Impressionable Minds: Teaching Politically Correct History

www.CatholicCulture.org ^ | September 2004 | Tom O'Brien

[HighlyOpinionated]

I am sitting in front of my computer in Washington, D.C. The electricity is on, and lights shine overhead, outside, I hear planes, trains, automobiles. Down the street, not far from where I live, are the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.

None of this would be remarkable except that the purveyors of politically correct history have declared that it never could have happened. All these inventions, which surround our lives, are of "Euro-American derivation," that is, they derive from inventions by "dead white European males." American history, the PC historians say, is not the story of the triumph of Western European technology or its political institutions. Instead, American history is the result of the "convergence of peoples" — from Europe, to be sure, but also from East Asia, Africa, and, long before, Native Americans across the Bering Straight.

[HighlyOpinionated]

But moderate as well as conservative historians have come to the conclusion that convergence theory and PC history have some serious problems. One is civic: A corollary of the belief in the equivalent importance of the contribution of each of the "converging peoples" is multiculturalism, not E Pluribus Unum. America has been enriched by many ethnicities, however, if we have more than one culture, we may not, in the long run, have one nation. You cannot uproot a nation's laws and customs from the soil in which they've grown for centuries and expect them to continue to bear fruit.

There is yet another, more fundamental problem. Convergence theory does not explain the technology by which we work, learn, travel, and live longer than ever before. It does not account for the House or Senate, the Constitution, or the First Amendment. To explain these, you must return to English parliamentarianism, the Magna Carta, maybe even the Athenian agora.

The fact is, we live in a world primarily shaped by what PC historians call "Euro-American" ideas.

[HighlyOpinionated]

Don't ask me how the Read More came up FR.

Correct URL is http://www.catholicculture.org/docs/doc_view.cfm?recnum=6510

Maybe Jim Robinson or a Moderator can fix it for me?

Thanks, HO

[minus_273]

let us not forget the english bill of rights

[NormalGuy]

The Ten Commandments debate is a good example. The elite, and especially those trained in law school have a problem with the assertion that absolute truth exists. To paraphrase Sen Obama: to tell a criminal defendant entering court at the start of his trial that absolute truth exists prevents that defendant from mounting his best defense, which is that absolute truth does not exist and that his personal truth is just as valid as the personal truth of the victim.

Behind the rise of Western Civilization is the concept that absolute truth does exist. It exists in science, in math, in history, and in morality. That is the culture war in a nut shell.

[kjo]

Convergence theory doesn't explain much of anything. I am a public high school History teacher. What new teachers are taught in colleges of education, which are worthless, is that America is not a melting pot, it's a salad bowl. And teachers must explain each vegtable.

A year ago I had to choose a new AP History text, most are so PC that they aren't usable. I finally found one that isn't terrible. But I have to explain the bias to the kids as we use it. I simply teach around the homosexual, black, feminism propaganda. I explain to the kids that even history textbooks follow different political fashions in different eras. They get it.

Many years ago we had to teach around the America is Great fashion, today it's America sucks.

[sirchtruth]

...which is that absolute truth does not exist and that his personal truth is just as valid as the personal truth of the victim.

Ask Obama if this statement is "absolutely true?"

To pinpoint the logic that absolute truth does not exist, is proving it does!

[Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit]

When I was doing my undergraduate work I had a double major which included history. But, I never managed to take "non-Western" history. In all seriousness I went to the departmentheads office and told him I had completed all other courses except these two requirements. I did not do so out of laziness, but out of a simple lack of time. I then argued that since "history" itself is actually a Greek/European concept, there was really no such thing as non-Western History.

I had recently been awarded a prestigious post-graduate fellowship, so he knew who I was. He looked me straight in the eye and said that although I was actually right in terms of my point there is nothing he could do about it.

In case you were wondering, yes it was a university in the Northeast.

[Mach9]

AP classes in humanities (in my experience) have been worse than useless and seldom address any stages of western civilization. One Houghton-Mifflin on "world" history listed seven reasons for clothing--none of which was warmth or modesty! But it did provide a history of the male conspiracy to keep women's clothing "hampering."

[Mach9]

But this kind of PC education isn't limited to the northeast! What's galling is that the "requirements" for nonwestern civ were substituted for ALL branches of classical philosophy--the lack of which study is now known as "critical thinking."

[Restorer]

Out went emphases on the Pilgrims and Williamsburg; in came long passages on Mansu Musa, a West African king whose region was decimated by the slave trade.

Incorrect. He ruled in the 1300s in the well inland Sahel/Sudan region of West Africa south of the Sahara. This region was completely unknown to Europeans until well into the 19th century, long after the (Atlantic) slave trade had been outlawed.

Actually, the region was affected by the slave trade, but it was the Islamic slave trade across the Sahara, which had an even higher death rate than that of the Atlantic shipping route.

[cinives]

Try anything by Paul Johnson - American or World history - no problem with PC thinking in those.

[SMARTY]

I looked at my young cousin's history textbook. I was appalled. EVERY page had a visual, usually a photo or a reproduction of a painting. I could not believe my eyes. The young people now cannot think without visuals...sad.

[Dumb_Ox]

Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. Haven't thought about that in years. It's not even in reruns, right?

One of my Jr. High history profs was a Civil War reenactor and had a bunch of his friends come in character, to the point where they would ask what a savage (the long-haired Mexican-Indian kid) was doing in school with whites. Boy was that a lawsuit waiting to happen!

Anyway, this woman who had written about life on the 19th century Colorado plains was invited to speak, and she came "in character" as a costumed settler woman. My teacher also decided to go in costume and in character, and asked her about her problems with the savages. She gave a response right out of Dr. Quinn's mouth, despite the Indian massacres happening not to far from where and when her character lived. Back in class, teacher had a nice one-sentence slam against PC history.

[HighlyOpinionated]

Incorrect. He ruled in the 1300s in the well inland Sahel/Sudan region of West Africa south of the Sahara. This region was completely unknown to Europeans until well into the 19th century, long after the (Atlantic) slave trade had been outlawed.

Actually, the region was affected by the slave trade, but it was the Islamic slave trade across the Sahara, which had an even higher death rate than that of the Atlantic shipping route.

You mean to tell me that the history book would revise history (or leave out the salient facts) and not mention that it was Islamic Slave Trade and not slave trade to the Americas which caused the decimation of this particular African tribe? Oh, my! Are you stating that history writers have an agenda other than to teach students true history? Oh, my! /SarCasM now off.