Beyond facts
Chou En-Lai of Chungking was reported to say, when asked his opinion of the French Revolution, “It’s too early to tell.” He was chatting with Henry Kissinger, and it is the sort of quote that is not lost but often found in translation: Chou was probably referring to more recent uprisings among the students in Paris. Still I, as a pop philodoxer, propose to take this opinion seriously for a moment.
For the French Revolution happened even more recently than the American, and historians are still out to lunch on the matter. Even those who are well-informed, disagree among themselves on whether the Revolution was a good thing. (I’m down on it myself, and routinely opposed to head-chopping, whether it is performed by Mohammedans or the French.)
Should we also be reticent with our opinions, instead of jumping to conclusions, the way Kissinger was perhaps inclined to do? But Kissinger was a German-born Jew, who realized in boyhood he would have to think quickly. Off the top of my head, I would advise to stay out of their way, when there are people trying to kill you, even wasters like Adolf, the son of Schicklgruber. (Hitler’s dad, an Austrian bureaucrat, understandably had it changed.)
I’ve tried to be on my toes about death threats myself. But what to do about people who sneak up? Even in high school I received them, though to be fair, my antagonists only promised to assassinate me if I ever came to power. Perhaps I was cowardly, to sneak away, and live a life so quiet and uncontroversial, though hardly blameless. Chou probably got death threats, too. But he was more confrontational.
He was of the school that would rather make history than read it. Yet he read a few books nonetheless, like some other murderous philodoxicists. Herr Hitler, for instance, wrote a whole book presenting his eccentric opinions.
History actually happened: this is among my religious beliefs. It is only popular ideas about what happened that change with the times.