The dominant view of our culture and its ways must come to be understood as the only acceptable interpretation. In many ways theme park culture is much like a secular religious culture that insists that all real-life events be fit to its own theology. To do this, theme parks must take our historical events, environments, conditions and lifestyles and sanitize them while they synthesize them. The theme park experience is intended to certify a fanciful idealized vision of ourselves, to impose a model vision on others, and to offer a plateau of social conduct and patterning for all to emulate. Real history is messy, untidy, unruly.
History is conflict, genius, ignorance, stupidity, arrogance.
History is filled with human and social dimensions, the meanings of which, and the extent of which, always seems to be available to new findings. If history is the known, it is also the unknown and the not known yet. History, no matter what direction it takes or dimension it assumes, is the subject of museums. Theme parks are more selective. In the theme park, history is tidy, pigeonholed and gift-wrapped.