He makes a complex argument: that authoritarianism was as ingrained in German culture as anti-Semitism. Browning's book is not, as some have suggested, a Stanley Milgram-esque indictment of human nature. He concludes that the Holocaust was historically contingent.
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Here's a paragraph where Browning sums up this two-fold argument:pic.twitter.com/StF0BXuJCT
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Yet Peterson, when he speaks about the book, does not mention anti-Semitism as a proximate or long-term cause of the Holocaust. He is instead interested in why humans would kill indiscriminately as a general phenomenon.
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But to generalize is to miss the specific historical lessons of the Holocaust. It also may, as experts I spoke to suggested, leave some breathing room for his more extreme followers to feel that Peterson is not directly condemning anti-Semitism.
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Further down this line of questioning is a major rabbit hole for historians: Context versus psychology. Are people driven by timeless psychological mechanisms or by their immediate historical setting? The answer is, of course, both.
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But -- as my article suggests -- to give preference to one part of the equation at the near-exclusion of the other, especially in full view of people on the extreme right, is irresponsible.
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This article does not, as some think, paint Dr. Peterson as a Holocaust-denying anti-Semite. Dr. Peterson is clearly disturbed by conspiracy-minded anti-Semitism and by the specter of the Holocaust and other genocides, and wants people to live without hatred.
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The criticism is that you can't mince words about the cause of the Holocaust when you know some of your listeners are anti-Semites.
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Maybe you shouldn't have written such a scummy piece. Peterson was trying to disprove conspiracy theories and discredit MacDonald and smear him and insinuate he's an anti-semite? Jesus that was awful. I'm a Jew and you should be ashamed of yourself.
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