Textbooks are supposed to be informative. They are the
primary source of information for students. Yet, they neglect to teach us the
true facts. Education systems have a way of unknowingly implanting images into
adolescent minds. By this I mean that what is taught in school becomes part of
our common sense, even if it is not logical.
Although it is off topic, when a Japanese student is told to
describe ‘sakura,’ they would say that it is Japan’s national flower. Who
decided that the cherry blossom was a symbolization of Japan? Where did this
image start? How did so many students end up believing this? The answer is the
schools in Japan. Starting with the songs and poems we learn in Elementary
School, Japanese students are brainwashed into thinking that cherry blossoms
represent Japan.
Textbooks have the same effect on students. They make
students believe something, without them actually realizing it. What is taught
in school is implanted into a student’s mind, unknowingly forming their
opinions and perception. If schools continue to teach using textbooks written
by patriotic writers, the students are bound to become proud of their nation
and its past.
Born in Illinois, Ernest Hemingway was raised by a father who was a doctor, and a mother who was a music teacher. His writing career first started when he started out as a reporter for the Kansas City Star. At the age of eighteen, he volunteered as a Red Cross ambulance driver, when he was injured by a shrapnel, ultimately invaliding him home from the front lines of the fight in Italy.
A while after his return, Hemingway move to Paris where he served as a correspondent for the Toronto Daily Star, where he became part of a group of American and English writers including Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, and Ford Madox Ford. Hemingway was considered as the voice of the "lost generation," who felt disaffection in the post world war ages in the United States. His most famous book was on his experience in the front lines at Italy, called A Farewell to Arms, published in 1929. He has also written The Sun Also Rises, published in 1926.
Until reaching this chapter of the book, I never thought
about how textbooks are concluded. Come to think of it, my teachers always said
there was simply no time to cover everything, therefore, I’ve never actually
opened the ending of a textbook.
When I think about it, I studied history all throughout
Junior High and High School, and I do not recall learning about the recent
past, such as the Vietnam War and the fall of the Soviet Union. Maybe I was a
bad student and just don’t remember the classes, but I feel that the teachers
might be following the textbook chronologically in order to avoid teaching the
awkward facts. My guess is that the teachers do not want to teach us student’s
lie, therefore they are reluctant to go through the ending chapters of the
textbooks.
Strictly speaking, there is a certain timeline that the
teachers need to follow so that the students can understand the flow of the
events. By teaching history randomly, the details would be disconnected,
further making the students dislike the subject. There is a need to follow the
chronological order of the facts, however if the teachers are aware of the fact
that they will not finish the textbook, I do not understand why they cannot
plan the course so that the students actually reach the end of the text.
The textbooks featured in this book, all seem to conclude on
a high note. The vague and optimistic conclusions are of no help for the
students who are going to lead the next generation. The lack of a realistic
afterword can be perceived as one of the reasons as to why students find
history irrelevant. The authors do not need to be cynical and critical about
every detail, but they should not do away with phrases like “all we need to do
is keep our chin up”
The reason as to why American history textbooks do not
mention the Vietnam War in detail is possibly because it is still considered to
be a ‘recent’ event. History is in the past, meaning the people who were
involved in that particular event is probably dead, therefore there is no need
to worry about ruining their reputation, or causing them to live a lie by
telling a fake legacy about them.
Never having used an American History textbook, I cannot say
for sure, however there is a chance that they do not mention 9.11 in detail.
There are many ‘myths’ about 9.11, such as the US government are behind the
terrorist attack. Whether it is true or not is impossible to tell, seeing as
though the textbooks probably do not mention any gory information.
As embarrassing as it is, I do not know much about the
Vietnam War, except for the few famous photos. Although it may seem like a
recent event compared to the Second World War, the quantity of people who
witnessed the war will gradually fall, leaving the next generation ignorant of
the information. As graphic as it may be, there is a necessity to show the
students how terrifying a war truly is.
The textbook authors conceal the truth behind the Vietnam
War; in other words, the writers are ‘lying’ to the students. Unfortunately,
the lack of critical thinking in history classes deprive students from
criticizing the facts, brainwashing them into learning lies.
History in any country is simple revision of fact after
fact. The information is forced on to the students, which could easily make
them dislike the subject and find it irrelevant. There is a need to make
students realize how important it is to use the knowledge of the past in order
to develop a better future. By changing the approach of the subject, there may
be more students who find the class relevant, making them actually ‘attend’ the
classes.
Having watched The Corporation, I had been losing faith in human beings in general. My recent image of the world was that humans worked only for their profit, thinking of money alone, not caring of the effects on other people both physically and mentally. So todays lecture was a breath of fresh air.
The documentaries we have been watching in the past several weeks, only made me think that humans had lost morality altogether. The Corporation convinced me that CEOs care about profit, not the moral aspects needed when developing a factory. I have felt that the future is dark, that there is no hope of a clean and moral world. Therefore, the contradictory content of todays lecture was thought provoking.
During the discussions in class, I usually ran away with the phrase "morally speaking, it's wrong, but the CEOs aren't going to change their standards." I still think it is true that the corporations would put their profits on the line to be 'just.' However, when perceiving the human species as moving toward a more diverse future, acknowledging a 'bigger circle' of people, I was provoked to think more in-depth of the problems in the world today.
As a child, I always believed that little people could change the world, that nobodies had a chance to create a movement, simply put, I was an idealist. Yet as I grew older, I became more cynical, thinking that even CEOs or government officials would not be able to change the immoral system. I thought I was thinking realistically, and that I should live my life, and help those close to me alone. But the lecture made me feel that there are people in the world who are trying to change the unjust society, and that it tis not fair that they are doing all the work, and I am simply witnessing it. The discussion questions in class involved a broad range of topics, so it was difficult to have a clear answer, so I am not sure of the actions we can take in order to change the system. I guess we all need to go think back on the stages when we were naive, but pure so as to think clearly for a moral future.
After listening to LLA lectures and watching The Corporation, I have come to realize that the developed countries are not democratic at all. In fact, they are simply less extreme, disillusioning the public that they are fortunate to live in a "free" society. However, we are controlled by the corporations, and manipulated by them throughout our lives.
The corporations are obviously unjust, for they do not seem to take responsibility or any sort of action for the toxic chemicals released into the world, but they are also immoral, as they work to manipulate the citizens. The corporations are the main supporters of government senates, meaning the corporations are bound to have an advantage against an average citizen. Furthermore, they sponsor the mainstream media, meaning that even if the public had something critical to say either about the government or the corporations, it would not air, leaving the public clueless of the truth.
The control the corporations have over the decisions the government makes, and what the mainstream media makes public, ultimately deprives a citizens rights to acknowledge what is truly happening. Nothing about the world today seems democratic at all. We are obviously lucky to be living in a time and area that allows free speech, and equal human rights, however it cannot be denied that it the developed countries are not a true democratic society.
It is true that maintaining a structure in which the public all have an equal saying, would be difficult seeing as though there are too many people in one society. A possibility would be to start small, for example, a town council could be more public and open, allowing the people living there to vote for every new system. The current system in which the representatives govern every detail aside from the election itself, deprives the rest of the "average" people's freedom and the decisions they should be making for themselves.
A society in which the public all got a chance to decide what happens in a society, without the manipulation of elites and rich corporations is an ideal image, which seems unrealistic for now. Despite what the CEOs of the corporations or what the senates say, not much has changed. As sad as it is, everyone works for their benefits and profits alone. In a greedy and selfish society like today, nobody is free.
Joel Bakan, the author of The Corporation, is a professor of law at the British Columbia University, specializing in economic, social, and the political dimensions of law. He studied at Simon Fraiser University, the University of Oxford, and Dalhousie University, later on getting a masters degree at Harvard Law School after serving as a clerk in 1985. After graduating, he taught at Osgoode Hall Law School of York University, then moving on to teach at his current university in 1990.
His first wife, Marlee Gayle Kline was also a professor of Law at the University of British Columbia. She died of Leukemia in 2001, after a long struggle, which Bakan stuck by throughout. After her death, he established the Marlee Klein Memorial Lectures in Social Justice to honor her contribution to Canadian Law.
Since the publication of The Corporation in 2004, he has published two other books, one on children, and how the corporations target their venerability, as a means of profit, and has also written a book on social justice and its historical effects.
One perception of his critique on the corporations, can be judged from his education in law, where he studied the rights and wrong of the society. Another source of his thoughts can be because of his first wife and her illness. Although it may not directly be connected, it can be perceived that it provoked him to consider the struggle citizens are faced with due to the corporation's greed for profit.
I do not like to memorize past events. I like studying history and the wonders of the past, but I did not understand why we had to read through textbooks and remember every little detail of what former kings and emperors did. Loewen states that the American History textbooks recounts events and details that involve someone with authority alone. I think this is true for any country. When I was in Junior High School, I had to take a Japanese History class, and was forced to memorize details of wars and revolutions. It may seem as though we were learning about the public movement, but it rarely mentioned 'nobodies' who participated in those fights. It was always people with power that appeared in texts, even if they were not so closely related to the war. Strictly speaking, there are probably not many documents left of an individual citizen, but there are tons for people of authority. They left official documents, and their diaries and letters were preserved safely.
The fact that the textbooks take up a lot of space for kings and the details of their lives, is not favorable, but understandable. However, what I can't agree with is their portrayal of the authority. The textbooks create feel good stories to try and convince the students that their country is capable of being 'good', 'moral', and 'just.' As Loewen says, the textbook facts are turned into morality plays. They do not even have the courtesy to admit they were wrong. It is always a 'misunderstanding' or an 'unfortunate turn of events.'
With history books, despite the evidence and documents, it is still hard to define for sure what happened, seeing as though it is all in the past. Yet, feel good stories are still made from current facts and events. The government is publicly criticized, but the main stream media tend to show them as 'just' when there is no doubt a load of crap happening behind the scenes. The media try to convince the public that they should trust the government to make the right decision. Despite results of polls, and the down falling of the support from the public, the media still tries to perceive the government as 'right.' Although in Loewen's book. the CIA and other federal agencies are seen as the 'fourth branch of government,' I think that the media are the fourth branch. The federal agencies are basically apart of the government. They move with the government, they conceal inconvenient truths concerning the government, basically, they are obligated to be censored.
Concluding my thoughts, the distance between the government and the public has been a problem for centuries. The lack of details on the public in textbooks, encourages the kept distance. They try to separate citizens and authorities, making the citizens feel smaller than they truly are.
This chapter made me realize that we don't see much about the difference in social class, and the effects they brought about in the past. Although this book talks about the American textbooks, and how they try to conceal negative facts of the American history, it provokes readers to think about problems still existing.
I think that the American textbooks try to convince U.S citizens that they are all equal, and have equal chances of success despite their class differences. However, critically speaking, it is not as simple. The best example would be the television sitcom, The OC. Ryan, the protagonist of the series comes from a family of low income, with a alcoholic single mother, and a brother who spends half his time in jail. Although he is a bright boy with high hopes, the lack of money deprives him of his chances, and provokes him to follow his brother's footsteps. He gets caught trying to steal a car, and is saved by Sandy Cohen, a lawyer that represented Ryan after his misdeed. Sandy takes Ryan to his home in Orange County, where he is able to provide his family with no worries of money. Although Ryan has potential, his parents inability to support him, makes him feel he is deprived of chances and should give up on going to college. On the other hand, Seth, Sandy's son, gets a high level education at a private school which sends students off to high level universities. His dream is to become a comic book artist, and he knows his way to get there. Opportunities appear right in front of him. Coming from a high social class, he has many connections in a variety of fields, giving him a chance to go after what he wants.
As Ryan adjusts to his new life in a wealthy family, he starts to discover his potentials. He tries to work for his future, rather than give up and simply 'work.' Social class develops stereotypes, depriving those in lower classes of chances and opportunities they could of had, had they not given up.
Social backgrounds make the adolescents have different level of motivation. Although this is a naive point of view formed through tv sitcoms, it seems that the lower the social class one is born in, the lower the potentials are from the beginning. Children have big dreams and are not afraid to chase them.
However, when they turn into adolescents and realize the difference in social class, they are faced with reality and are forced to adapt their futures to fit with their background. The difference in social class is no doubt a huge part of the problems today. Omitting the facts of class differences and how they effected lives in the past, moreover how they are implanting stereotype motivations will not help change anything. Trying to convince students that they all have equal chances, despite their class, will result in low class student's low self esteem, moreover will kill their futures.
The sponsors, the government, all these authorities are controlling the mainstream media, leading to a lack of variety of opinions and view points. The Web 2.0 has restored the public's voice, and we are free to express our thoughts. What is even more powerful is the fact that anyone from anywhere can see it. "Sharing" online has the ability to bring people together. It creates the power over the authorities, and reveals the facts that was formerly hidden from public eyes.
When I saw the clips of the peaceful protestors being maced, I couldn't help but notice the disgust on the faces of the students in our class. The police, who are supposed to 'protect' us, becoming the people who 'attack' us. It's unbelievable, it's horrifying, it's plain wrong. What scares me most, is that without the videos on youtube or the independent media, we would never have known about the facts. If we were naive and believed everything on the mainstream media, we would have never known.
A while back, there was a riot in London, and it made me wonder whether the media was showing us everything. According to my friends in London, the riots were pretty much what it looked like on television, but if they got there information through the British news, then there is a possibility that the mainstream media were hiding something, which made it seem as though the riots were just meaningless attacks. I'm no expert and haven't done any research on what happened, but the thought of someone causing such a huge riot for no reason seems strange.
In my media class today, we were given an article and told to find parts of it that we thought was odd or seemed to be hiding something. My group found about 10 in one short article. The professor from that course wrote an article on how Minamata city was trying to hide their past of the illness minamatabyou, and sent it to the local paper there. As can be predicted, the article was not published. The mainstream media dislike any critical views, and won't post anything that would reveal their negative points. If the internet was not as developed as today, no one would ever find out about the issues that the mainstream media do not pick up. No one would have a chance to share their thoughts. Thanks to the internet, even little people with no power what so ever can post blogs and help make a difference.
The mainstrem media have issues they cannot report due to their relationships with the government and their sponsors. The public are deprived of information which they have the right to know. However, due to the development of the internet, the power has come back to the people.
The internet allows us to search for any topic we desire. This ability to find anything online has got the public thinking they are more global than before the arrival of the net. But, it makes me wonder, has the internet brought the world closer or drawn them further apart? Information wise, of course people are connected in ways which would never have been possible. You can send a message to anyone who owns a computer despite the locations. But, the fact that you can access to almost everything online, means some might think they don't need to "get out there" and search for themselves. Who needs to go to a library when they can search for everything online? Why should you spend a load of money to research a monument when you have all the information you need on the internet? The efficiency of the internet has made it worthless to go into the field to independently research something. By using the net, it is more likely that people stay inside, oblivious to what is outside, in the real world. I love using the internet, and I love how efficient it is, but thinking that the web makes you more global is wrong. There are things you cannot find out unless you physically go there and witness it for yourselves. This blog post was pretty off topic, but I will be posting another one about the lecture!
The main-stream media is not trustworthy.
This statement seems rather harsh, but how much of the news on television do
you trust? What was supposed to be a source of information has become a source
to develop critical thinking. What I mean is, we as viewers or the receivers of
the information must define for ourselves what is true and what should be
questioned.
In
my Media Studies class in High School, we watched a film called Wag the Dog, which is based on the novel American Hero by Larry Beinhart. The movie is about a spin doctor played by Robert DeNiro, who teams up with a Hollywood producer played by Dustin Hoffman, in order to create a fake war. The film starts two weeks or so before the election of the next president, and the current president, who is unnamed throughout the movie, has a scandal with a young girl. His opponent uses it to his advantage to get ahead in the polls. This is where the spin doctor comes in to work his magic. He draws focus away from the scandal by creating a fake war against Albania. He assumes that the American citizens probably know little of the country, and would believe the story with a few visual aids to support it. After filming a few scenes that would convince the Americans that there is a possibility of a war, he leaks the information to the main stream media. They were easily controlled, because the minute, the war story came out, the media dropped the scandal and focused on the fake war alone. The media, who are supposed to be the watch-dog of the government are easily manipulated. True, the movie may seem a little extreme, but no one can deny that there are issues the media have no control over. The receiving end, or in other words the public, must define for themselves what is true and what is not so as to stay truly informed.
This
chapter, as everyone would know focuses on racism. It discusses how the African
Americans were discriminated and used as slaves.
In
High School, during Christianity Week, we had to choose a class that got us to
think about Christianity through something other than our regular courses. I
chose a class where we were to watch a movie and write a short report on what
we thought. We watched the movie Amazing Grace, a film about William
Wilberforce. The movie is a bibliography of the man, who campaigned against
slave trade. William Wilberforce was a member of parliament, and spent 20 years
trying to abolish the slave trade in the British Empire. He once nearly gave up
on trying after being rejected over and over again. However, with the support
of his wife and allies, he returns to the government to fight against the slave
trade and succeeds in 1807, ultimately abolishing it.
Yes,
this movie was about the ‘British’ empire, not the United States. But, after
watching this movie, although it is hard to believe how immoral some people
were, it was unfortunately true. It frightens me to think had William
Wilberforce given up, how different the world might have been today.
I don’t know much about the slave trade,
so I can’t say for sure if only African people were traded. However, from a
‘white’ society’s viewpoint, Asians would probably have been on a lower status
compared to them. In other words, Japanese people could have been traded as
slaves, had there not been a person who was brave enough to admit that slavery
was immoral.
It
can be said for anything in the past, so there doesn’t seem to be a necessity
to actually write this, but one difference, and our lives would have been so
different, I can’t even begin to imagine it. When studying history, we are
forced to memorize facts. However, no change would come without analyzing and
critiquing for ourselves the information given to us. To ensure that history
does not repeat itself, students need to learn to challenge what is being
taught, not just memorize it.
