> "Improving the accuracy of our memory for the past could indeed be the best strategy to curb the uncharitable deceptions of the politics of nostalgia."<p>I agree, and will add that there's been no time like now for ease of improving the accuracy of our impressions of the present, due to the sheer availability of primary sources. Click. Click. Click. It's real easy, man.<p>As to secondary sources: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23858477" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23858477</a><p>> "If you agree with it, it's truth. If you don't agree, it's propaganda. Pretend that it is all propaganda. See what happens on your analysis reports."<p>Minitrues may still be as active as ever ( <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23895444" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23895444</a> ) but reasonable propaganda analysis (PROPANAL) skills help triangulate. See also para 15 for examples of domestic propaganda in the age before social media. (Other sources such as Bernays go further into the details of how one exploited the social graph without automation.)<p>Compare the analytical outline on para 45, pp 18-20: <a href="https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/ext/dw/01130770R/PDF/01130770R.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/ext/dw/01130770R/PDF/0113077...</a>