Lies My Teacher Told Me Ch 8

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.