Would you edit the history books?

Question

It is one thing to see value in changing certain things from our past, but is there any value in distorting the history books.

In other words, are there any deletions, additions or blatant distortions that would benefit our impressionable younger generation. Would humaneity gain any advantage from a "clean slate" or would we gain something from purposeful distortions that are designed to "correct" certain historical truths that are misleading.

Is honesty always the best policy?

Answer 1

I have been reading a book called "Lies My Teacher Told Me" which is about the distortions and sloppy research in history texts for students in the US, so I have actually been thinking about this.

My conclusion is that a lot of myths have been told for so long that people believe them to be true. The problem with that is that you cannot simply change the untrue or misleading information in history books, because you will suddenly have a big gap with parents completely believing one thing, and their kids believing another, and no one to tell them which is correct and why.

I also don't think that distortions of any kind do any service to anyone. Is it nice to think of Christopher Columbus as an adventurous and bold navigator who "discovered" the New World? Well, maybe for bank employees and others who get Columbus Day off from work. But painting that scenario does a disservice to everyone, because it tells a story, a made up story, not the truth. People should have access to the truth, no matter how unpleasant.

I think the best solution is to include the fallacies and distorted facts which have entered popular culture and been accepted as "facts", and then explain in the same chapter, right alongside, why they are not accurate depictions of the real facts. I see several advantages to that. First, people get their hands on the actual, factual truth. Secondly, they see how it has been distorted in the past. The third point is the kicker, for me, however. By comparing the myth with the reality, you can have a meaningful dialogue about WHY the truth was distorted in the first place. You learn as much about a country or culture from listening to and studying the lies they tell themselves as you do from listening to their truths. How, where, and why they choose to distort history is, for the serious thinker, an instructive and important way of understanding a cultural mindset and whether or not it has changed over time. It's also just a darn good barometer of whether or not a group of people have the guts to stand up to their history and claim it as their own.

I have a friend who took his family to Hawaii this summer. They went to the Arizona Memorial, and his daughter, a recent high school graduate, was absolutely devastated when she found out that there were American civilians killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor. My friend tried to gently explain to her that civilians get killed during wartime, and that the civilians were not the main targets of the Japanese bombers. All of a sudden, he wondered if she knew about something the US did during WWII, a large-scale attack on a defenseless civilian population for no good reason. She said she knew about the atomic bombs. He said that wasn't what he was thinking of--had she ever heard of the firebombing of Dresden? That was the deadliest single night of the entire war, it was planned and executed by the US, and it was done to demoralize the Germans. That's pretty much the fact. And you know something? She had never, ever heard of it. Why? Because it doesn't look really pretty on paper when you read about it, and about how Dresden was chosen because it was not defended because there was no war industry there, and about how it was planned for the sole purpose of terrorizing the German people. Was it right or wrong? It's the past, so that's up for debate among students of history. But the fact is that when we in the US teach our kids about the heroic actions of D-Day, we should also give them the whole picture and also teach them about Dresden. I know history is written by the victors, but the least the victors can do, since they already won, is be gracious and honest enough to tell the whole truth.

So yes, honesty is always the best policy, at least in the realm of history. We humans learn a lot when we learn from our mistakes, and removing our mistakes from history books makes it damn near impossible for us to learn where we have gone wrong. And as you know, when we ignore our history, we are doomed to repeat it...

Answer 2

The best advice I can give is that after you get the books or before you need to sit down with a calendar and fill in all your holidays and days off. I try and have my son who is going into 3rd grade have close to the same days off as traditional school. After that we pick a start date and then count the 170 days of requiered school until we come up with an end date. Now for assigning yourself the cource work it is actually already done for you by chapter but here is an easy way. EX there are 36 weeks in the spelling book so that is one chaper a week (exclude the week during the year that only have 2 days) each lesson has 4 pages so 1 page a day and the test on the 5th day. You may have 1 chapter every 2 weeks and a lesson each day do the review questions in each lesson and the additional questions you will do just fine. I have had no help from the local school where I live because 2 educated teachers could not handle 11 kids in grades K-2 so I have homeschooled since we moved here and will continue until we moved. Also the kids in the class we more then a grade below grade level. I still can't figure that one out. Best of luck to you.

Answer 3

Yes, honesty IS the best policy. Everyone has something in their past (collectively speaking: i.e., Germans, French, Iranians, etc.) that is NOT good.
As to editing the history books, yes, I would. For the simple reason, it is more than 2,000 years since Augustus Caesar; the Egyptians, Babylonians, et al go back thousands of years before that (as well as cave dwellers in Southern France who decorated their caves with exquisite paintings, peoples in Turkey, Central and South America, and many other places). If every book on earth was filled with ONLY history, there would not be enough books!

History MUST BE EDITED; the problem is when people try to prove or disprove something by editing. Editing should be like a Reader's Digest Condensed Book: retain the most important things, retain the essence of the story.

As to the "impressionalbe" younger folks: what about TV, DVDs, Blu Ray, movies, and those most obnoxious video games? Not to mention the internet...

The truth should be told: if necessary, it can be used as a moral lesson. You know, something like, "This is the way people used to be..."

I read a number of books and saw several movies about the Battle of the Little Big Horn. But when I read "Black Elk Speaks" and other stories by the Indians themselves, I got MORE truth. When I was stationed in Korea, the most accurate news about what was happening in Viet Nam was from Radio Hanoi and Radio Peking! Our own Government never told the truth about what was happening...

Answer 4

No I would not edit history for this is what others who experience history has passed down to us. It does not matter what perception is portrayed. As one responder shows various versions of the same story from different perspectives gives the reader and history student an overall picture of the events they are describing.

One of the greatest treasures a nation or people can pass down from generation to generation is the tales and stories that are true. That was one of the signs of intelligence in man. That we forget not our history and preserve it for those who come after us.

Honesty is the best policy no matter how glowing or terrible it was. It must be told. If man is a species that has shown it has the capacity to repeat history then how much more important that what we know is the truth.

Answer 5

Yes, honesty is the best policy. Only with honesty can we see the whole picture.

Answer 6

I don't like HISTORY....as a reading subject ... I just like it as a researchable subject....
As a reading sub. it is so horrible to me .....