Time after time, however, the academic elite of this country and others seeks to stifle by juvenile ridicule, academic or professional blackballing, state firepower or outright terrorism and thuggery the critical study of what happened during the Second World War. Unlike the facile pleasantries, meaningless count-downs and grandiose resolutions of this season, the matter of historical truth is not trivial. What men have done to themselves and others points to valuable lessons for future actions. This is plainly evident in many areas of the historical discipline itself. All manner of ingeniously twisted and bizarre hypotheses and reinterpretations have been advocated and argued for vociferously.
Truth is correspondence to reality.
Since reality is inexorable, truth will eventually triumph, so long as there are rational minds to hear it and heed it. The changing of the year may change little, for better or worse. It does remind us amid the confetti and noisemakers how steadily the present slips into the past. So Happy New Year, folks. Cheers if you can find them.