History As Mystery

15 Pages 3749 Words

History as mystery
Prologue - page xv
A dissenting view invites us to test the prevailing explanations and open ourselves to neglected ones. Through this clash of viewpoints we have a better chance of moving toward a closer approximation of historical truth.
Dissidents (or revisionists, as they have been called) are not drifting with the mainstream but swimming against it, struggling against the prevailing range of respectable opinion. They are deprived of what Alvin Gouldner called "the background assumptions," the implicit, unexamined. but commonly embraced notions that invite self-confirming acceptance because of their conformity to what is already accepted as properly true. This established familiarity and unanimity of bias is frequently treated as "objectivity." For this reason dissidents are constantly having to defend themselves and argue closely from the evidence.
In contrast, orthodoxy can rest on its own unstated axioms and mystifications, remaining heedless of marginalized critics who are denied a means of reaching mass audiences. Orthodoxy promotes its views through the unexamined repetition that comes with monopoly control of the major communication and educational systems. In sum, while dissidents can make mistakes of their own, they are less likely to go unchallenged for it. Not so with orthodoxy. It remains the most insidious form of ideology for it parades the dominant view as the objective one, the only plausible and credible one.
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... it is a matter of public record that a tiny portion of the population controls the lion's share of the wealth and most of the command positions of state, manufacturing, banking, investment, publishing, higher education, philanthropy, and media. And while not totally immune to popular pressures, these individuals exercise a preponderant influence over what is passed off as public information and democratic discourse.
The ruling class is the politically active component of th...