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Last week, one of the U.S. presidential candidates made a rather ignorant statement about gun control and the Holocaust. The Warsaw Ghetto revolt is the immedi

by douche 11y ago

Last week, one of the U.S. presidential candidates made a rather ignorant statement about gun control and the Holocaust. The Warsaw Ghetto revolt is the immediately obvious example to look at. This piece is really an advertisement for the author's upcoming book, and this piece seems pretty obviously cribbed from one of his chapters. It reads less oddly if you read the title of the book, and go look at the description on the Amazon link, and realize that it fits into a philosophical work on the justifiable use of force in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

yummyfajitas 11y ago
I was unaware of the potential political implications of this article. I'd probably not have submitted had I known that. I'm not following the election horserace, this was just an interesting historical article that came up in my feed.
- douche 11y ago
  It's not a bad piece of history writing. It's just going to bring out the gun-control debaters. The Warsaw Jews did pretty well, considering they had less arms and ammunition on hand than you'd find in a rural US WalMart. Victory was not an option - a year later, the considerably larger, better-equipped Warsaw Uprising failed as bloodily, when Soviet forces nearly on the outskirts of the city failed to raise a finger in support.
  - dalke 11y ago
    There are several different styles of history writing. One is to describe what happened. For example, there are histories of battles, and of Krakatoa, and of Newton, which follow more or less a timeline. Another is to identify underlying patterns and trends that help understand what happened, and hopefully can be applied elsewhere. For examples, how did the introduction of light mobile guns by Gustavus Adolphus change the battlefield? Why did the explosion of Krakatoa have a big cultural impact as well as physical one? How are Newton's view on alchemy and biblical research connected to his work on physics? The first is more descriptive, and the second is more predictive. Both are good history. Both are scientific, but call for different sorts of research. Both require extensive literature analysis. The latter requires more work to come up with alternative hypothesis and relevant comparisons, in order to test and disprove hypotheses. This article does both. I think it does best at the descriptive aspects of the event. But it uses a historical model that isn't well tested, but could be tested by looking towards other genocides to see if the model fits. If the model doesn't fit in a more general sense, then in the context of US gun control laws, it's a curiosity at best, and not something that can be used in decision making. It is trying to making that comparison, and not limit itself to the uprising, which is why I regard it as a bad piece of historical writing.
pronoiac 11y ago
Yup, it's sort of a response to Ben Carson, who also got a more directed rebuttal: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/123080/ben-carson-wrong-about-holocaust-jews-did-fight-back http://www.newrepublic.com/article/123080/ben-carson-wrong-a...
- vezzy-fnord 11y ago
  It's actually a rather common sentiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_gun_control_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_gun_control_theory

by douche 11y ago

yummyfajitas 11y ago

I was unaware of the potential political implications of this article. I'd probably not have submitted had I known that. I'm not following the election horserace, this was just an interesting historical article that came up in my feed.

douche 11y ago
It's not a bad piece of history writing. It's just going to bring out the gun-control debaters. The Warsaw Jews did pretty well, considering they had less arms and ammunition on hand than you'd find in a rural US WalMart. Victory was not an option - a year later, the considerably larger, better-equipped Warsaw Uprising failed as bloodily, when Soviet forces nearly on the outskirts of the city failed to raise a finger in support.
- dalke 11y ago
  There are several different styles of history writing. One is to describe what happened. For example, there are histories of battles, and of Krakatoa, and of Newton, which follow more or less a timeline. Another is to identify underlying patterns and trends that help understand what happened, and hopefully can be applied elsewhere. For examples, how did the introduction of light mobile guns by Gustavus Adolphus change the battlefield? Why did the explosion of Krakatoa have a big cultural impact as well as physical one? How are Newton's view on alchemy and biblical research connected to his work on physics? The first is more descriptive, and the second is more predictive. Both are good history. Both are scientific, but call for different sorts of research. Both require extensive literature analysis. The latter requires more work to come up with alternative hypothesis and relevant comparisons, in order to test and disprove hypotheses. This article does both. I think it does best at the descriptive aspects of the event. But it uses a historical model that isn't well tested, but could be tested by looking towards other genocides to see if the model fits. If the model doesn't fit in a more general sense, then in the context of US gun control laws, it's a curiosity at best, and not something that can be used in decision making. It is trying to making that comparison, and not limit itself to the uprising, which is why I regard it as a bad piece of historical writing.

pronoiac 11y ago

Yup, it's sort of a response to Ben Carson, who also got a more directed rebuttal: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/123080/ben-carson-wrong-about-holocaust-jews-did-fight-back http://www.newrepublic.com/article/123080/ben-carson-wrong-a...

vezzy-fnord 11y ago
It's actually a rather common sentiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_gun_control_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_gun_control_theory