I'm sure most people reading this have experienced some variation on the following situation: You're at a big Holiday party with all of your extended relatives, and inevitably the conversation will turn to something involving history, or politics, or political history. I've personally heard multiple versions of the blanket statements "The Constitution is an instruction manual for running a country and not a single word in it should ever be changed", and "The Holocaust happened because Hitler took away everybody's guns".
My question is this: As people with typically better-than-average knowledge of American and/or world history, how do historians respond in situations like this? Do you ignore them and disengage entirely to avoid disrupting the evening or sounding like a know-it-all? In cases where a comment impacts directly upon your field and you feel comfortable correcting it, do you feel it's important to engage and point out exactly how that kind of thinking is misguided? I know for a fact that this question will be relevant to the next few weeks of my own life experience, so how does everybody else navigate these waters?
Would you believe this question has already come up?
Some historians don't like to "talk shop" at all, some will happily talk your ear off about it, most probably fall somewhere in the middle. I would say personally the only thing that really annoys me is either when somebody hears I study Roman history and takes the opportunity to then tell me about Roman history (not that you need to be a disciple at their feet or anything, but be aware they have probably heard it before) or when people ask about the Fall of Rome is going on right now only it's America?? For the first instance I pretty much just zone out because nothing interesting is coming out of "oh, you study Rome, isn't Caligula so crazy!! He had orgies with his horse!!" For the second, while I think it is understandable to wonder about what a historian of Rome thinks about this very common question, the simple fact is the question has basically nothing to do with Roman history and is all about whatever ambient vibes one has about "the current moment".
Personally I will only correct somebody if either they seem genuinely interested, or if they are saying something actively bad. If somebody says that the Romans had bad cavalry because they didn't have the stirrup or something it isn't that big of a deal, but somebody saying immigration caused the empire to fall is maybe more so.
So honestly I think the difference/nuance is when people are asking questions versus making statements. If they're asking questions they're open or at the very least interested in having a dialogue. Making statements means they are just talking at you, or even worse, want to have a debate. Debates really aren't worth having.
On the other hand, I will also say that sometimes it's actually a piece of oral history collection to listen to people go off at holiday parties. I learned a lot from people who directly experienced World War II and after a lot of work I managed to get them to actually talk about their personal experiences rather than just their sometimes not-great opinions about the whole thing. And even those not-great opinions (it happens when you grow up in 1940s Germany) sometimes are more worth the interrogation than the debate: "Why do you think that was so?" as opposed to "You're wrong because x,y,z".
That's probably just the better approach. Take an interviewer approach, even if you feel like Louis Theroux doing his Weird Weekends.