Making Something of Facts

There are people who write books and falsely claim that their facts overturn the work of other scholars with rival facts and rival opinions. Or at least their supporters and publisher make such claims. (See the review Triumph Forsaken.) I've received mail from people who argue that a factual argument automatically destroys rival argument. The problem is that arguments depend upon how facts have been collected and put together. One can present numerous facts that a second person can accept without compromising the validity of its position because the second person has a larger collection of facts that have produced a rival perspective. For example, in his book Triumph Forsaken, Mark Moyar makes the point that Saigon's President Ngo Dien Diem was a sincere nationalist and he makes much of this point, but people like me can accept his point and put it into a larger perspective that embodies facts which taken as a whole stand opposed to Moyar's support of the war.

The problem is that people who write books or articles don't just throw out facts; they do something with the facts they have collected. They make connections among their facts to create a picture. And may the better collection win.