Arbeit macht frei: - Fredrick Töben

An accusation of ‘denial’ is serious, suggesting either deliberate
dishonesty or self-deception. The thing being denied is, by implication,
so obviously true that the denier must be driven by perversity, malice or
wilful blindness.
Few issues warrant such confidence. The Holocaust is perhaps one,
though even here there is room for debate over the manner of its
execution and the number of its victims. A charge of denial short-circuits
this debate by stigmatising as dishonest any deviation from a
preordained conclusion. It is a form of the argument ad hominem: the
aim is not so much to refute your opponent as to discredit his motives.
The extension of the ‘denier’ tag to group after group is a development
that should alarm all liberal-minded people. One of the great
achievements of the Enlightenment–the liberation of historical and
scientific enquiry from dogma–is quietly being reversed.
Prospect February 2010.
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