| | George,
I would like to extend my heartfelt and sincere thanks for your having re-established our proper relationship towards each other.
You're welcome. Delighted to be of service. ;-)
Unfortunately I fear I may be about to undo at least some of this achievement: I agree with the great majority of your latest post. If revisionism is taken to mean only that which you defined it as in the above post, then I don't actually disagree with you at all on that score. I said myself that the mainstream view is correct most of the time.
My problem is that most people don't define it as you do, but include any views that differ significantly from the mainstream. My Wall Street example would be classed as revisionism by socialists, purely for the purposes of dismissing that view, of smearing it as illegitimate along with other genuinely nonsensical views such as holocaust denial. In the same way that Objectivism or libertarianism is sometimes smeared as "extremist" or far-right (or, one one utterly bizarre occasion, "too leftist"). By the same token most people also would regard Rand's views on World War I and II as in some senses revisionist. I'm not saying you're doing this, but as with the term extremist, there is a point where the derisive use of "revisionist" becomes nothing more than a smear, used to de-legitimise and shut down debate of matters and viewpoints those using the terms don't care to discuss.
MH
|
|
