Emory University historian Deborah Lipstadt calls for a vigorous offensive against lies and distortions of the truth in a TED talk given in Oxford, England, in April that was posted on the TED.com website on Tuesday, May 2 and is anticipated to be widely distributed by social media.
The talk ostensibly about her six-year battle to defend the existence of the Holocaust goes beyond her vigorous challenge in a British courtroom of Holocaust denier David Irving to defend truth and facts more generally, which, she said, “are under attack” in society at large.
“We must act now,” she said citing a disregard for facts and the profusion of lies, and further asserting that “truth is not relative.”
Dr. Lipstadt is the author of “Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Trust and Memory,” which was published in 1993.
In her book she exposes the distortion and misrepresentation of the sources upon which the denial claims are based.
Her fight on behalf of “historical truth” became the subject of the feature film “Denial,” which was released in 2005.
Without specifically naming the perpetrators of lies and fabrications other than to mention climate change deniers, she cites the injustices that can be committed due to lies and denial of objective facts as in the case of Galileo Galilei.
The Inquisition convicted Galileo, the 17th century astronomer and scientist, for falsely asserting that the earth and planets rotate around the sun.
Dr. Lipstadt’s Ted talk is scheduled to appear through TED.com’s partners on other media sites around the world in multiple languages.
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