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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Grainne who wrote (27329)	12/27/1998 8:06:00 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Christine, I would stand by my statement. The problem is that very few Americans are even vaguely conversant with any form of history at all, including their own. I think that anyone who has taken the trouble to inquire independently, instead of relying on what they are told, is aware of what happened. Most of the Middle Eastern history taught in schools (very little is) is heavily edited, but so is most of the other history, especially American history. I was once, during a sojourn in the US, invited to lecture a high school honors history class on the American occupation of the Philippines, about which I know a reasonable amount. This I did, taking great pains to ensure that everything said was respectably referenced. There was an immediate and violent reaction from parents: the things I had taught them couldn't possibly be true, because "Americans wouldn't do that". I was "teaching kids to hate their country". And so on. The people from the school were quite apologetic, but the invitation was not repeated. What is passed off as historical instruction is really a form of collective masturbation, glorifying the past and reconstructing it to conform to our illusions. Why else would so many people be convinced that there was some sort of golden age in our past, and that things are rapidly getting worse? I don't dispute Emile's right to discuss the massacres here, but I still wonder what, if any, conclusion he is trying to draw. Steve