For those of you in class or following along with this week’s reading, here’s a bonus study question. Actually, this is for everyone.
Please watch the video below, identifying mistakes in fact and interpretation. Categorize your answers using the following labels:
(O) Outright false.
(I) True but irrelevant.
(A) False and irrelevant.
(L) Lie by omission.
(H) No serious historian would trust that source.
(F) Logical fallacy.
(N) There’s no argument here, just a conspiratorial tone of voice.
(US) This would make sense if Americans were the only people on the planet with agency.
(V) Apologetics for the inexcusable.
(R) Ridiculous generalization.
(F) Needs footnote.
(FF) I’d like to see your footnote for that one, buckaroo.
(D) True, but so decontextualized that viewers are made stupider by hearing it. (If time permits, provide an outline of the context that would be required to make sense of the assertion.)
(C) That’s actually correct! Bravo!
(W) That’s just not how any of this works.
(V) Despite the grave tone of voice, that’s not a good argument. Or an argument at all.
(S) Why is this guy simping for the Ayatollahs?
(Y) True, but not exactly news, is it.
(G) My God, the irony is off the charts.
(BS) Probably sounds impressive if you’re illiterate, but otherwise it’s meaningless.
(Z) Nice Russian agitprop buzzword you’ve deployed there.
(J) Okay, so it’s all the Jews’ fault.
In fact, why don’t we have a contest? The first reader who properly labels every point and provides the most useful annotation will receive this handsome trophy:
Send your entries to me by email with the subject heading, “CG CONTEST.” (That’s important. Otherwise it will get lost.)
Enjoy!
(Here’s a transcript, courtesy of The Singju Post, for those of you who find watching it unbearable.)
TUCKER CARLSON: Scott Horton, thank you. So we appear to be in the middle of a war with Iran. It’s on pause, thank heaven, at the moment. But we are in some sort of conflict with Iran. And whatever you think of that, I think it’s important to know how we got here. And that context is wholly missing from most coverage, which is crazy.
It’s a little bit like assessing a marriage the day the divorce is filed. Like, you can take a side or not, but there’s a story there. And the question is, where do you get the story? And you know, Wikipedia is not a reliable narrator. I know it’s full of historians. You’re someone I think I consider honest and well informed. You’ve written a book on it, Enough Already.
