History in the hands of the unwashed.

Time for a snobby post.

I'm going to put together a cogent argument below. Since it's long, I figured I should state the application first so that you don't lose interest in the post before the point is revealed.

P. Bush is wrong to compare the historical example of Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler with today's attempt to find a diplomatic solution to the Iran situation. They are different situations and it's just a way to get around dealing with the real issues.

I studied history in college for four years. I know a thing or two about it. Not a lot, but a descent amount. To be honest, I hate talking history with anyone other than another history major or professor. The approach you learn in college is so much different than what normal people use. If you try to talk history, you get the righteous indignation of people when you claim something they always thought was true might not be. "You're all revisionists" they say, as though the historical narrative they learned is the plenary inspired gospel truth.

The fact is most people don't know, nor do they want to know about historiography. It's unfortunate but history is the field of study for people with agendas whether they know it or not. Historiography studies that. It looks at how narratives change from decade to decade and how that is influenced. What's the writer's political background? To whom are they writing? What sources of information did people ignore or not have access to? How did the author's interpretation differ from that of other's at the time? The fact is that I could give you 30 ways to interpret history. It's a pretty complicated subject. What you quickly learn is the subjective nature of history and the difficulty of coming reaching objective conclusions on it.

So what happens when unprofessionals with agendas get a hold of history? Do they carefully consider the epistemological framework through which they reach their conclusions? No way. They (or their people) pick an event and draw a broad and usually unsubstantiated conclusion that fits their agenda from a huge multi-year event. And then they reuse it, and reuse it, and reuse it without appreciating how different things are.

How many people have been called the "next Hitler?" It's frustrating how politicians draw from the same playbook for everything. Don't like a guy in power? Does he say crazy things? Call him Hitler! Did someone mention negotiation? If you don't consider that an option, call it appeasement!

Who hasn't heard the tired quote that "those who don't learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them?" There may be lessons to learn from history but if there's anything that history has taught me it's that the lessons people learn from history tend to be wrong. People either over learn them, under learn them or miss the real lesson all together.

Final thought: the way politicians use history for their purposes is dangerous because it allows them to get to their conclusion without really hammering out the theoretical basis from which they reached that conclusion. Theories can be deconstructed with their assumptions laid bare for all to see. History can be used for a tired mantra that regular people eventually accept as fact.