If you’re in any social medium, I’m sure you’ve come upon one. Would USSR have lost WW2 if not for US’s lend-lease program? Did Mao really kill 50 million people? Were Native Americans peaceful land-loving bison hunters? Were the Turks genocidal? Were the Greeks? Were the Spanish?

Here I’m not going to try and give an answer to these, and many other, questions that I encounter online. Rather, I need to express my deep distaste for the majority of them.

You see, when one does start such a debate online, usually in the context of a social medium, it’s not exactly the case that an impartial scholar wants to discuss historical facts (exceptions do exist; albeit, sadly, few and far between).

No, what happens in the vast majority of cases is that one is trying to express their current preferences, be it ideological, political, social, economic, whatever. And they’re using history as a vehicle.

You can see it everywhere. A debate starts whether “USSR beat Nazi Germany”, which, although wrongly stated in such an absolute way, has undoubtedly some basis in fact. But hidden behind it, not far away, is the projection to modern-day Russia and an attempt to excuse genocidal crimes.

Or take another debate, beloved in US twitter, that somehow the main reason South fought the Civil War was not defending their right to own slaves. Thinly veiled behind it is the american political divide between Republicans and Democrats, usually referred to as “red-blue” divide.

And there lies my deep dislike for such discussions, pleasant exceptions notwithstanding. Far from being truth-seeking, fact-based discourse, they’re disingenuous attempts to impose one’s beliefs unto others.

Or, of course, straight up state propaganda.