by Datechguy | May 19th, 2011
I find the title of this story at Washington Monthly very funny:
Revisionaries. How a group of Texas conservatives is rewriting your kids’ textbooks.
I have been reading textbooks for decades, the left complaining about a change in direction in Textbooks is an incredible laugh considering the leftward turn their version of “history” had taken. They give the game away in this paragraph:
Up until the 1950s, textbooks painted American history as a steady string of triumphs, but the upheavals of the 1960s shook up old hierarchies, and beginning in the latter part of the decade, textbook publishers scrambled to rewrite their books to make more space for women and minorities. They also began delving more deeply into thorny issues, like slavery and American interventionism. As they did, a new image of America began to take shape that was not only more varied, but also far gloomier than the old one. Author Frances FitzGerald has called this chain of events “the most dramatic rewriting of history ever to take place.”
The wording of this paragraph is interesting, the idea that textbook publishers “scrambled to rewrite their books” belies the left’s efforts for re-writes of American History to paint America in an unflattering light. For decades the left in Academia pushed this thesis practically without opposition. Unfortunately for them, the right has taken notice and has used things like the internet to mobilize with some success.
Let’s also not forget where the US was in terms of education before the upheavals of the 60′s and 70′s and where we are now. The policies and programs of the left can certainly take a bow for it. There is also a real irony in this paragraph:
Until recently, Texas’s influence was balanced to some degree by the more-liberal pull of California, the nation’s largest textbook market. But its economy is in such shambles that California has put off buying new books until at least 2014. This means that McLeroy and his ultraconservative crew have unparalleled power to shape the textbooks that children around the country read for years to come.
So in other words the leftist mecca that has been driven by an overwhelmingly democratic legislature and whose laws have gone farther and farther in the direction our objecting friends has desired have become such a basket state that they are unable to influence people to follow their cultural example? And this is a bad thing?
Cultural shifts and opinion are normal in a society. The left, unable to grasp that they have no divine right to shape culture nor able to obtain the imprimatur of the people can only insult and attempt to marginalize those who have beaten them. I’m not surprised, it’s easier than making an actual argument, particularly when history is against them.
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Even adult history books have been taken over by leftists, in large part.
That’s where a couple of recent books have been such an eye-opener.
“The Patriot’s History of the United States” by Schweickart and Allen” is very good and an excellent book to give a young adult.
More entertaining although more opinionated is Paul Johnson’s “A History of the American People.”
Look at the Amazon reader reviews to see the irritation these books cause lefties.
Fear not! Barack’s good buddy Bill Ayers is hard at work in Chicago showing the teachers of tomorrow’s teachers how to make sure the proper messages are fixed into the mush-filled skulls of what used to be known as American Utes.
Well said. Here’s the question I’m left with: why is the left unable to grasp that they have no divine right to shape our culture?
How do they miss the inherent silliness of the point of that article, which is: “our rewriting was good! their rewriting was bad!”