Why do people deny genocide instead of boasting of it or accepting it?

[ICametoLurk]

Like why do Nazis make claims about the Holocaust not happening, Communists with Holodomar, White Supremacists dismissing Native Genocide, Turks with Armenian Genocide, Japanese Nationalists with Nanjing Massacre and so on instead of going FUCK YEAH WE DID IT AND WE'RE GONNA DO IT AGAIN or Yeah it happened, so what?

This gets more bizarre in some cases, like the thing that’s so bizarre about Turkish nationalism is that admitting the Armenian Genocide happened would have absolutely no consequences. Like, there are genocides that happened within the last 30 years that went basically unpunished. And we’re talking the Ottoman Empire. An Armenian genocide that implicates the Young Turks puts a real damper on Ataturk worship. And Erdogan’s whole thing is breaking with the cycle of Attaturk worship by no longer being secular. They could alsp easily have said, "Yes, what the Ottomans did to the Armenians and Arabs was terrible. Hooray for Ataturk! Hooray for Turkey!" But instead they've spent decades arresting journalists and historians.

 

[MuuMuu Bunnylips]

Hell, if the option were available, I'd cause it,

 

[snailslime]

a lot of them say "we didn't do it but next time it will be worse" or something dumb like that. denying it makes them look like they at least try to come across as decent people. way less people would back them or even consider listening to them if they admitted to committing genocide

 

[MuuMuu Bunnylips]

a lot of them say "we didn't do it but next time it will be worse" or something dumb like that. denying it makes them look like they at least try to come across as decent people. way less people would back them or even consider listening to them if they admitted to committing genocide

If there's anyone around to complain, you didn't genocide properly and should be ashamed.

 

[byuu]

The Armenian genocide is the only good thing the Turks have ever done.

 

[Agarathium1066]

I'd assume its as simple as not wanting to seem like a murderous jerk. It's not considered acceptable for that to be something to be proud of internationally or personally, as there's a solid chance the person speaking of had nothing to do with it. Whether or not the people decrying a nation for some major genocide or terrible action truly care or just want leverage is another thing entirely.

Personally I see no issue with accepting it happened, especially the Natives of America. Plenty of proof and despite being an 'attempted' Genocide enough diverse tribes survived in fragments that you can see their reserves in several states. More than anything their identities and histories were destroyed rather than the people. Though now they have their revenge by selling bundles of white sage to goobers at an obscenely high price.

 

[Sexy Senior Citizen]

For some people, it's PR, i.e. "Wait, our group did what in the past? Quick, deny it ever happened!"
For others, they have such a Dionysian mindset that they simply can't believe or accept that humans could do such a thing.

 

[Judge Holden]

Two main strains of thought

a) active nationalist/cause myth making aimed at both whitewashing the history of a country/cause and also creating the myth of "THE EVIL OUTSIDE WORLD CREATES SUCH VILE LIES ABOUT US BECAUSE THEY FEAR OUR GREATNESS!" which you can see most plainly with Turkey for the nationalist side of things and unironic communists for the cause side of things, and this winds up entrenching it in establishment circles since nobody wants to be seen to question the sacred dogma. Its not simply about protecting the image of the group/cause, its about using this very denial as a weapon against their enemies.

b) obsessive conspiracy theorists whose addiction to believing in any and all conspiracies overrides their better judgement, thus causing them to fanatically latch on to genocide denial and churn out all manner of batshit reasoning and justifications despite not having any real stake in defending the perpetrators.

 

[TaimuRadiu]

because they want people to think well of them. william luther pierce outright said holocaust denial was a thing to make national socialism acceptable as a political philosophy again, despite there not having been much to NS philosophy in the first place. go back far enough and every one of our ancestors did some horrible shit in order to ensure that we are here now.

 

[Idiotron]

Because no country exists in a vacuum.
Admitting to a genocide might seem "cool and badass" when you're a teenager but when you're a nation trying to do business with other nations, all of which have ties with each other in some way, saying that you've killed these and those people back in the day isn't going to help you much.

 

[Varg Did Nothing Wrong]

Like, there are genocides that happened within the last 30 years that went basically unpunished.

Niggertribes in Africa massacring each other a la Hutus/Tutsis goes unpunished because literally nobody gives a fuck about Hutus and Tutsis, or East Timor, or whatever else.

Japan can't go "haha yeah we fucking bayoneted babies in Nanking lmao" because Japan has a vested interest in maintaining trade partners, alliances and all that jam. Turkey can't say "yeah we killed 60000000000 Armenians, so what?" because that would be admitting their guilt and culpability in something that didn't happen too long ago and open them up to the possibility of reparations being demanded.

How can you be this naive?

 

[millais]

It's bad optics and they don't want to go to the Hague

 

[ProgKing of the North]

None of the genocides you mentioned happened but all of them should have

 

[JULAY]

I'd assume its as simple as not wanting to seem like a murderous jerk. It's not considered acceptable for that to be something to be proud of internationally or personally, as there's a solid chance the person speaking of had nothing to do with it. Whether or not the people decrying a nation for some major genocide or terrible action truly care or just want leverage is another thing entirely.

Personally I see no issue with accepting it happened, especially the Natives of America. Plenty of proof and despite being an 'attempted' Genocide enough diverse tribes survived in fragments that you can see their reserves in several states. More than anything their identities and histories were destroyed rather than the people. Though now they have their revenge by selling bundles of white sage to goobers at an obscenely high price.

To be fair, about 90% of the natives in North America were killed by European diseases nearly a century before the first British colonies were established. We just tried to genocide the leftovers...

 

[Foolish Samurai Warrior]

Because they don't want to admit that they like the same things as these genocidal maniacs.

 

[inexplicable ethos]

The Holocaust didn't happen the way the current media/global political oligarchy pretends it does (majority of Jewish deaths were due to starvation and disease because Germany couldn't ship them out of the country like they wanted to). Straight up denying it happened is somewhat exceptional though.

The Holodomor is at least somewhat plausibly explained away as an accident, and most modern Communists also don't understand that their ideology would inevitably lead to mass murder so they won't admit it was directly caused by Communist Russia.

I don't really think white supremacists really deny native American genocide, and "dismissing" it isn't really the same thing. It's callous, but not dishonest.

Turks dismiss or lie about the Armenian genocide because they are either indoctrinated by their government to actually believe it didn't happen, or because they have a vested interest in making Turkey look good and there's no graceful way to admit your country slaughtered millions based on ethnicity alone.

I don't buy Nanjing as genocide, but Japanese nationalists probably either consider it a justifiable cost of war or just don't believe it happened (impossible to tell which for any individual Jap because all Asians all lie about everything all the time and the ones who think it was acceptable probably just lie and say it didn't happen).

There's literally nothing wrong with genocide, though, unless it's happening to your own ethnicity. Total war is the natural state of war.

 

[Dom Cruise]

I can't say I understand the Neo Nazi attitude of "the holocaust never happened and that's why you should support our side, but boy oh boy can I not wait to exterminate every last Jew!"

It's blatantly hypocritical and anyone with a functioning brain should not support blatant hypocrisy, it's the same reason I hate SJWs and the way they go endlessly on about how much they hate racism, unless that racism applies to white people.

 

[Bad Headspace]

Turks can get away with it because Armenians are a small group with no power, so Armenians can't do anything about it.

 

[SilkGnut]

More than half the genocides of the last few centuries have been against the peoples who dominated the world before Europeans.

I would imagine you would want to keep a few of those under wraps so people do not see the blazingly obvious pattern and start asking questions.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

The Holocaust didn't happen the way the current media/global political oligarchy pretends it does (majority of Jewish deaths were due to starvation and disease because Germany couldn't ship them out of the country like they wanted to). Straight up denying it happened is somewhat exceptional though.

The Holodomor is at least somewhat plausibly explained away as an accident, and most modern Communists also don't understand that their ideology would inevitably lead to mass murder so they won't admit it was directly caused by Communist Russia.

I don't really think white supremacists really deny native American genocide, and "dismissing" it isn't really the same thing. It's callous, but not dishonest.

Turks dismiss or lie about the Armenian genocide because they are either indoctrinated by their government to actually believe it didn't happen, or because they have a vested interest in making Turkey look good and there's no graceful way to admit your country slaughtered millions based on ethnicity alone.

I don't buy Nanjing as genocide, but Japanese nationalists probably either consider it a justifiable cost of war or just don't believe it happened (impossible to tell which for any individual Jap because all Asians all lie about everything all the time and the ones who think it was acceptable probably just lie and say it didn't happen).

There's literally nothing wrong with genocide, though, unless it's happening to your own ethnicity. Total war is the natural state of war.

Pretty much nobody denies the American Indian deaths - the AmErIcA dOeSnT tEaCh ItS eViL hIsToRy myth is a straw man - but I do know at least one AltRight faggot who is a denier.

The Alternative Hypothesis has made some really retarded arguments that the Indian population was way smaller than in reality.