Bob Bateman is back this week with his continuing evisceration of Victor Davis Hanson's Carnage and Culture. I post the links primarily because I respect LTC Bateman, but also because it drives me crazy when people try to manipulate history for their own ends. This is different from someone who views events through an ideological lens that they acknowledge because it is inherently dishonest. Take a stand, make an argument, but don't hide, alter, or ignore evidence that doesn't fit your political program. If something doesn't fit, it is the responsibility of the person making the argument to explain why it doesn't derail their contentions.
For your reading please, LTC Bateman's conclusion. The rest is definitely worth a read.
Indeed, in his distortions, obfuscations, and general torturing of the facts in order to arrive at his preconceived thesis, Hanson is on par with historian-turned-polemicist Howard Zinn. If you do not know of Zinn, do not regret. You are missing as little as you were before you ever heard of Carnage and Culture. Zinn's signature work, A People's History of the United States, now on its gazillionth printing, follows the same formula as does Hanson's, albeit on a different topic. Indeed, were they not coming from the opposite ends of the political spectrum, one could believe that they learned the craft of history under the same tutor, so similar are their methods. Both of them ignore facts inconvenient to their thesis. Both of them approach their topic as though it were a strawberry patch, picking only the ripest of selected strawberries, removing them from the area, and then using the artfully displayed fruit to "prove" to people who have never seen a strawberry bush that all strawberries are ripe. I suspect that it is not coincidental that both of them are very vocal in modern political issues, and both make illogical appeals to their historical credentials to support their respective opinions. Yes, Howard Zinn and Victor Davis Hanson, to continue the produce analogy, are two peas in a pod.
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