Don’t Know Much About History: Colleges Teach U.S. History with Politics Left Out (Is that Good or Bad?)
By Jonathan Bean • Thursday January 17, 2013 5:59 PM PDT • 6 Comments
The National Association of Scholars (NAS) has released an in-depth study of the assigned readings used in required American history survey courses at University of Texas-Austin and Texas A&M. The authors divided the field of history into 11 areas, including social, political, economic, military, diplomatic and so on. NAS found it disturbing that the readings were obsessed with RCG (Race, Class, Gender) thus “crowding out” any knowledge of the Constitution or State Power (war, peace, government growth, foreign policy).
This study was possible because the Texas legislature passed a law to mandate the teaching of American history. College students not learning history? Pass a law. As I note, passing laws merely hands the chicken coop to the fox. But more on that later.
In an earlier post, “The Temptation of Bernanke: How Historical Memory Feeds Fed Power,” I observed:
“Hayek noted that most policymakers are driven by mental images they got from textbooks, not economic theory. To sell’ a policy or action, the rulers simply resort to historical shorthand passed down from one generation to another, often through government-approved K-12 textbooks and the introductory college text. Don’t kid yourself that they actually teach economics (of any kind) K-16 to the unwashed masses. Instead, it is subsumed—as Hayek knew—via the stories told by historians.
Example: The ‘script’ for the Great Depression goes like this: lack of banking regulation, “unfettered capitalism,” income inequality, and corporate “administered prices” led the nation into a great abyss. FDR came to power, spread the wealth and people felt better. That is still the version in 2011 despite decades of economic literature on the causes of the depression (the role of international gold standard, the Fed’s actions, branch banking bans that weakened the financial system, etc.).”
The good news from the NAS study of American history survey courses: if Hayek was right, then American college graduates–the next generation–will learn a lot about racial oppression, class, and gender (all from a left-wing perspective) but precious little about State Power. Forget what you think of State Power (force for good or source of evil). Americans will know NOTHING. I’ll venture they know nothing already.
The bad news: the media elites repackages the textbook version of the Great Depression, World War II and other “lessons of history” and then applies them to present day issues. Even worse, they repeat – again and again – that “everyone knows” government spending creates jobs. Remember how WWII ended the Depression?
*The NAS recommends external review of core reading assignments. That won’t happen because of the concern with academic freedom.
*The NAS also recommends an “essential reading list” that is balanced and surveys all aspects of history. This is the fox watching the chicken coop: How soon we forget that the conservative demand for National History Standards–adopted in the 1990s–was hijacked by the academic Left to obsess about the evils of capitalism, the long history of male badness, and “white privilege” and oppression of nonwhites.
I’m all for studying race, class and gender–I published Race and Liberty: The Essential Reader (2009) as a corrective to the textbook depiction of racial progress as a history of labor unions and “Progressives” “giving” us rights. No, no, no, I argued: the real champions of racial liberty were libertarians.
Still, I would never teach a survey course with politics and economics left out. Alas, I am the oddball historian. Again.
What do readers think? Is it better that Americans know little about history? Is it better than having them learn Zinn-style history on issues unrelated to race, class, gender?
I honestly don’t know. The real solution is to get rid of the near-monopoly status the State has on college education. But academics are feeding whatever new model of education arises–and use accreditation bodies to enforce their Political Correctness. Where does that leave me?
In a very gloomy mood about the future.
Tags: American History, Education, Federal Reserve, Great Depression, History, Politics, The State 
George Orwell,in his classic novel 1984,stated “He who controls the present controls the past and he controls the past controls the future.” For over 50 years the Left has used Cultural Marxist methods to control Academia,Public Education,The Media,Hollywood and Television,plus the popular culture. The results have been,by and large,what is called “directed history.” That is history as seen from a collectivist progressive(socialist) view point. Thomas Sowell,among others, points this out in his book “Dismantling America.” This Cultural Marxism which manifests itself in “diversity” and “political Correctness”,although almost 100 years old,really started to change the nation in about the 1960s,and has ever since played a role in America. Although the Left controls most of what is disseminated as knowledge,especially in the soft sciences such as history and political science,inroads with different ideas have been made with the implementation of thoughts about history and society that have sprung from the growth of the Internet. This is why the state and its collectivist supporters are trying to close down much of the Internet. They don’t want competition about ideas from other “independent” sources. People’s attitudes must be changed and controlled if a collectivist system is to be installed in America. A one sided view of history and control of the institutions of education and mass media must be implemented as the groundwork to create a collectivist society. In essence our institutions of education have,over the last decades,changed from teaching people how to think to teaching people what to think. The results are the dumbing down of a majority of Americans. This dumbing down has allowed the elites to gain control of the levers of power in America and has transformed the majority of the American population into a nation of sheep.
libertarian jerry | Jan 17, 2013 | Reply
Yes, the old-style socialism didn’t work so they repackaged it in culture, race, gender.
BTW, NAS has a lot of pubs and posts on cultural Marxism. I also recommend Peter Wood’s book _Diversity: Origin of a Concept_. http://www.nas.org
Jonathan Bean | Jan 18, 2013 | Reply
Reading a book called “Savage Continent” by Keith Lowe. After WWII, the Russian takeover of the Eastern countries were accomplished the same way the US is being taken over by Communists now. The only difference is Russia eliminated the intelligencia by death squads, we are eliminating the intelligent community by dumming down education. Also the Russians had control of the media also.
Elfie | Jan 18, 2013 | Reply
LJ: Well put. We have become Orwell’s vision and no one seems to know it (in part because books like 1984 are not in the curriculum). The American experiment with liberty succeeded — for a while — but now is being destroyed by democracy, which is the tyranny of the majority, feared by the founders.
Adam | Jan 18, 2013 | Reply