I was reading a novel yesterday (The confessions of Max Tivoli) in which the main subject (an aging backwards old man who appears as a young boy) mentions something about the “outrageous lies” taught in elementary school and it reminded me of my own experience. If you went to public school in the USA, you were probably taught as a young child (1st or 2nd grade) about George Washington and the cherry tree. The gist of which is that George chopped down one of his father’s favorite cherry trees as a boy. When his father found out about the cherry tree and got mad, George immediately confessed. This was supposed to show how honest he was. It was repeated on a number of occasions in history classes (over several years), but at one point, in 4th or 5th grade, I somehow figured out it was not true (I know for sure at least one teacher confirmed this – she said it was a fable to teach a lesson). I was outraged – if grownups, teachers no less, would lie to students about something so inconsequential in the service of demonstrating honesty – what else were they lying about?
So it was at about 12 years old, I learned to distrust authority. I was lucky though because I don’t think most children understood the ramifications of this and it’s really no wonder that our government today is such a viper’s nest of corruption when our primary education is founded on such lies.
Another outrageous, but more consequential lie, was told to me in high school history class – the civil war was not about slavery, but about “state’s rights,” that is, the South tried to secede from the union because they wanted greater state’s rights (less federal power). And I went to high school in the north! I later learned that the civil war was definitely about slavery and the southern states were pissed about the northern states not enforcing the [federal] fugitive slave laws and returning all their escaped saves. For the Union (the North), the civil war may not have been strictly about slavery in the beginning (more about retaining power), but fo the South, it most definitely was. The whole state’s rights thing is “Lost Cause” mythology.
You can do your own research to verify these claims, but here are some links:
1. The Moral Washington: Construction of a Legend
2. Myth conceptions about the cause of the Civil War
The question is, if they lied to us about this (and the “weapons of mass destruction”), then what else? Maybe we need some better critical thinking in this country.
