Trying talking to a Cop about interpretations. Or the IRS. Or one's wife, mistress, the wife when she finds out about the mistress, etc. Or the burglar, or the dentist. Or the grocer.
It doesn't float in real life because it is the quintessence of vanity.
I didn't know vanity had a quintessence.
And guess what? The cop deals with interpretations. That's the cop's job: from a given set of data, the cop infers that you are likely breaking the law, and arrests your six. Then in court, the DA presents data, including the testimony of the cop, along with an interpretation to demonstrate that you were indeed breaking the law.
The IRS works similarly: they look at your tax return, and your supporting documentation, and they evaluate your interpretation of the tax code. If it doesn't match theirs, or they suspect it might not match, then they come by and you have a little talk, in which you are required to support your argument with more evidence.
I'll concede that with Wives and Mistresses, logic and sophistry are both equally useless.
A good burglar selects targets according to likelihood of success. If your house is surrounded by a chain-link fence, patrolled by guards with loose dogs running about, and your neighbor leaves for the night with the front door open, a sign on the lawn saying "be back tomorrow 10 AM", and priceless antiquities visible in the windows, a good burglar will likely interpret the evidence as pointing to your neighbor's house as the juicier target.
Dentists, like Medical Doctors, are trained to evaluate symptoms and make a diagnosis. Guess what that is? An interpretation based on evidence. This is what "second opinions" are for. The problem with many doctors, however, is the pressure to give "the right answer" without describing the process that led to it can make the process a little opaque. But that is how doctors work.
So why should historians be any different?
And in these examples lies the answer to the "holocaust" question. Just because we give interpretations doesn't mean we're free to give any interpretation we want. The rules of logic apply.
Holocaust deniers tend to use a series of logical fallacies that are general to conspiracy theorists, most notably A) possibility=probability and B) the cover up (anti-parsimony) C) suppressed evidence
A) The first fallacy runs along the lines of:
It is possible that the entire world, including my memories, was created yesterday.
Therefore it is probable that the world was created yesterday. In all likelihood, that is what happened.
B) The principle of parsimony (aka Ockham's Razor) runs along the lines of "Do not posit more beings in existence than necessary to explain the phenomena." Unknown to most people, Ockham adds "except in divine matters", since an omnipotent God can do whatever He likes, and besides, even if one arrives at a satisfactory proof of God's existence, the simplest explanation for God would be a unary God, not a Trinity.
Ockham's Razor gets translated to read: "The simplest explanation is the most likely". A conspiracy theorist tries to get around this by taking the "God clause": an all-powerful conspiracy manufactures evidence to the contrary.
C) suppressed evidence is simply to ignore any evidence that does not fit the argument.
But back to the Holocaust for a minute: The "history" of Holocaust deniers fails as history because of the enormous logical problems they have. But here's another point to ponder: Why would an historian need to deny the Holocaust, when the evidence is so overwhelming that it occurred?
Now we're back in the realm of rhetoric.
One more, just for fun:
Old History: Hitler was a zealous madman and mass murderer
New History: Hitler was just misunderstood.
That Hitler was a mass murderer is beyond question. But "zealous madman"? Hitler behaved nothing like the boss monster in Wolfenstein 3D, you know. Hitler didn't need a kazillion hit points and chain guns where his arms used to be. He had thousands of willing supporters who did his mass murdering for him. People who were otherwise perfectly respectable citizens would go to work and do morally the most outrageous acts. And many, many people around the world admired Hitler in the 30s. Henry Ford actively and financially supported him.
"zealous madman" is just what we call him to avoid the unpleasant reality that, in given social circumstances, most people are capable and willing to do horrendous evil. And numerous other contemporary examples give witness to this. "Zealous madman" is a comfortable lie we tell ourselves before going to bed each night. He is misunderstood, and we misunderstand him willfully, because the truth is even more horrible.
Dinger
"There's a little Hitler in each and every one of us."
