The past as politics

http://jewishworldreview.com ^ | Victor Davis Hanson

[manny613]

History is evoked more and more these days, even as fewer of us read it.

That apathy explains why when public figures turn to false historical analogies for political purposes, they're often given a free pass to exaggerate or distort. Take, for example, filmmaker Michael Moore who once compared terrorists in Iraq to our own minutemen, or Yasser Arafat who implied that the taking of Jenin was as brutal as the battles for Leningrad and Stalingrad. Even Sen. Dick Durbin recently likened the conditions found in Guantanamo Bay to those in Nazi death camps.

[CO Gal]

Good article. VDH is a gem, thanks for posting.

[Tolik]

...So, the next time someone quotes philosopher George Santayana for the umpteenth time that "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it," just assume that what follows will probably be wrong. Having a Rolodex of cocktail party quotes to beef-up an argument is not the same as the hard work of learning about the past.

...In our confusion during this war, why do we often ignore history or twist its details to fit our own particular needs?  

First, in our schools, formal study of the past has given way to the more ideological agenda of the social sciences. Mastery of historical facts is seen as passé, while the less educated instead "do theory" to prove preconceived notions.  

Second, good intentions don't always equal good history. Being politically correct often makes us plain wrong, relegating history to melodrama and negating history's power to put tragedy into context.  

Third, we're in thrall to the present affluent age, convinced that our own depressing experiences are unique, naturally dwarfing all prior calamities.  

But history is not a parlor game used to prove a political point. Instead, at its best, history should offer us solace that we are never really alone.

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[bitt]

bttt

[Publius6961]

That apathy explains why when public figures turn to false historical analogies for political purposes, they're often given a free pass to exaggerate or distort.

With all due deference to one of my contemporary history, they are not given a paass, they take it; And the ignorant are powerless to stop them because they lack the weapons to do so. The ignorant do not know that they do not have the weapons to resist or refute. And then there's in indifferent. They may or may not have the weapons, but they simply don't care.
That leaves the remaining three of us. Or so it seems.

why else would be spend our time, daily, relentlessly repeating and digesting the same intellectual meal?

"Suppose they gave a war and nobody came?" is perhaps the classic triumph of ignorance over reality. Yet it persists.
The crux of the message is all but forgotten. The unspoken half of the message; the meat of the meal: ...the war will come to you!"

[Publius6961]

On July 21, Arianna Huffington, on her Huffington Post blog, drew on her Greek heritage to warn us that Iraq is like the Athenians' 415 B.C. disastrous attack on the Sicilian city of Syracuse. So, she huffs, "Maybe someone should send Karl Rove a copy of Thucydides."

This illustrates perfectly a pervasive device used by the ignorant. Often brilliantly educated ignoramuses, competent in their familiar schtick, but embarrassing outside of it.

I am thinking of two grade "AA" clay feet icons of talk radio: Michael Medved and Hugh Hewitt.
It has been a painful and not yet fully played out train wreck. Their fatal flaw is not lack of education, but ego.They are utterly incapable of seeing that they need to retire to a quiet room and take a crash course in Islam, history, philosophy, human nature and... Occam's Razor.

They are so bent on forcing the square islamic peg into the round civilized hole that they would expose their own families, never mind their nation and their culture, to total and permanent anhilitation, in order to do the "right" thing (contemporarily referred to as "PC").
There is no way to know how many prior civilizations, yet to be discovered, succumbed to this defective approach, but they all faded into history with one common flaw. They were right. Dead right.

[Alexander Rubin]

VDH is what a true intellectual should be. A well-educated, reasoned man who is able to see the bigger picture, put things into context and examine them on their own merits and help us build a better tomorrow by summarizing what we have learned, or should learn, from specific instances.

Rock on VDH.

[Paradox]

I like this sentence for some reason:

But history is not a parlor game used to prove a political point. Instead, at its best, history should offer us solace that we are never really alone.

[Restorer]

Those who have no swords can still die on them.