Conspiracy theories, covert operations, and the Deep State

Friday, 7 October 2016

Henry G. Frankfurt remarked in his book, “On Bullshit,” that: “Bullshit is a greater enemy of truth than lies are.” It should also be said that the most ubiquitous enemies of truth – and most insidious lies – are sins of omission, which are far more corrosive to the pursuit of truth in that they are an attempt to create the impression that something never happened or simply does not exist.

The information revolution ushered in by the internet has created both opportunities and threats, as well revealed the strengths and weaknesses possessed by students and teachers in terms of their understanding of the world and the choices that flow from that understanding. Access to large amounts of information has required a greater degree of critical thinking and discernment across all of the academic disciplines. Consequently, both students and teachers are deeply vulnerable to institutional propaganda and the use of what Reinhold Niebuhr referred to as “emotionally potent oversimplifications.”

Like the elusive sighting of a baby seagull, the teaching and learning of history possess a glaring intellectual blind-spot in the minds of both students and teachers. The “who, what, why, and how” of history are fundamental questions whose orthodox answers are misleading at best, and at worst, wrong. This assertion suggests that there is a great deal of historical revisionism taking place, which should be properly understood in this context as an interpretation of history whose purpose is to obfuscate and mislead.

The orthodox writers of history are, by ignorance or by design, engaged in something far more corrupting than that, because historical revisionism implies (more…)