pynchon-l-digest V2 #1838

[Paul Mackin]

If anyone can tell me what Millison is talking about please tell me.

            P.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Doug Millison" <millison at online-journalist.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2001 11:41 AM
Subject: Re: pynchon-l-digest V2 #1838


> If Mackin reads the DeLong review closely he will see that DeLong
> uses the examples of Gibbon and Taylor (as I've quoted) and other
> historians in comparison and contrast to Holocaust denier Irving's
> approach, which is to falsify history by lying about primary sources
> and to let his political beliefs distort his presentation.
>
> DeLong uses Evans' criteria to call into question Taylor's
> credentials as an historian:  "According to Evans's
> categorization--with its stress on being a truthful voice of the
> documents and other primary evidence--Irving was not a historian at
> all, or not a very
> good historian. (Of course, it is hard to see how A.J.P. Taylor can
maintain
> his reputation in Evans's eyes, given the passages on the Hossbach
> memorandum in Origins of the Second World War.)"  Elsewhere in the
> review DeLong judges: "And A.J.P. Taylor's Origins of World War II is
> ultimately a failure because its psychological picture of Hitler's
> motivations and aims is inconsistent with what else we know about
> Hitler from primary sources outside the book. "
>
> DeLong asks:  "So how can Evans draw a bright, distinguishing line
> between historians like Thucydides, Syme, Taylor, and
> Gibbon--more-than-reputable historians, great
> historians--all of whom go beyond the boundaries of their evidence in one
> way or another, and David Irving? "
>
> And DeLong answers: "So it seems to me that ultimately Evans's
> attempt to draw a bright line between Irving and the historians
> fails. When Watt worries that the forces
> unleashed by the Irving trial will impinge on the reputation of historians
> like Gibbon and Taylor who "allowed their political agenda... to influence
> their professional practice," and who used the available primary evidence
> selectively and tendentiously, he is right: it will. Misquotation and
> mistranslation are greater sins against Clio than merely averting one's
eyes
> from pieces of evidence, or telling history to make a particular point
> rather rather than as it really happened. But they are not the only sins."
>
> DeLong's article was interesting to me, especially after the lengthy
> and often vociferous discussion here over such questions whether or
> not Pynchon depicts the Holocaust in GR, whether or not the Dora
> victims are Holocaust victims, because of the way that Taylor's
> history has been used in this forum to buttress an argument that
> Pynchon depicts WWII in such a way in GR as to exculpate the Nazis
> for starting the war and for their war crimes.  I think it's useful
> to point out that Taylor's credibility in this respect has been
> questioned.  As DeLong says, "Now Taylor's history is not history as
> it really happened. All you have to do is glance an inch beyond the
> frame of Taylor's picture--at Nazi domestic policy and the Night of
> Broken Glass, or at Hitler's conduct of World War II--and you find
> events grossly and totally inconsistent with Taylor's portrait of an
> opportunist looking for diplomatic victories on the cheap. Taylor's
> Hitler would never have widened the war by attacking the Soviet Union
> and declaring war on the United States, or weakened his own military
> resources by exterminating six million Jews, four million Russian
> prisoners of war, and millions of others rather than putting them to
> work in the factories making tanks and ammunition. Nevertheless, you
> can learn a lot
> from Origins..."
>
> I think this thread is worth pursuing because of the obvious
> significance that Pynchon gives to the question of what is history
> and history's relation to fiction.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >
> >Date: Thu, 24 May 2001 02:08:37 -0400
> >From: "Paul Mackin" <paul.mackin at verizon.net>
> >Subject: Re: only facts, no interpretations
> >
> >- ----- Original Message -----
> >From: "Doug Millison" <millison at online-journalist.com>
> >
> >
> >>  It's hard to know what Mackin's beef with DeLong or Evans might be,
> >
> >My objection wasn't especially with DeLong or Evans but with Millison,
> >specifically his " this sort of argumentation relates to the historial
> >approach of Holocaust deniers" referring to Taylor and others. Millison
may
> >have spoken in ignorance thinking Taylor really was a Hitler sympathizer.
> >Of course such a charge wasn't made in the article but only that Taylor
was
> >a historian purportedly influenced in his findings by his political
> >position. However Millison quickly latched onto the sloppy writing of
DeLong
> >to lob the Holocaust Denier epithet at one more convenient and innocent
> >target of opportunity. This behavior makes one wonder. I don't say he's
> >nuts. He just sounds nuts.
> >
> >                 P.
> >
> --
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