrinsic attraction to symmetrical and geometric forms. Dada-ism notwithstanding, art cannot simply be arbitrary. Even the most cluttered or chaotic works of art follow certain rules; even violating all previous rules is a form of rule, and the work has to be measured a success or failure according to the rule it lives by. In that sense too, art is very integral to what we are as complex organisms. We don’t merely live in our surroundings but seek meaning and beauty through it. We don’t just use rocks but find ways to extract minerals we need from rocks to make better tools. A metal tool is better than a stone tool. Similarly, we don’t just appreciate beauty around us but try to extract the essence of beauty of nature and express them through art.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Jewish Use of Blacks Against Muslims.


Isn’t it striking that the movies The Kingdom and The Traitor star, respectively, Jamie Foxx and Don Cheadle? Both films take place in the Middle East, and the enemies are Arab terrorists. Other than the fact that Hollywood often cast Muslims as The Enemy, what is noteworthy that stars of both films are black. Why would this be?

My guess is that the Jews want to bring American blacks to their side or at least turn them against the Muslim and Arab world. This is largely because American Jews are Zionist and care about Israel. In America, the Jewish-black relations aren’t that good. Many black leaders secretly and even openly denounce Jews. Blacks offer three main justifications for their anger. 1. Israel was a close ally of South Africa during the apartheid years. 2. Jewish businessmen in the past exploited blacks socially and economically(and do so to this day). 3. Jews succeeded and became the elite of America while many blacks still remain mired in poverty.
These are the ostensible reasons, but blacks are just jealous of Jewish success like they are jealous of success of all other groups–white or minority.

Why are Jews so concerned about what blacks think? There are several reasons. Many Jews make tons of money in the music, movie, and sports industry where black stars are prominent and crucial; also, blacks make up a sizable portion of the paying audience for Jewish produced goods, especially TV and movies. As successful as Jews are, they want everyone to see them as eternal historical victims, and as such, Jews want to be associated with blacks–the people who experienced American slavery. Especially as Jews are so rich and powerful–potential targets of the envious and resentful goy masses–, Jews want to mask their real power and influence by playing victim. Since Jews are the richest and most powerful people in America, Jews can gain victim status only by two means–memorialization of the Holocaust(hence the endless stream of Holocaust documentaries, movies, anniversaries, books, articles, etc.) and by association with other groups. Since blacks are a vocal and politically powerful ‘victim group’ in the US, Jews want to be associated(at least politically if not socially)with them. With a strong Jewish-black alliance, Jews can say, ‘how can we be elitist oppressors when we are so chummy with the poor negroes?’ Having close ties with blacks also helps the cause of Zionism. To people around the world and Americans who point to the horrors of Israeli treatment of Palestinians, Jews can say, ‘but how can we oppressors when American blacks, whose ancestors were brought here as slaves, are our friends?’ Recall that Martin Luther King never lodged a critical word about Jewish treatment of Palestinians; he depended on Jewish money and associations.

So, this is the dirty Jewish game. The rise of Obama has everything to do with Jews seeking to gain cover from criticism by associating themselves with a black guy. Of course, Jews also supported Obama–as opposed to guys like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton–because they hope to remake the black community in the Jewish image. Obama is an intellectual black guy steeped in liberal Jewish ideology–more so than in black ideology–, and by putting Obama on a pedestal, Jews hope that successful blacks will follow in the footsteps of Obama than those of Farrakhan, Jackson, or Sharpton. Obama understands what this Jewish trick is all about; he knew that if he played along with the Jewish script, he would be President since Jews would shower him with 100s of millions of dollars and give him media support–you all know who owns and controls the media.

So, take a film like The Kingdom or The Traitor. Why do they star black actors? It’s because American Jews want to condition black Americans to identify with anti-Islamism. Both films send a message to blacks that, "look, the Muslims and Arabs are YOUR enemy and brothas like Foxx and Cheadle be shooting and killing them raghead mothafuc*as!". Of course, both films are clever enough to show some bad Americans and some good Arabs/Muslims. This way, Hollywood can give itself cover from charges of ‘Islamophobia’ or bigotry. But, it’s clear that both films are trying to woo blacks over to the Jewish side or at least against the Muslim/Arab side. Since Hollywood is world cinema, films such as these are also meant to influence stupid and gullible audiences on all five continents. But, perhaps they are not as influential because, after all, so many people hate Israel and Jews just the same.
Having black characters in leading roles also make it easier for white audiences to enjoy their hatred of or animosity toward Muslims or Arabs. In our politically correct age, white males are the lowest of the low–unless they are leftist rebels like Matt ‘Bourne’ Damon. So, an anti-Arab or anti-Muslim movie with good gung ho white guys might come across as ‘racist’, not least to liberal whites. But, if these films have ‘noble’ or ‘cool’ blacks fighting evil Arabs or Muslims, even white liberals can enjoy the spectacle of whupping Muslims or Arabs guilt free. How can it be bigoted when the good guys are black?

Yes, Jews are very clever. And, they play very dirty.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Do you BELIEVE in the Holocaust?


One of the problems I have with Holocaust remembrance is its aura of religious dogmatism.
Holocaust is a historical event but has been elevated into an article of faith than maintained as a matter of knowledge.

When it comes to the American Civil War or World War II, the relevant question is ‘do you know about this event?’ or ‘how much do you know about such-and-such?’ When it comes to the Holocaust, the question is ‘do you BELIEVE in the Holocaust?’, rather like asking, ‘do you believe in God?’
Personally, I believe that the Holocaust happened because I’ve been taught in schools, books, tv programs, and movies that it happened. I have no reason to doubt all the experts. I’m not a conspiracy nut, and I think most people in the Holocaust denial industry are creepy, dishonest, or just plain crazy. There seems to be more than ample evidence that the Holocaust did take place. I’m all for Holocaust revision, and perhaps fewer than 6 million died. That should be for genuine historians to do the research and decide.

Still, what I BELIEVE about the Holocaust is inseparable from what I KNOW about the Holocaust. I don’t believe in it to be a good person, a saintly person, a correct person, or an approved person. I believe in it based on what I’ve come to know about it. I have no blind faith in the Holocaust nor in liberal historiography. Yes, most historians are liberal or on the left, but nearly all serious historians seem to accept that it happened. So, based on what I’ve read and based on my reasonable trust in experts, I believe that the Holocaust happened.
And, I think this is all we can expect from people. To believe in something based on what they’ve seen, heard, or read and thought about.
So, it’s perfectly sensible to have a conversation where you might ask someone, ‘do you know what the Khmer Rouge did?’ or ‘have you heard about the Great Famine under Stalin?’ You would not ask someone, ‘do you BELIEVE in the Killing Fields or the Great Famine?’ We can’t expect people to believe something they may know little or nothing about. Belief in God is a matter of faith. Belief in history isn’t or, at least, shouldn’t be.
If you ask someone, "do you believe in the Great Famine?’ and if the person says, "I don’t know", you would not look upon him as a scumbag. You would look upon him as someone who may need to read up on history. The person may be ignorant but ignorance is not evil.

Yet, this isn’t the case with the Holocaust. People are simply supposed to BELIEVE in it even if they know little or nothing about it. Of course, one could argue that people SHOULD believe in the Holocaust since it’s been discussed and taught everywhere. Who hasn’t heard about the Holocaust in the schools, tv news programs, tv documentaries, Hollywood movies, etc? There is no excuse for anyone to not know something about it. Fair enough. But, hearing or seeing something isn’t the same as having sound knowledge of it. After all, Chinese children are told that Mao was a great man; they’ve heard it a million times, but that doesn’t necessarily make it so! (Also, people should ask, ‘why do we hear so much about 6 million dead Jews yet almost nothing about the 100 million killed by communism?’ This state of affairs should make us more suspect of those who control popular remembrance of history and shape public morality.) Sure, we’ve all heard of or seen "Schindler’s List", but it’s an Hollywood movie. Since when is something true because it’s a movie? Also, most historical films have been notorious for their distortions of history. "Lawrence of Arabia" may be a great film, but much of it is not real history. Most Westerns about the conflict between whites and Indians are fanciful or ludicrous from a historical angle. So, just because we’ve been exposed to the Holocaust in the mainstream news and Hollywood movies doesn’t mean that we MUST believe in it. A person is obligated to believe in the Holocaust ONLY IF he has actually done honest research and pored over the evidence. Otherwise, all we have to go on are insubstantial textbooks(packed with generic and politically correct narratives), movies, and stuff like Oprah. Consider the fact that a bogus Holocaust story was featured on Oprah, and the entire nation believed in it. Was the story true because Oprah embraced it and called it ‘the greatest love story she ever heard’? The fact that certain stories or events have been over-hyped by the mainstream media should make us all the more skeptical. Skepticism isn’t the same as denial. It means having the courage not to simply follow herd instinct and having the ability to think for oneself. Of course, one has to be careful lest one fall into the trap of knee-jerk contrarian-ism where something is true simply because it goes against the grain.

Anyway, the point is the knowledge of the Holocaust is more crucial than belief in the Holocaust. Historical belief must always be based on historical knowledge. Considering that very few people have actually read anything substantial or done research on the subject of the Holocaust, it is ludicrous to ask, "do you BELIEVE in the Holocaust?" That kind of question only creates a climate of moral bullying(which is, of course, what the Jews want. They want goyim to worship the Jews-as-God). It commands people with superficial knowledge of certain subject to simply believe in it because you’re scum if you don’t. (The same kind of mindless worship centers around Martin Luther King. The question is never, ‘what do you know about Martin Luther King?’ but ‘how many times do you wanna get on your knees and kiss his ass?’ People who have REAL knowledge of the Kingster knows that he was just a shrewd political operative and no saint.) How ironic that liberals and leftists take so much pride in their rationalism and skepticism yet demand that the populace take for granted certain TRUTHS. If liberals are genuinely honest, they should encourage people to learn more about the Holocaust. What people feel or believe about the Holocaust should be based on what they know about it. And, I don’t mean Hollywood movies which are based on fictional scripts and actors going through the motions. Movies are fun but have nothing to do with truth. The only truth of a movie is that it is a movie. It may dramatize an actual event or psychological truth, but it PROVES NOTHING. Documentaries can be factual, but they often serve partisan purposes. Nothing is true simply because a documentary said so. After all, Holocaust deniers have also made their own documentaries. There are documentaries that tell us that US government and Mossad carried out 9/11 attacks. That makes it true? Even many well-researched books are not too helpful in making us understand the Holocaust because their main purpose is to make us feel sympathy only or mainly for Jews. As such, those books are less about the Holocaust than about using the Holocaust to monopolize all sympathy for Jews and Jews only. In a way, every new Holocaust book is really to reinforce Jewish power. If we read about those ‘poor innocent Jews killed by Nazis’, we’ll be less likely to criticize Jewish power since it may feel Nazi-esque to do so. Or, we may think twice before criticizing Zionism and its brutality against Palestinians since Jews are the ‘eternal saintly victims’.

Of course, there are true historians and bogus historians, but it’s also true that many respected historians have been wrong on many things, sometimes willfully so. Just because a historian is intelligent, respected, and capable doesn’t mean he’s without prejudices, ideological bias, or gullibility. Recall that Trevor-Roper, one of the outstanding historians of his time, staked his reputation on the authenticity of Hitler diaries. Though he retracted later, his reputation never fully recovered.
Of course, in most cases, there is a consensus arrived at by most historians over many generations, and there isn’t much doubt that the Holocaust happened. Even David Irving came to the conclusion that Hitler not only knew about the mass killings but ordered them.

However, even consensus in an open and democratic society doesn’t guarantee that truth always prevails, especially if the academia and media are near-monopolized by one group. And, in our democratic society, much of the control of the media(eyes, ears, and mouth of society) and the academia(the brains of society) are held by people of certain ethnic group or ideological fixation. Jewish power is tremendous, and liberal and leftists control much of the media. As a result, we don’t see or hear much about what Israelis have done to Palestinians recently in Gaza. Or, the news is watered down and carefully balanced with stories of Jewish suffering. So, a 1000 dead Palestinians is treated as the equivalent to one dead Israeli.
Of course, liberals and the Left play the game of suppression or neglect than outright denial. They can play this game because they control the media. Liberals and leftists don’t deny communist horrors, and by not doing so, don’t soil their moral reputation. They quietly admit that horrors happened under communism, BUT those narratives are generally neglected or suppressed in public discourse; they are rarely revived and treated as ‘past history’, something we should let go and forget.
Liberals and leftists practice communist-burial than communist-denial. But, the effect is the same as if they had practiced communist-denial because relatively few people come to know about the full extent of communist crimes and horrors. It’s almost as if 100 million people did not die in the 20th century. (And, when the horrors of communism are discussed, it’s in a more objective and detached manner than in a morally bullying manner. Also, it’s generally treated as macro-history, a matter of statistics than as a criminal tragedy involving individual victims. Communist horrors have not been Anne-Franken-ized. We are told that Stalin killed 20 million, but we can’t match their faces with any individual victim. So, it’s almost like hearing that Stalin killed 20 million chickens. We think of them as faceless victims.)
Since liberals and leftists don’t actually say, ‘millions were not killed by communism’, they don’t come across as evil like the Holocaust-deniers who say that millions of Jews were not killed.
If the Right owned much of the media and controlled much of the academia, it could play the same game. It would run many stories, make many movies, and present many news stories about the evil history of communism while burying–rather than denying–the horrors of the Holocaust. They wouldn’t need to deny the Holocaust to produce the defacto effect of Holocaust Denial.
Since, people will hear a 100 stories about evils of communism for every story on the Holocaust, it will be as if the Holocaust was just a footnote in history.

Anyway, the point is something isn’t necessarily true or truer because it’s always in the news or has been popularly disseminated. Even in a free society such as ours, reputations can be destroyed if certain truths are dared spoken. As a result, people seeking respectability stay mum about things they know to be true but are deemed taboo by controllers of public opinion and much of the national wealth. If you offend the Jews, Jewish organizations and groups will mount pressure to have you fired, boycotted, ostracized, or isolated. People who do business with you will be pressured to disassociate themselves from you. As a result, most people seeking respectability or simple profit don’t speak out on certain matters because it may be too controversial.
As a result, the only people willing to go against the grain tend to be extreme types who, as outcasts, have nothing to lose from politics of confrontation. As a result, something true(though taboo)can come to be regarded as ‘extreme’ and ‘hateful’ due to its association with extreme groups. (The problem with extreme groups championing certain truths is that despite their courage, they do espouse ideas and views which truly are extreme or idiotic. It’s great that David Duke fearlessly takes on Jewish power, and there is much truth in what he says. But, because of his mindless Holocaust denial and blind hatred for all things Jewish, he undermines and unwittingly disqualifies, in the eyes of many, even the legitimate points that he makes. Kevin MacDonald is a much better scholar because he’s far more cautious and thoughtful in what he believes and says.)

Anyway, here’s an obvious example of a truth that most people dare not speak.
Consider the fact that Ashkenazi Jews are smarter than gentiles and that blacks are stronger than whites. These are undeniable facts, and many respectable people actually know them. But, because such views are deemed ‘racist’, very few mainstream people talk about them. The only ones with the balls to do so are people like David Duke, and as a result, such views are deemed to be ‘white supremacist’–rather iroinic since those observations point out the intellectual superiority and physical superiority of, respectively, the Jews and blacks.

The Holocaust has been turned into such a secular religion that many respectable historians are afraid to even call for honest revision of it. The very idea of revision of Holocaust is anathema to the liberal and leftist(especially Jewish)community out of fear that it may open up the floodgate of Holocaust denial. But, the real reason why they want to suppress a truly secular approach to the Holocaust–at least in the popular perception–is because reality is more complex and ambiguous than myths. To understand the Holocaust, it must be studied in the context of European and Jewish history. Such approach may not lead to Holocaust denial but may lead to something akin to Holocaust Understanding. Understanding is not the same thing as Excusing, but it undermines the simple good vs. evil religious aura that surrounds the Holocaust. The current popular narrative says that these wonderful perfectly saintly Jews were rounded up by irrational and demented Germans who just went crazy and were out to kill people just for the hell of it. In the Bible, God’s truth cannot be understand and we aren’t supposed to question it. We are merely supposed to BELIEVE. The liberal and leftist Jews want us to feel the same way about the Holocaust. Just to believe in the saintly goodness of Jews and unfathomable evil of the Germans.

Intentions do matter in history, and a full understanding of the Holocaust will require us to study why the Germans–and many others–hated the Jews. Liberal and Leftist Jews in the US don’t want us to ask this question. They simply want us to hug-a-Jew, love-a-Jew, weep-for-a-Jew, worship-a-Jew, etc. Jews know that the more we study and understand Jewish power, the more we realize that they are a threat to our way of life and values.
The reason why Jews want us to see Holocaust as a unique and singular event in history is because they want to separate it from the larger historical context. If we see the Holocaust in relation to the larger context, we may understand, if not excuse or condone, what happened. Of course, a context of sorts is supplied by Jews where the Holocaust is the culmination of Jew-hatred through the ages. But, this is a purely a morally narcissistic, self-serving, self-pitying, and self-aggrandizing Judeo-centric context.
It leaves out the other contexts, such as Jewish contempt and hatred for goyim. It doesn’t take into account the cunning and manipulative nature of Jewish finance capitalism(which still goes on today, indeed, stronger than ever). It fails to take into account the Jewish role in communism and other radical movements that set out to undermine and even destroy the world order of the goyim. It refuses to consider, for example, that the Holocaust grew out of holocausts committed by communists–many of them Jewish–in Eastern Europe. It fails to take into account the collusion between rich capitalist Jews and power-hungry socialist Jews(something we still see today) to gain more power and influence over goyim. If European Jews were indeed very much like they are today in the US, it’s understandable why there was so much hatred against Jews. What a cunning, manipulative, arrogant, contemptuous, selfish, sniveling, sneering, self-righteous, and hypocritical people many of these Jews are. I think there would a lot of anti-Jewish feelings in the US today if it weren’t for the fact that Jews have such control of media and academia and have been brainwashing us to love them and feel sympathy/guilt for them. If European Jews were indeed like American Jews today, ‘anti-semitism’ back then was surely understandable even if not justified on the level that led to the Holocaust. Why should we like the Jews? If it’s not hard to understand why many Americans distrust and dislike the Japanese/Chinese(as The New Republic often does) or why many Europeans look upon Muslims with disgust, who says we have to like Jews? Who says Jews are likable and we must like Jews? Many people like Jews because they’ve seen too much TV and got all their news from the Jew-run media. Many people who know the ugly truth about the Jews force themselves to like Jews since they’ve been brainwashed since infancy that not liking Jews means you’re a Nazi who wants to shoot babies.

And, don’t Jews have their own biases? The Jewish owned/run media in this country allows a great deal of anti-Muslim bashing on the airwaves, print, tv, and academia. It’s perfectly okay to write respectable books on what’s wrong with them Arabs, with Islam, with Saudi economic power, etc. But, we can’t scrutinize or criticize Jewish values, Jewish attitudes, Jewish power, Jewish wealth, etc when its influence in the US is greater than the influence of rest of America combined? We have to take it on faith that Jews are good, good, good.

Understanding intentions doesn’t alter the fact of the crime, but it does alter the nature of the crime. Killing someone for revenge because he raped your wife and killing someone for the hell of it are both instances of killing resulting in a dead body. Both may be illegal and morally wrong, but one is clearly more understandable than the other. Jews want us to see the Holocaust as a case of evil people who, for no reason at all, decided to kill totally innocent people. But, was this what really happened? If European Jews acted like American Jews are acting today, wasn’t it understandable why so many people rallied around a man like Hitler who scapegoated the Jews? Of course, there is some discussion of how Jews were perceived by their persecutors, but this perception is said to have been purely delusional, paranoid, or false. But, was it?
Clearly, the perception of Nazis and their ilk was extreme, unhinged, and pathological, but was it based entirely on fantasies? Was there something about Jews in general or in particular that was threatening, hostile, and ruthless to the interests to the goy majority? Of course, there was, and there is today. Just look at the vile Jews on Wall Street, Hollywood, academia, law, business, and government. How cunning, disgusting, deceitful, and manipulative many of them are. And, utterly hypocritical and self-righteous. Just consider the likes of Woody Allen and Alan Dershowitz. Whether it’s on the Right or on the Left, we have a people who are largely very unpleasant, contemptuous, arrogant, deceitful, and sneering. Of course, there are many wonderful Jews as well, but because Jews are intelligent, we see the extremes in both good and bad. Bad Jews gain far more power than bad people of other stripe. Because of their sense of ‘eternal victimhood’, even good Jews often cover up for bad Jews. Also, because bad Jews are so smart, they can make a lot of money and buy respectability that most other bad people cannot. A bad Italian-American is likely to become a mafioso and be seen for what he is: scumbag. But, a bad Jew like Alan Dershowitz becomes a lawyer and talks intelligently and fools us into thinking he’s a man of integrity and principles when he’s just a huckster lawyer scumbag.

Anyway, faith requires us to simply believe without asking questions. Jews today want us to just BELIEVE in the Holocaust based on some Hollywood movies and TV programs. They don’t want us to study the subject further and ask questions. We are only to fixate on what the Jews and their dimwit goy puppets show and tell us about the Holocaust. Jews don’t want us to be Galileos when it comes to the Holocaust. We’re not supposed to think. We’re not supposed to revise the Holocaust or look deeply into why persecutors of Jews felt the way they did. People who hated Jews had NO rational reason, Jews tell us. It’s not possible for us to say that, though the Holocaust was a great crime against humanity, there were sound reasons why hatred against Jews existed. Just because one crime was extreme and evil doesn’t mean that its victim was totally innocent. That is the way Japanese peaceniks think; they argue that since Japan was punished so badly in WWII by the US, Japan has been cleansed of its sins and is now the moral beacon for the world. If we don’t buy this crap from the Japanese, why should we buy it from the Jews? The Holocaust was an evil and extreme reaction on the part of the German people led by pathological Nazis, BUT many Jews had done horrible and lowlife things that led to a great deal of justified anger and hatred against Jews. If Jews cannot honestly consider this fact and keep acting like eternal saints, they indeed are pompous self-righteous scum of the Earth.
Look at what Jews have done to Palestinians, yet Jews act like Palestinian hatred and anger are totally unwarranted. Alan Dershawitz’s biggest client in his role as defense attorney has been Israel, and all we hear is some weasely lawyerly bullshit. Yes, many Palestinians have become psychotic and unhinged in their hatred of Jews, but only a moral idiot–many of them in the US where people are brainwashed by the Jew-run media– would deny the fact that much of Palestinian hatred of Jews is justified.

There is little sense of historical context except the Judeo-centric kind when it comes to understanding history relating to WWII, especially when it comes to Ukraine. For instance, US government has been hunting down American citizens of Ukrainian descent who may have served as SS guards in the death camps. There is no question that those men committed horrible crimes. But, what’s missing is the context. If you were Ukrainian in the 30s, you saw 1/3 of your countrymen die at the hands of communists, many of them Jewish. Ukrainians suffered their own holocaust before the capital "H" Jewish holocaust happened. (Notice how only the Jewish holocaust gets the "H" treatment.)
So, in the way that many Europeans(including Jews)attacked and killed many Germans–guilty and innocent–out of revenge after WWII, many Ukrainians had joined up with Nazi invaders to kill Jews–out of revenge–when Nazis ‘liberated’ that part of the USSR.
Indeed, vengeance was one of the great forces of the late 19th and 20th century. French involvement in WWI had a lot to do with vengeful feelings against Germans going back to Franco-Prussian War. WWII was fueled by sense of revenge on the part of Germans. Many Jews joined the communist enterprise to avenge their persecution at the hands of the Tsarist regime. And, there were horrendous acts of revenge against Germans after WWII. The reason why USA was crucial to European peace after WWII was that it was a neutral player. Even though Americans had fought the Germans, there was a sense among Germans and other Europeans that America was a relatively impartial guarantor of the new order.
Anyway, revenge is still a major factor in the 21st century, mainly among Jews and Muslims. Blacks also operate on the basis of revenge, but I’d say it has more to do with resentment than revenge. After all, blacks hate not only whites but other peoples whom they perceive as succeeding ‘at the expense’ of blacks. With Jews, it is revenge(fueled by arrogance, condescension, and contempt). After all, Jews are the most powerful and most wealthy people on Earth. Yet, they seem so angry, bitter, venomous. Why? They want revenge against the white race for all the wrongs–real and imaginary–done to Jews in the past. Jews who fixate on the Holocaust will not be happy until all white men are castrated into pussyboy dweebs and all white girls run into the arms of negro studs. Jews want to see white men turned into a bunch of Jim Jeffries and Max Schmelings. Jews enjoy the fact that they own most of the sports franchises, that black males dominate on the field, that white women cheer for black studs, and that white boys meekly cheer along, accepting the superiority of black manliness.

Anyway, we must reject the moral bullying of those who venomously and self-righteously ask, "Do you BELIEVE in the Holocaust?" No one should believe in anything unless he really knows something about it. And, to truly know about something, we need to rely on something other than what we see on TV, in the movies, or read in textbooks written by liberals and leftists. There is a large body of scholarly literature on the Holocaust and there is much film footage that documented the horrors. The Holocaust is well-documented because the Nazis lost. Though the 6 million number may be exaggerated, millions most likely did die. Of course, there is the issue of victor’s justice and the fact of Jewish domination in history and the media. Of course, Jews are going to favor data and evidence that proves than disproves the Holocaust, but there is simply too much evidence for any sensible person to deny that there had been a willful and concerted effort on the part of the Nazis to kill Jews. To be sure, questions still remain, not so much over what happened but as to the why. That Hitler hated Jews and wanted to see many of them disappear from the face of the Earth is beyond doubt. But, perhaps we’ll never know why the Holocaust happened the way and when it happened. Did Hitler use the cover of war to kill Jews? Or, did he kill Jews out of revenge for the reversal of the war in the East–and the perception that venal Jews in UK and US were pulling the strings to get Churchill and FDR deeper into war. Hitler saw Churchill and FDR as his racial brethren, and so it was appalling to him that those men would ‘do the bidding’ of the Jews.

The question should be, ‘Do you KNOW about the Holocaust?’ and ‘WHAT do you know about the Holocaust?’ What a person comes to believe should only be based on what he knows, what he knows from weighing evidence from all sides. And, we must not pretend that there are only two sides–saintly Holocaust believers and evil Holocaust deniers. In fact, there are many scholars who simply seek to know MORE about the Holocaust. They come up with different number of victims, they explain different intentions on the part of Nazis, they offer different insights and perspectives and offer differing contexts. Again, context is very important. If we take Hiroshima and Nagasaki in isolation, they are horrendous and unspeakable crimes against humanity. But, seen in the context of WWII, we know that the Japanese were not totally innocent and the Americans weren’t out to just kill for the hell of it. I wouldn’t say of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the equivalents of the Holocaust, but we need to see the Holocaust within the contexts of its time. (Indeed, Jews–mostly liberal and leftwing–are experts of contextualism. They’ll say we must forgive Obama’s associations with Wright and Ayers since he’s a member of the ‘oppressed race’ and, as such, understandably allied with angry radical groups. Or, when blacks riot and kill whites, the Jew-run media say we must understand the violence in context of American history. Since whites committed violence against blacks in the past, blacks have a right to be angry and even attack whites on occasion. And, Jews say we must not criticize Jewish power and influence because of the historical context of ‘anti-semitism’. Since anti-semites gassed Jews during WWII, no one may criticize Jewish power anymore given the nature of the historical context. And, it’s as though Jews have some divine moral right to crush and kill Palestinians, again all because of the historical context: since Jews suffered the Holocaust, they deserve a homeland, even by expelling other peoples off their land; since Israel is surrounded by hostile Arab nations, Israel has the right to have nukes and attack and kill civilians in Lebanon and Gaza; since Jews suffered the Holocaust, they have the right to apply ‘Never Again’ at all times and even kill Palestinian women and children in order to prevent another Holocaust. If this logic goes on, Jews will commit holocausts against goyim and then say it was justified within the context of the Holocaust and Jewish history.)

Certain contexts are bound to make Jews look better, others are likely to make them look worse. Some people will surely use particular contexts to justify the Holocaust while others will use contexts to explain or understand it. We need more explanation and more understanding.

And, we need more points of views. In the US, the educational system and educational TV–very important as most people get their historical lessons from PBS and History Channel–are dominated by liberals and the left. As such, they cannot be wholly trusted. Monopoly power always corrupts. If conservatives dominated much of the media, there would be the same problem. A conservative is intrinsically no more honest or principled than a liberal. But, the fact is liberals and the left do dominate the media and education. And, just look at the kind of garbage they’ve been trying to feed us. There was the bogus PBS documentary called "Liberators" which falsely told us that black GIs liberated the death camps. This was a Holocaust hoax as odious as Holocaust denial. How were the people at PBS able to get away with a hoax this big? Why didn’t the media make a bigger stink about it? In some countries, it’s a crime to say the Holocaust didn’t happen or even to minimize its historical significance(Le Pen got fined for calling it an ‘incident’), but it appears that Jews can make up any number of lies about the Holocaust and get away with it. Though the Liberators hoax was exposed, the people involved didn’t end up with ruined careers in the way that critics of Jewish power do. And, PBS never ran a documentary about how the hoax came about or how the entire series was made despite all the protests from soldier and scholars who said it could not have happened the way it did. The only thing that mattered to the Jews who made "Liberators" was strengthening the bonds between the black and Jewish leadership. Jews tried to pull another instance of Joe Louis beating up Max Schmeling, this time against American whites who’d done so much to save Jews in WWII. Many Jews are gratuitous in their vileness and cunning than grateful for anything done for them by other peoples. Though they are richer and more powerful than others, they still want others to serve them. It’s like when Bob Dylan was a kid in Hibbing Minnesota. His family was richer than most families, and he had more pocket money, but he made the local yokels buy stuff for him. Manipulating dumb goyim to suck Jewish cock is the Jewish way.