A Man Hears What He Wants To Hear And Disregards the Rest

The wonderful Wretchard writes at the Belmont Club about the Soviet Union and its false socialist paradise:

...[T]he El Dorado wasn't there; and the really big historical question is why it took the best minds of the West more than 50 years and countless lives to discover that elementary fact. This monumental self-hypnosis calls into question our collective ability to know; and when politicians and media talking heads speak with perfect assurance about "religions of peace" or alternatively, about a "death cult" with bloody borders, how certain are we that our epistemology is any better than that of the 20th century intellectuals?

The above puts me in mind of North Korea: will we ever know the true story of what goes in that giant prison of a nation? When we do find out, will we be able to bear the shame? Will China? Many questions have I, but answers few...