In another thread (Mogambo) wseiber has written about a friend of his, claiming that all previous history had been "colored" by the views of historians, and he wanted to reveal "the truth"..
Oh, Dear! - wseiber, I don't suppose you would have any success in trying to stop your friend - and maybe it is a therapy that he needs for his own purposes, but please try to stop him from publishing!
There are few things in life more sorrow-making than someone trying to subvert History to be a hand-maiden of the truth.
History is, generally speaking, very subjective. I cannot, having searched my mind for a full twenty-five seconds, think of any example of an event in the past that I could categorize as being "the truth."
Any "historical" event you like to name, I think, is capable of being interpreted in at least two ways - usually many more than that.
I am trying to work out, in my own mind, whether WAR, in the most general sense of the word, is an indisputable fact, but I feel that it depends on which participant in the action that you talk to, as to whether it is a "war", "oppression", "liberation", "a police action", or whatever. And these are not necessarily just eupemistic wasy of expressing the same thing, I think.
