In other words, let's replace an attempt to understand human history as a result of the moral axioms of its actors with an extremely vague and lazy tautology.
I hear this kind of nonsense all the time when discussing the negative effects of religion. "Oh, it's not because of their religious beliefs that Muslims are more likely to be terrorists than any other religious group, it's because they're people." It's a refusal to try and figure out why people act as they do.
I view it as the opposite. It seems to suggest figuring out what people are rather than throwing up our hands and calling them good/evil/crazy/etc. Kind of like this. YMMV.
(Last month's started a little late, I thought I'd bring it back to its original schedule.)
A monthly thread for posting any interesting rationality-related quotes you've seen recently on the Internet, or had stored in your quotesfile for ages.