A Note on Revisionist History

Next to “politically correct,” the phase “revisionist history” and its various derivations often appears in comments and posts across the blogosphere. Usually it’s used disparagingly to attack people who hold views not shared by the commenter as a sort of placeholder that substitutes for actual intellectual engagement with the point being debated.

One common response that one sees is that all historical scholarship can be called “revisionist history,” because as scholarship moves forward and understandings change, past interpretations undergo revision. While true, this explanation does little to satisfy those people who employ the term as a means to attack that which they cannot otherwise counter.

A Simple Question

Readers of this blog may have noticed recently that we’ve had an influx of white supremacist commenters. It’s always useful to know that such people exist (even if they have to resort to multiple fake screen names in an effort to look more numerous than they are).

In recent years Hunter Wallace/Brad Griffin of the website Occidental Dissent (some of our recent additions claim to be posting from there) sought to distinguish himself and his followers from Connie Chastain and company by saying that Chastain and her followers were “Rainbow Confederates,” advocates of a multicultural and racially diverse Confederate past. Griffin correctly reminds us the white supremacy was the cornerstone of both antebellum white southern society and the Confederacy: on this subject his knowledge of what white southerners said and believed is simply far superior to those he denigrates as “Rainbow Confederates,” because, frankly, they don’t know much about history and are far less skilled at presenting arguments.