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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KLP who wrote (62355)	8/21/2004 3:42:01 AM
From: ManyMoose	Respond to of 794609

It's not supposed to make sense, it's supposed to appeal to people who fail to do their own thinking. Kerry wants to be a war hero, but wanted to be an anti-war hero as well... That "logic" doesn't make sense either.

To: KLP who wrote (62355)	8/21/2004 12:45:26 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 794609

I was just reminded of a book written by one of my profs at George Mason, The Unpredictable Past, by Larry Levine. Levine is an old lefty but I don't hold that against him, he's brilliant in his own way. amazon.com This is a collection of essays about how contemporary historians and others recharacterize the past in order to make it suit the present. It's hard to say whether the people doing the recharacterization realize it, because history really is malleable. There are facts but the writing of history isn't just recounting facts, it's interpreting facts, and interpretations are always subjective. Always. And subjectivity is always personal. Always. Good historian are at least reliable about the facts. And the best historians are at least reliable about subjectivity. I wonder what Dr. Levine thinks about all this Vietnam stuff -- I don't think he'd be terribly interested in how Kerry and the SwiftBoat Vets recharacterize history, that's penny-ante stuff. The really interesting stuff is how it's being spun in, say, the WashPost. A real historian would wait for all of the facts to come out. This highlights the natural hostility between journalists and historians. And also highlights why newspapers are dicey, even unreliable, sources for historians.