One of the greatest obstacles to spreading the freedom message is the distorted view of history that is so common among people. It’s difficult to argue the merits of the free market or political decentralization when people have been taught, for example, that capitalism leads to monopoly, forcing you have to delve into historical discussions to set the record straight. My short list for now:
Antitrust and big business: how cartel-producing regulations were sold to Americans as protecting competition.
Political and social structure during the feudal era/limited power of feudal kingship: People seem to think most kings in the feudal era were absolute monarchs
American Civil War: the political arguments, Lincoln’s motives for maintaining union are widely misunderstood.
How are you going to challenge in 5 minutes what their teachers have been telling them for 12 years?? You don’t stand a chance fighting the battle down in the trenches of historical minutia. When I have a political discussion with people, I start by accepting from the outset that I won’t convince them of anything. But I don’t need to. There are massive blind spots in the thinking of the vast majority of people and what I like to do is just bring people’s attention to things in those blind spots. Maybe they’ll reflect on those things in their blind spots and maybe that will be the “hook” that pulls them into re-investigating the foundations of their dogmas regarding social order.
What are the blind spots? The biggest single blind spot is the idea that “good” people - such as policemen, school teachers, government bureaucrats, judges, elected officials, etc. - are motivated by self-interest just like anybody else. In the minds of the majority, those who enter “selfless” professions - minus a few bad apples - are obviously less selfish than those who choose the “easy route” of profits and simple pursuit of self-interest. At every opportunity, I try to point out how such people’s actions are ultimately a reaction to the incentives facing them and the pursuit of their self-interest given those incentives.
If you can bring attention to that blind spot, it’s worth a lot more than debating your speculations over Lincoln’s true motives for wanting to maintain the union because if they start reflecting about the motives of all “selfless” people and conclude that such individuals are motivated by self-interest just like the rest of us, they may one day come back to apply that same healthy skepticism to the special case of Abraham Lincoln. You can’t know what specific instance of blatant pursuit of self-interest by our supposedly “selfless” betters will capture the attention of a particular individual. But if you can challenge them to think critically about such claims of selflessness generally, then whichever brazen act of avarice by a tax-feeder happens to get their attention will only reinforce the wider principle: Those in government are not angels and, for that reason, must be subject to the same laws as everyone else at all times irrespective of their public “duties”.
I understand your point and you are absolutely correct. But discussions on the plane you’re describing often enter into history. Statists love to cite historical events as evidence of the failings of freedom. To someone who thinks the historical record overwhelmingly condemns liberty, you are sometimes forced to deal with this ignorance, which exists sometimes on astonishing levels.
Regardless, the question was more to satisfy my own curiosity since I like history.
I would agree with these choices, though I think WW1 is somewhat misunderstood itself, as well.
I’ll also add that most people don’t question the ‘official’ version of historical events unless contrary evidence is staring them in the face and giving them no mental room to rationalise it into the ‘my country right or wrong’ attitude.
Also, not necessarily an event or era, but the horrible factory conditions, and child labor, and the myth that the wise and benevolent government got rid of it.