Thank you to the two of you who gave some consideration to how we determine what is good history and what is not.
http://www.mckenziestudycenter.org/society/articles/history.html
It has been said that he who controls the past controls the future. Our view of history shapes the way we view the present, and therefore it dictates what answers we offer for existing problems. Let me offer a few examples to indicate how this might be true.
At this web site, the author explains the shocking account of USSR hisotry, where for decades children learned to almost worship Stalin and Linin, and were taught all the problems experinced by the USSR were caused by capitalism. Than how these citizens came to doubt their history, and how this lead to the fall of commumism in the USSR.
A major problem between Palastinians and Israelis, is their separate school system where each teaches a differet version of history. Of course, each presents a history explaining how they have been victims of other. This has pitted Palastinians and Israelis against each other, and their conflict threatens US interest in the mid east, and lead to the 1970 recession, and to the US military build up in the mid east, which becomes our present national debt problem, and engagement in war. I think perhaps our own history is as distorted as Isreal's and Palistine's, and I hope to see more intelligent replies than suggesting this thread be put in the conspiracy theory forum. Our national histories brings us to wars, and shouldn't we be aware of this, before jeaprodizing our whole economy with war debt, not to mention killing people and sacrificing our own?
When the Prussians took control of Germany, they centralized public education, and focused it on technology for military and industrial purpose. The Prussians destroyed Germany's heroes, as the US has destroyed its own heroes, with the same political ramifications. The Prussians praised efficiency as the US is now praising efficiency, although democracy was never efficient. The Germans came to feel badly about themselves, and this was not improved by their involvement in two world wars. Vietnam is one war that harmed the self image of US citizens, but is not the only reason US citizens are not in agreement about how great their nation and how good it was to destroy traditional values. How we teach history makes a huge difference in our self imagine, and political decissions, and in how we organize ourselves. A technological family is now any combination of people who want to consider themselves family, but what might this do to children? How about children growing up in foster homes where they are easily abused and no one finds out about this until the child is dead, because no longer family nor think in terms of family duty?
How many of our history books explain our industry was modeled after England's autocracy, and the horrors of our early industrial history? Do you have any text books, explaining the US adopted the German model of bureaucracy and that the German model of education replaced our own liberal education, and that Germany had a natiomal pension program, health care and workers compensation long before the US? Actually even before the world wars. Might we understand anything differently if this information were in our history books? I can handle omitting this stuff, but come on, I can not handle Christianizing our history, and the complete elimination of our knowledge of the Greek and Roman classics upon which our democracy depends.
Please, thrown in some ideas of what should be included in our history books.
this is the best smilie I see for a happy smile. You have given thoughtful replies. Thank you so much.
