Richard Carrier and the Domesday Watermills

[unkleE]

Humphrey

This was, as we have happily come to expect, an interesting post. But it raises a few questions.

You say "Richard Carrier is without doubt a courageous and relentlessly revisionist historian", and you mention several matters as examples: the historical (or other) Jesus, Hitler's beliefs, Greek science or lack thereof and water mills in Domesday England.

All these topics have two things in common - they are historical matters and he apparently draws metaphysical (anti-christian) conclusions from them all.

It is understandable why he connects history and atheism in discussing the historical Jesus, and Hitler is obviously a character no self respecting theist or atheist wants on his side. And I guess the argument that the church has inhibited progress is an obvious one to try to prove or refute. But water mills??? I must confess I never saw the apologetic issues associated with water mills until Richard began this line of investigation.

So my questions are:

1. Do you think most historians would find his paragraph beginning "This is yet another example of how Christian apologists not only love to boost medieval Christianity with logical fallacies ...." to be a little strange, a long bow, or is this a reasonable sort of way for a historian to develop a subject?

2. Four topics, four times Richard is somewhat 'revisionist', and all on topics which he develops in anti christian ways. Does this seem to be his prime motivation? If so, wouldn't this diminish his status as a historian if he allows his metaphysics to guide his history? Do you know of other topics where he is 'relentlessly revisionist' but which he does not develop in anti-christian ways?

Just curious.

[krkey1]

Richard Carrier is to Classical and Medieval History as David Irving is to World War II and the Holocaust. A completely bigot of the first order, nothing more, nothing less and sadly that is all he will be.

[James Hannam]

KrKey1,

No I don't think Richard stands comparison to David Irving. Richard is often wrong, but usually in an interesting way that sets us off along fruitful paths of enquiry. He rejects the naive conflict hypothesis and does not blame Christianity for the decline of ancient science. He has biases, but so do we all.

David Irving, on the other hand, has no redeeming features that I can discern.

Best wishes

James

[endrefodstad]

The comparison to Irving was quite unfair, but I do not think that in this particular case Carrier set anybody off on a fruitful path of enquiry. As Humphrey found out (and which was my impression even before I read his blogpost), Carriers hypothesis on the Domesday book watermill lists was a rather odd one, and I have to admit I do not even understand why he presented it. It certainly will not strengthen anybody's opinion on him, and reminded me of the sort of "forum theories" one often sees from non-academics.

[James Hannam]

Hi endrefodstad,

I'm not sure I agree. I certainly found Humphrey's post most interesting and I am grateful that I now know the basis for claiming that England had 6000 or so watermills in the eleventh century. I know this because RC queried how do we know. It was a good question even if the answer he proposed was wrong.

best wishes

James

[humphreyclarke]

Asking how we know is usually a very good question. If Carrier's objection was a silly one I would not have bothered with it. It wasn't impossible that scholars had made a serious error and relied on a bad mill estimate.

Carrier is certainly no David Irving. He has one thing in common with him and that is that Irving was extremely good with primary sources - hence he was held in very high regard for quite a while until someone followed the sources back and found out how he was distorting them. Richard also has a very good command of these. I think he only looked at a small section of the evidence for the Domesday Book but he was still able to come up with a superficially convincing argument. That's fairly impressive. I have a lot of respect for him - not least because we both bullnuts for a living.

[krkey1]

I just call a spade a spade and a fowl a fowl. If there is anything that would be remotely favorable to Christianity Carrier will try to twist and distort it. He claims Hitler was a Christian, that is a idiotic claim only someone who is either uninformed of history or is an Anti Christian bigot of the first order could possibly make. He knew better the moment he wrote it.

He is an avowed Christ Myther which has among it ranks people who also deny the holocaust.

Yes James we all have our biases but the rest of us try to control them. Carrier does everything he can do to gently stroke them and make them worse.

What would be the moral difference in David Irving starting a blog to propose pseudo history and Carriers current activities doing the same thing.

I am sure correcting Irving set mainstream holocaust historians on paths of fruitful inquiry so should we know commend Irving for this?

One should write history to make it more accessible, to correct or to explore it. Irving writes history to distort. So does Carrier. What is the moral difference? I fail to see it.

[noons]

Well, if anything, it's basically pulling a Godwin. It's unnecessary and inflames emotions. It's better to compare it with something that doesn't have the same emotional issues involved.

[krkey1]

But why shouldn't Carrier's behave enrage people. If Carrier was to do this to the Muslims or the Jews he would honestly have press conferences and denunciations from such groups as the Southern Poverty Law Center. Why is it okay for Carrier to lie through his teeth about Christians and Christianity but wrong to lie about Jews and Judaism. I do not see why one is okay and the other is not.

[endrefodstad]

Feb 11, 2011 13:51:13 GMT James Hannam said:

Hi endrefodstad,

I'm not sure I agree. I certainly found Humphrey's post most interesting and I am grateful that I now know the basis for claiming that England had 6000 or so watermills in the eleventh century. I know this because RC queried how do we know. It was a good question even if the answer he proposed was wrong.

I assumed more people knew beforehand. Asking how we know is a good question. Asking how we know and presenting an alternate hypothesis without checking the background to the situation you are critizising is at best lazy.

I do not really see how this has anything to do with christianity, krkey1? The best evidence we have of roman industrial milling is from late antiquity.

[krkey1]

Cause Carrier said it has to do with Christianity:

" This is yet another example of how Christian apologists not only love to boost medieval Christianity with logical fallacies, but also by not checking the facts (even when they are suspicious: a watermill for every fifty families in 1086 AD England ought to have been downright suspicious), and instead just believing anything you read that makes medieval Christians sound clever "

He is the one who wanted to attack it cause it seemed Pro Christian.

I am simply pointing out he acts the same way people like David Irving do.

[davedodo007]

Feb 11, 2011 17:29:00 GMT krkey1 said:

I just call a spade a spade and a fowl a fowl. If there is anything that would be remotely favorable to Christianity Carrier will try to twist and distort it. He claims Hitler was a Christian, that is a idiotic claim only someone who is either uninformed of history or is an Anti Christian bigot of the first order could possibly make. He knew better the moment he wrote it.

No you just indulge in ad hominem attacks. I at least point out where I believe an author is wrong then insult them. So some examples would be nice. Hitler claimed to be a Christian are we going with the 'no true Scotsman fallacy' here? Personally I have no time for these arguments Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pot. They where just lunatics I blame the atrocities on the people who followed their orders without question. Anyone who lets go of their humanity to an ideology ceases to be human. Irving is an interesting case as I remember asking an historian about this and he said basically the same as Humphrey did. I will have to ask Humphrey for a link (citation.)

He is an avowed Christ Myther which has among it ranks people who also deny the holocaust.

Guilt by association, not nice. Do you have any evidence to back this up.

Yes James we all have our biases but the rest of us try to control them. Carrier does everything he can do to gently stroke them and make them worse.

I'm sure James does, he certainly seems to be aware of the problem and I will know for certain when I get around to reading his book, It's just behind ' seeing Further' and 'Wish you were here' the ones I'm reading now. How about you?

What would be the moral difference in David Irving starting a blog to propose pseudo history and Carriers current activities doing the same thing.

What has morality got to do with it, are they true? is the only question that needs to be asked. Scientific and atheists blogs have to do this all the time and are very successful in this endeavour, (not defending Irving by the way but if he is wrong, show it, don't indulge in ad hom attacks.)

I am sure correcting Irving set mainstream holocaust historians on paths of fruitful inquiry so should we know commend Irving for this?

This is not what James said, read his post again.

One should write history to make it more accessible, to correct or to explore it. Irving writes history to distort. So does Carrier. What is the moral difference? I fail to see it.

No. One should write history as it is true to all available knowledge. That is it. Some might follow the popular root, some the academic root, that is all.

[krkey1]

Dave

It has been well document that Hitler was not a Christian. This is certainly not a defensible position now and it was not a defensible position in 2002. So Carrier lied, simple as that. Pointing out how Carrier distorts history and out right lies in both speaking engagements and in writing is not ad hominem, it is simply stating facts.



Academic Christ Mythers who deny the holocaust- Christian Lindtner, Lars Adelskogh. The interesting this is surely antisemitics across the globe will surely use Carriers writings to defend their antisemitism and Carrier has to realize he will be adding that group, even if indirectly. Still his bigotry toward Christians is so strong he will keep on lying.

Lying about history is what Irving and Carrier do . That is a brutal fact. If we condemn Irving for doing it why should Carrier not stand equally condemned.

Let me rephrase it then. Irving is often wrong about the holocaust, but usually in an interesting way that sets us off along fruitful paths of inquiry. Can you see the problem here.

You seem not to get the concept Dave but history deals in facts. Hitler was not a Christian and Jesus existed are brute facts of history. Those who deny these things are either uninformed or bigots. As Carrier is certainly informed I will simply observe I see no difference between Carrier stroking the bigotries of Neo atheists and Irving stroking the bigotries of Neo Nazis. Lying is lying and bigotry is bigotry. It is really that simple.

[joel]

Comparing Carrier to Irving is needlessly inflammatory, I agree. None of Carrier's anti-Christian axe-grinding comes morally close to defendings Nazis.

If I were to compare him to a semi-famous historian, I would choose Howard Zinn, a leftist US historian. Zinn occasionally had some good things to say, but he was so anti-American that this bias overwhelmed nearly all his work. His book A People's History of the United States remains popular as a textbook and in certain far-left groups, but in academic circles he is generally regarded as more a polemicist than a serious historian. He had a massive axe to grind against America and this was quite obvious in his writings.

As for Hitler, while he invoked Christian language publicly to gain support, we know from writings of his close associates such as Goebbels that his private statements were very anti-Christian, and of course people are more likely to tell the truth in private. Though he wasn't an atheist either.

[krkey1]

Well maybe it is a bit inflammatory but there are a lot of strong parallels between Irving and Carrier. At least Zinn was content to spin his axe with facts, unlike Carrier who is quite content to make it up as it goes with some odd methodology of if his views does not fit the facts then the facts must be wrong.

But in a way Carrier's axe grinding does come close to defending the Nazis. Throughout history there have been groups of people who persecuted and murdered religious people ( Jacobins and the Communist) and Carrier is defending their ideological descendants.

Carrier is simply defending the modern day version of the Jacobins and Communist and is writing a book he has to know will be used by modern day Antisemites and Neo Nazis. The fact that none of this bothers him and his well exposed lies speaks much about the absolute lack of integrity of Richard Carrier.