@ Inky Quills: History is generally understood to mean the study of the past. I don't see why it should not include some details of the everyday attitudes and experiences of ordinary men and women of various social standings and cultures; those are both important context to the events described and important in their own right because of their influence on modern society.
@ Linhasxoc: The glorification of historical figures is hardly new. It helps to generate patriotic pride. The attempt to create a semi-mythological cultural narrative has long been a common practice among nationalists, for example.
edited 16th Jan '11 1:15:48 PM by BobbyG
Welcome To TV Tropes | How To Write An Example | Text Formatting Rules | List Of Shows That Need Summary | TV Tropes Forum | Know The StaffThe US history textbook I used had slight liberal bias and a fairly strong populist bias (that is, it tended to portray people like Thomas Jefferson and William Jennings Bryan in a relatively positive light, and people like Alexander Hamilton in a relatively negative one, treated "government by experts" as the worst rather than the best aspect of the Progressive movement, etc.).
edited 16th Jan '11 1:19:03 PM by silver2195
Currently taking a break from the site. See my user page for more information.@English Ivy: Arguable. On the one hand, it is a disservice to learning, but on the other, it would serve to improve nationalism, and the real information would still be there for those who cared to look for it.
As a political tool, deification of historical leaders can be useful as a way of unifying a country. The actual danger of deifying national heroes is that it can stifle legitimate criticism and the expression of dissenting opinion. It's also a disservice to history.
George Washington as the God-Emperor would be pretty awesome, though.
In the same place I was that one time, all the time![]()
You assume that wasn't already canon.
EDIT: That's actually kind of a relief, given my first assumption.
edited 16th Jan '11 1:25:53 PM by Wanderhome
@ English Ivy: The purpose of a school is to prepare children to function as adults, through both academic instruction and teaching of social interaction and working in an organized society. Academic instruction, while in theory the primary goal, tends in practice to be secondary to shaping students into functioning members of society.
@Rott How is that propaganda?
@Wander Teaching nationalism does not have to be something that prepares you for society. They can learn it on your own.
Learning how to to use a coffee machine or put on a suit is something you need to function in society, but schools dont teach that.
edited 16th Jan '11 1:34:19 PM by Thorn14
I agree with this sentiment. In fact, I believe that acknowledging that the Founding Fathers were flawed human beings and not enlightened god-men makes it all the more incredible that they were able to draft a body of laws that's stood the test of 200+ years.
What the Tea Party is trying to do is revise history so that wealthy white males were always in the right (and ON the right) and all those women, queers, and minorities whining about civil rights have no leg to stand on.

@Wuggles "But like I said, doesn't any study of any culture count as ethnic studies? So theoretically, European history should be banned too, but I doubt that would ever happen because white is the default in America. Isn't European history targeted at a specific group(people of European descent)? And I really don't know any ethnic studies classes that encourage overthrow of the government or teach you to hate everybody. If they had cited better reasons, then maybe I would agree."
Ethnic studies, to my understanding, do not focus on nations of origin, but rather on the subcultures of immigrant populations after they entered the United States.
There is nothing wrong with, for instance, having students study the history of Mexico or the history of Africa. The post I was replying to, however, specifically mentioned "Chicano" and "African-American" studies. These are not studies of the histories of foreign nations, but the focused study on particular subsets of the overall American population.
As recently as the last century, there were strong tensions between immigrants from different European nations. The Irish, Italians, and such were commonly and openly discriminated against, and conflicted with each other as well. Vestiges of these tensions remain, but they have mostly subsided, because those Irish, Italian, English, German, and other immigrant cultures have, over the course of time, merged into a more-or-less unified American culture.
It would be just as inadvisable to encourage "Irish-American" or "German-American" studies as "Chicano" or "African-American" studies, because they all serve the same, ultimately destructive end: classifying Americans into different groups by descent.
Disunity along ethnic lines has caused America countless troubles in the past, and by highlighting those differences we only serve to encourage such divisions to remain.