The Sins of the Fathers ─ Turkish Denialism and the Armenian Genocide

We hear much talk today about post-truth. Journalists and intellectuals describe it as a shocking new phenomenon caused by recent electoral campaigns. They point to contemporary political statements as horrendous post-truths. Nothing is more misleading. ‘Historical engineering’ is not a new phenomenon. Nor are the events to which journalists point as exemplary instances of ‘post-truth’ particularly poignant. ‘Historical engineering’ is the intellectual twin of ‘social engineering’ and has been taking place on increasingly large scales since the dawn of the modern world. It is a consequence of the premises, methods, and ambitions of modern philosophy. This book is the first part of a trilogy – The Betrayal of Philosophy – that concerns the roots of the post-truth phenomenon. Its intent is to provide the philosophical world with a phantasm in which it can see not just the what of ‘historical engineering,’ but the why: to show the flaws of modern philosophy itself. The phantasm regards the most successful modern project of historical and social engineering: the Armenian Genocide. It includes both Turkey’s ‘historical engineering’ – its official policy of genocide negation – and the massive late Ottoman project of social and territorial engineering which led to the murder of the first Christian nation: Armenia.

Siobhan Nash-Marshall holds the Mary T. Clark Chair of Christian Philosophy at Manhattanville College. She is the author of many academic books and articles on metaphysics – Participation and the Good: A Study in Boethian Metaphysics and Boethius’s Influence on Theology and Metaphysics to the 1500s –and the problem of evil – most recently Free Will, Evil, and Saint Augustine and Evil, Pain, and the Problem of Properties – she has also written books and articles for the general public – Joan of Arc: A Spiritual Biography and What it Takes to be Free: Religion and the Roots of Democracy. In recent years, Nash-Marshall has devoted a lot of attention to genocide and genocide negationism. She has published articles on the topic – “Negazionismi,” “Lies, Damned Lies, and Genocide,” “Levi, Arslan, and Responses to Genocide” – and lectured throughout the world on it. The Sins of the Fathers is her first book length treatment of the topic. After the breakout of the war in Syria, Nash-Marshall and some friends founded CINF, through which they attempt to help the ancient Christian cultures of the world which are presently in peril.