[esafak]

The narrative they want push is the truth. Why would they go to the trouble of inventing a falsehood about something that happened in the past? Nobody reads academic history.

Hollywood's profit motive is exactly the problem. Who wants to pay to see an uncomfortable or boring truth? Do you really look to Hollywood for accuracy?

[tmn]

Historians seeking truth makes sense, but this principle is corrupted when ego/credibility enter the fray. Historians are human like the rest of us and they will dig and defend their bias. Beyond that there are those who enter the profession in order to push a preconceived bias or narrative. I’m differentiating the first (unconscious bias)and the second (historical manipulation). None of this is specific to historians, historians simply aren’t exempt. Robustly principled truth seekers seem to be a small minority of the population. ~1% seems like a good approximation.

As far as the why.. every case has its own reason. But there seems to be no shortage of humans who want to convince others of how to think on a given subject.