Sunday, September 03, 2006
Lessons Learned
Matt Yglesias has written an excellent analysis of use of the analogy of Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler by the pro-war-with-Iran propagandists. The conclusion is below.
Sounds pretty stupid when you put it that way doesn't it.
So the "lesson" people want to draw from the 1930s isn't that we should take people's statements more seriously. Rather, the "lesson" they've learned is that we should always adopt the most alarmist possible interpretation of every given situation. But, of course, they never put it that way. Why don't they? Well, because when you put it that way it sounds like a stupid lesson. Which, obviously, it is. If you want to draw lessons from history, you need to really look at history as a whole. Have countries, as a general matter, been well served by adopting maximally alarmist interpretations of events abroad? I don't think that's a remotely justifiable view. If anything, history teaches the reverse lesson.
Sounds pretty stupid when you put it that way doesn't it.
