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Re: revisionism
> This is something most people (in my experience) seem to find very
> uncomfortable. I, personally, find it exhilirating, but I don't seem to
> see that characteristic in most people.
I find exhiliration uncomfortable. ;) Seriously, I was one of those kids
who used to get sick at Christmas, just from the sheer excitement of it.
I think you may be right when you say that cries of "revisionist history"
are an ad hominem attack. People who use that term are often trying to
assert that the historian has put "revisionism" *ahead* of "history", and
is probably bending the facts to suit the way he thinks things ought to
be. They think the historian is fantasizing a past that never existed,
consciously or not, and then trying to pass it off as the real thing.
However, to say that people who cry "revisionist history" are *only* using
an ad hominem attack is, itself, an ad hominem attack. :) It is quite
possible that they have solid reasons for calling someone a "revisionist
historian", in the sense articulated above; they may have valid reasons
for asserting that someone has bent the facts to fit a fantasy.
As always, to figure out what's *really* going on, we need to turn to the
actual evidence.
--- Peter T. Chattaway --------------------------- peter at chattaway_com ---
"I detected one misprint, but to torture you I will not tell you where."
Winston Churchill to T.E. Lawrence, re Seven Pillars of Wisdom
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