Mel Gibson and his Father's Churches

Ed said -

Mel has tried to publicly distance himself from his father's bizarre views - he's a holocaust denier, among other things -

Although Mel hasn't taken the direct stance his father has taken, neither has he repudiated those views. His comments have been rather vague on this matter.

When Peggy Noonan (via Orac) asked point blank for a Readers Digest interview, "You're going to have to go on the record. The Holocaust happened, right?", Gibson replied, "I have friends and parents of friends who have numbers on their arms. The guy who taught me Spanish was a Holocaust survivor. He worked in a concentration camp in France. Yes, of course. Atrocities happened. War is horrible. The Second World War killed tens of millions of people. Some of them were Jews in concentration camps. Many people lost their lives. In the Ukraine several million starved to death between 1932 and 1933. During the last century 20 million people died in the Soviet Union."

Many people died. Some were Jews. Bad things happened to others too. All in all a response that may or may not be seen as a direct answer to the question.

Maybe it's just a case where a son doesn't want to publically diverge from his father. Or, maybe it's just equivocation.

Whatever, its clear he's an odd Catholic.

Maybe his public statements identify him best as a holocaust minimizer. However, minimizing it and denying it ultimately lead to the same point. It's sounds like the people who say that sure, slavery was bad, but slaves in the American south actually were treated pretty well. They are both the kind of thing that is best not qualified by "but".

On the other hand, it's kinda disgusting when some people act as if Holocaust was the only historical tragedy which ever happened. Ukrainian Holodomor is not much known in the west, I think it's good that people bring up this subject.

That wasn't genocide, though, that was just terrible planning.

But I don't think that Gibson is a hypocrit for distancing himself from his father's lunacy and the contributing to this church (unless it's an official holocaust denial church). I remember when his movie came out and his response to the accusations of anti-semitism was their problem was with the gospels, not his moie, ignoring the fact that there are several accounts in the gospels and not all of them blame the jews.

The gospels are and the early church (and not so early church) were blatantly antisemitic. That's hardly a justification for being antisemitic now. And one difference between the slaughter of millions of Jews and other historical mass murders is that there are people today who still want to kill Jews.

(About Holodomor)
That wasn't genocide, though, that was just terrible planning.

Nope. Stalin wanted to make a point about collectivisation. So he starved Ukraine to death. Taking away all food people have is not "terrible planning". It's deliberately causing them to starve. USSR had terrible planning all the time, but people did not eat their neighbours usually.

The gospels are and the early church (and not so early church) were blatantly antisemitic.

Given that Jesus and his apostles were all Jews, this is an amusing concept. Anti-judaistic (against old religion) would be closer to the truth. In fact, if you read the letters of St. Paul, he urges in them the early christian church to stop favorizing Jews over non-Jews (like drop the requirement of circumcision). So your thesis falls flat on its face. Anti-semitism began in Europe. It could not happen in Palestine. It's like saying that the US are anti-American ;-)

And one difference between the slaughter of millions of Jews and other historical mass murders is that there are people today who still want to kill Jews.

And there are still Tutsi people in Rwanda who want to kill Hutu and vice versa. Genocide ain't nothing new under the sun. We've been slaughtering each other since day one. Pretending it isn't so, and that Holocaust was some exception to the rule, is pretending that the human species is better than it really is. We're murderers. I sometimes also think that people of our culture (Euroatlantic) consider Holocaust to be exceptional because it was done by one of "our" nations, not some "filthy and unruly savages". People of different cultures (Africans, for example) don't grasp the concept of the exceptionality of Holocaust at all.

Why do humans more often than not choose unsuccessful group survival strategies under the threat of genocide or other mass murder events?

This is not meant as a joke.

The passengers on flight 93 (9/11/01) and either the Hutus or Tutus might be exceptions.

Why do humans more often than not choose unsuccessful group survival strategies under the threat of genocide or other mass murder events?

The passengers on flight 93 (9/11/01) and either the Hutus or Tutus might be exceptions.

The passengers on flight 93 had a clear motivation: they had nothing to lose, but could save the lives of others. The Hutus and Tutsis... on one hand,a lot of them let themselves be slaughtered without resistance; on the other, they had their armies which were trying to defend them against the other nation. The Jews didn't have an army, and their countries were either beaten totally by the Germans (like Poland) or cooperating with the Nazis in Holocaust (like Vichy France). And it is very rarely when a disorganized group of unarmed civilians will start defending itself successfully against armed, organized soldiers. It's not typical for us humans. Besides, what could the Jews do? Charge the machine guns with sticks in their hands? The only way a weaker opponent can survive is by making it too costly for the stronger opponent to achieve their goals. The Germans were not going to be discouraged from carrying out their genocide plan, it was Hitler's idee fixe. So the "tire them and they will go away" strategy could not work. Jewish leaders in the ghettos sometimes hoped that the Jews will be spared when they prove "useful" to Germans: work hard in factories or workshops. Didn't work. Lodz Ghetto was organized like a giant commercial business, bringing real profits, but the Germans closed it anyway.

The Jews tried resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943, with the result that a group of people could choose a more dignified way of dying. A few of the insurgents survived.

Roman - It is rare for disorganized unarmed groups of civilians to start defending themselves. But, as guerrilla movements have proven, you can beat an enemy with it's own weapons - usually at a high cost, but certainly one less than almost total loss.
American Indians may be an apt example - after being decimated by disease, they really didn't stand much of a chance, but look what they did with what they did have. Of course, they were already a warlike society before European contact.
If the Jews of pre-WWII Europe, or the Ukranians of the Holmodor truly understood their eventual fate, they may have chosen more militant responses.
I don't pretend to understand the dynamics of how genocide happens. We, as a global community, do not know how to deal with genocide eventhough it takes place on a fairly regular basis. We collectively pay a price for genocide, beyond the obvious horror, since it tends to reverberate in history by being a causation factor for future events. For that reason, it is an interesting puzzle that historically, not much is done to prevent or stop genocide.

Roman - It is rare for disorganized unarmed groups of civilians to start defending themselves. But, as guerrilla movements have proven, you can beat an enemy with it's own weapons - usually at a high cost, but certainly one less than almost total loss.

Only if the enemy's response is restrained by moral considerations. German response certainly weren't. The best achievements of underground WW II movements were intelligence gathering, sabotage, helping downed airmen, some high-profile assasinations. You don't win wars with that. The one time when the underground forces tried an open battle without a friendly regular army waiting around the corner -- the Warsaw Uprising -- it was a total disaster.

American Indians may be an apt example - after being decimated by disease, they really didn't stand much of a chance, but look what they did with what they did have. Of course, they were already a warlike society before European contact.

But the white colonizers did not have a genocide program ready to be carried out.

If the Jews of pre-WWII Europe, or the Ukranians of the Holmodor truly understood their eventual fate, they may have chosen more militant responses.

With what? Russians were even better than the Nazis at controlling society. KGB infiltrated every possible space where resistance could spring -- something which the Germans never achieved outside their own country.

Jews often didn't know what was awaiting them. But if they did, then what? They'd try to rebel -- and would be killed anyway. The only option of stopping Holocaust was beating Germany. And this has been indeed attempted and done.

For that reason, it is an interesting puzzle that historically, not much is done to prevent or stop genocide.

Most of it happens in places far away from "us". Like Rwanda, where eventually France intervened. But hell, it took a few years and the US engagement to stop the Balkan massacres.

"Why do humans more often than not choose unsuccessful group survival strategies under the threat of genocide or other mass murder events?"

Primo Levi addresses this question and doesn't pin it down to any one answer, but does stress that in the camps you put all your energy into survival, and there was much less group solidarity than you might expect beyond the handful of trusted friends a person might have who looked out for each other. I can't remember who first formulated it, but there's a theory I find broadly convincing that mass social uprisings tend to happen not at the peak of repression in a society, but rather after controls and other oppressive measures are lifted a little. This echos what I've heard from survivors' stories that there was often a group naivety or wishful thinking on the part of Jews under Hitler, after each more repressive law saying "It can't get much worse than this", until of course it was too late. Once in the camps, the totalitarianism and destruction of the prisoners will and humanity was unrelenting until the Germans retreated.

I am not sure the American Indians would always agree there existed no plan for their genocide - but it certainly wouldn't be comparable to the Nazi's explicitly designed program. On the other hand, the Nazi's didn't make much of a secret of their real intentions. Many Jews took themselves to places they considered safer, many tried and failed to get away from the danger. That in itself, demonstrates they were aware of the threat to them before and as it developed. Primarily, they chose 'flight' over 'fight'. As the count of victims attests, they were not lacking numbers. It must have been a lack of common cause, as Yellow Ginger points out, in addition to geographical dispersion. Please remember, I am not judging their actions.

- Most of it happens in places far away from "us" - was true in the past but is becoming less true with increased globalization. Many events are 'nearer' these days. Pandemic threats and global terrorism for examples. Granted, they illustrate cases where our vested interests are challenged - we want to stay alive. When the Hutu and Tutsi hack away at each other, we don't have a perceived vested interest. But, that conflict could be the root cause of later events which do threaten us. It could be argued such conflicts increase the liklihood of pandemic threats.

In the camps, no doubt daily survival was about all the prisoners had the energy to accomplish. But, when one finds oneself in a camp, the point of useful decision making has already passed in terms of choosing a strategy for survival in a larger, community sense. It is bound to be very personal at that point.

The fundamental basis for Israel's 'Never Again' policy certainly reflects a change in thinking based on past experience. The actions of the US and other western countries in response to islamic terrorism is also a study in choosing a survival strategy.

And, just to stay on topic, Mel Gibson is a one-dimensional actor who made a lot of money, but will never be considered a great actor. Anyone who could film the 'Passion' as he did is obviously living a tortured existence that may have been inflicted upon him by his father.

So your thesis falls flat on its face.

Actually, his thesis doesn't. As you read the New Testament in the order the books were written you see more and more anti-Semetic comments coming more and more to the fore. By the time the Gospel of John is written, circa 100AD (+/- 10) you actually have the Jews "in league" with Satan.

Leaving aside the whole evolution of the idea of Satan from a job title of an angel in Yahweh's court to a separate being in revolt against God, the anti-Semetic tone of the NT mirrors the evolution of Christianity from a Jewish sect to a separate faith all together. Most of the NT wasn't written by Jews but by either Jewish converts or Gentiles all together.

deb,

almost noone believed before WW II that the Nazis would try to murder all the Jews. Those Jews who flew from Germany before 1.IX.1939 were fleeing from "standard" prosecution, not from gas chambers. Please remember that the decision to carry out Holocaust by industrial means was not made until 1942 (the Wannsee conference). Even people informed firsthand about the Holocaust (like T.D. Roosevelt in 1943) couldn't believe it at first (Roosevelt also was quite indifferent to it at first). The common public in the Allied countries was in 1945 still capable of being shocked by the discovery of the Nazi death camps.

So, before the WW II -- and even some time into it -- people mostly did not comprehend what the Germans wanted to do with the Jews. And after that, it was too late to flee. Do you think people didn't try? It was very hard to travel from German-occupied Poland abroad, for example. It required false papers, good command of foreign languages, and "Aryan" looks.

You say that Jews didn't try to fight. Of course they did. Not only Polish Jews, the whole Polish Army, in which also the Jews served, tried to fight Germans -- and lost after 2-3 weeks. Everybody had this in mind, how strong and brutal was the German army.

I find nothing strange in the fact that the Jews didn't fight an army with bare hands. One person with a rifle can terrorize a village. Nobody wants to be the first one shot. To force people to attack someone superiorly armed, you have to train them, instill battlefied discipline in them, give them leadership. And even then you've got to give them some weapons.

Nope. Stalin wanted to make a point about collectivisation. So he starved Ukraine to death. Taking away all food people have is not "terrible planning". It's deliberately causing them to starve. USSR had terrible planning all the time, but people did not eat their neighbours usually.

I think maybe that is an opinion of some Ukrainian historians but I don't believe it is among others. Ukraine was not the only place to suffer famine in the USSR, they were collectivizing everywhere, Ukraine just suffered the worst famine because of physical conditions and because they were more resistant.

Secondly Stalin did not order that they go take everyone's food. He set unrealistically high quotas on grain which were based on production back when there was still a market. That was before people moved to the collectives. He told his people to go get the kulaks grain that they were hiding. Of course there were no kulaks and very little hidden grain, but they found what they wanted to find anyways. So he's absolutely responsible for what happened, but intentional genocide it was not. And again, it wasn't just in Ukraine. Perhaps reading his apologistic "Dizzy with Success" will provide more insight.

Roman - I am trying to avoid making this specific to any particular group such as the Jewish people of Nazi Germany or Poland.

I am certainly not disparaging their efforts or bravery.

My question is about survival strategies and whether we usually choose a good one. Two cases come to mind. (1) We should always choose a strategy that gives us the best chance of personal survivial since that will provide the best chance for group survival. (2) We should choose a strategy that may knowingly sacrifice ourselves in order to advance the chances of group survivial. Since humans are nefarious, I will add a third: (3) We choose a strategy that sacrifices someone else in order to advance our own survivial.

To use an example from Nazi Germany - if we must, imagine we are in a group of hundreds or thousands of Jews. We have been marched to the train station and told to get into box cars. Already, many bad things have befallen us, and this doesn't look too good. Do we climb on the train, or do we enmass throw ourselves on the guards and kill as many as we can before we are killed - as we surely will be.

Then and today, I bet 99.9% get on the train - why? This may be human nature, but it is not a very successful strategy. As soon as we get on the train we are as good as dead. Even granted that we may not know that at the time, we surely know we have lost a lot already.

Hitler understood this aspect of human nature and exploited it. See 'Mein Kampf' in wikipedia and scroll down about half a page.

Roll forward to Los Angeles and the Watts riots. The rioters burned their homes and businesses, laid waste to the entire area. Made police afraid to enter the area. In the short term they suffered. In the longer term, they brought on changes which benefited them.

Ukraine just suffered the worst famine because of physical conditions and because they were more resistant.

I'm sorry, but Ukraine had the best soil in the whole USSR. If physical conditions should matter, it should be the *least* affected by the famine.

>i>Perhaps reading his [Stalin's] apologistic "Dizzy with Success" will provide more insight.

Oh, of course that according to Stalin he was not a killer. Nothing new here.

Stalin was afraid of Ukrainian nationalism, which I suppose could've prompted him to the genocide. It is amazing that there are still people defending him.

About the strategies: Los Angeles strategy worked because the police had its hands tied by the law. What would a good totalitarian dictatorship do? The same what was done in the USSR in the (rare) cases of social unrest: surround the area with military and go inside, killing as many as needed to restore order. What strategy can work against that?