There’s a character named Irwin in a new play, “The History Boys.” In instructing his students in how to get into elite colleges, Irwin counsels cynical glibness and standing out from the herd–no matter if perversely.

He tells his “history boys” to forget principle and instead reject conventional wisdom out of hand. As an example he cites Stalin: “Generally agreed to be a monster, and rightly. So dissent. Find something, anything, to say in his defense. History nowadays is not a matter of conviction. It’s a performance.”

Writer Charles McGrath says Irwin is “just so slick that these days he wouldn’t be caught dead in a classroom.”

Would that this were so. But it isn’t.