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Re: revisionism

hi,

> Leaving out certain parts that may contradict the particular 
> story you wish to tell and adding other parts that have no foot
> in reality - of couse the writer may think it does - but I mean
> no foot in reality as most people would see it.

But see, my problem is that this description could apply equally
well to the "canonical" history that people are trying to revise.  
History, as a science, goes through paradigm shifts, too.  For 
many years, children were taught about manifest destiny, that 
Columbus was a great hero, and that history was driven by dynamic
leaders.  Even in the late seventies, Schoolhouse Rock had a song 
called "Elbow Room" which dismissed the Native American genocide 
with the lines "there were plenty of fights to win land rights, but 
the West was meant to be.  It was a manifest destiny."  And then 
people like Howard Zinn (_People's History of the United States_: 
it should be required reading for anyone with a brain and a heart.) 
come along and say wait a minute, let's look at this story from the 
point of view of the little guys: the slaves, the laborers, the
dispossessed.  And people cry "revisionist history"!  Feminist
scholars come along and say "let's look at the role of women in
these events" and people say "revisionist history"!  When the
Smithsonian wanted to do an exhibit on the Enola Gay and the 
dropping of the Atomic Bomb, they wanted to use all the recently
declassified documents, Truman's diaries, and other evidence to
explore all the complex moral reasoning that went into that 
decision.  There was a huge bruhaha because the "standard" 
story was that the bomb was dropped to save american lives and
end the war sooner.  Well, recently acquired evidence shows that
it was more complex than that, but people didn't want to hear 
that.  They cried revisionist history, demanded the exhibit be
a patriotic tribute to the heroism of the Enola Gay, and not
mention anything negative, like show pictures of Hiroshima.

My point is that sometimes (like with the holocaust deniers)
the revisionists are wrong, and sometimes (like with the
Enola Gay) the "canonical" history *needs* revision.  The
canonical history is just as biased as the revised version.
saying something is bad or biased merely because it revises
what we think we know is based on the assumption that the
"canonical" version is unbiased, which it isn't.  If people
used terms like "biased history" or "agenda-driven history",
I wouldn't be complaining.  Or if the term "revisionist 
history" were used in a way that acknowledged that sometimes
it is important to revise, I would be fine.  But I have *always*
heard the phrase in a context of "this is bad, and should be
avoided on principle".  I've heard it used by liberals, I've
heard it used by conservatives, and as far as I can tell, 
every single time I have heard it used, it is a way of saying
"don't mess with my story; it doesn't need revision."

And what does it matter what "most people" think?  Truth is
not a popularity contest.  Most people don't think in terms
of general relativity, but I can assure you that Einstein had
quite a few feet in reality.  :-)

-- 
Don Smith                    Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment
donaldas at umich_edu                          http://xte.mit.edu/~dasmith/

The Iron Chef in The Matrix:       "I know Kung Pao!"       "Show me."


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