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<blockquote data-quote="tarchon" data-source="post: 1158054" data-attributes="member: 5990">It's a very common conceit.&nbsp; I've heard that statement from three different kinds of people:1. The extremely - let's say - simple, who have difficulty with the idea that other people can understand history, because they can't.&nbsp; Basic motto: &quot;If I don't know it, it can't be known.&quot;2. The fairly intelligent but still somewhat immature (for whom the word &quot;sophomore&quot; was coined), who, upon discovering that much of what they have heard to be true is malarkey, have decided that everything must be malarkey.&nbsp; Basic motto: &quot;Nothing can be known for sure, so nothing is knowable.&quot; (Also common is &quot;The winners write the history books.&quot;) 3. The fringe crackpot, who finds any accepted form of history to be highly dubious, since it conflicts with his or her very odd worldview.&nbsp; This typically involves notions such as that the Norse gods were space aliens or that the Chinese built Tenochtitlan.&nbsp; Basic motto: &quot;You just can't handle the Truth!&quot;In all three cases, the holder of the conceit views us poor chumps with something between disdain and pity, which can make them hard to distinguish without a certain amount of probing.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="tarchon, post: 1158054, member: 5990"] It's a very common conceit. I've heard that statement from three different kinds of people: 1. The extremely - let's say - simple, who have difficulty with the idea that other people can understand history, because they can't. Basic motto: "If I don't know it, it can't be known." 2. The fairly intelligent but still somewhat immature (for whom the word "sophomore" was coined), who, upon discovering that much of what they have heard to be true is malarkey, have decided that everything must be malarkey. Basic motto: "Nothing can be known for sure, so nothing is knowable." (Also common is "The winners write the history books.") 3. The fringe crackpot, who finds any accepted form of history to be highly dubious, since it conflicts with his or her very odd worldview. This typically involves notions such as that the Norse gods were space aliens or that the Chinese built Tenochtitlan. Basic motto: "You just can't handle the Truth!" In all three cases, the holder of the conceit views us poor chumps with something between disdain and pity, which can make them hard to distinguish without a certain amount of probing. [/QUOTE]

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