In general, the assumption exists that the documentation of a national history, including ours, takes place in a magical clean room, free of politics, bias and philosophy.

Not entirely true.

What you read or believe about the Civil War, for example, is not only based upon actual events but also upon the way people chose to remember those events.

If you live in Boston or Pittsburgh, we might talk about the struggle to free a nation from the legacy of human bondage and to reiterate the “united” in United States.  If you live in Baton Rouge or Nashville, we might talk about a struggle to maintain states’ rights and the sad victory of an expansive Federal government.

The irony is, of course, that we’re all talking about the same thing, and that we’re all sort of right.

History does not unfold in a clean room nor does its writing.

Listening to NPR on the way home from dropping my daughter off at school, I discovered yesterday that Texas will soon be in the process of revising their textbooks.

The why of it does not surprise me, though the how is still a little difficult to digest.  It is my firm belief, for example, that no matter how liberal a historian or an economist might be, they are far more qualified to pontificate on the meaning and unfolding of American history than say, a dentist.

A subscription to the History Channel does not a historian make.

I pass both an elementary school and a middle school on the way home from dropping N. off.  On that particular drive yesterday, I thought about how this piece of news has transformed history (at least as it is taught in Texas) into an entity that is now a complete function of power.  Power has always played a role in the teaching of history, of course, but in Texas, it is shining ever more brightly.

The most disturbing element of this issue is that the people who should be doing the revising are being dismissed because of their supposed politics.

And, really, you’re telling me that there is not one single conservative economist or historian in our entire country?  This, of course, implies that anyone who reads books or decides to dedicate their life to studying economics or history must by the simple virtue of a false caricature of their colleague’s overarching politics be a Commie, America hating, atheist.

Is it just me or is this the adult version of sticking someone’s head in the toilet or pantsing them in the cafeteria?

Textbook reform seems benign, especially in light of what feels like the near cataclysmic events we’re experiencing on a global level.

Still, how many of those middle school and high school kids are going to go on to read more nuanced treatments of our national history?  Very few.  The majority of their knowledge will be formulated upon a corpus of knowledge that has been offered to them by their primary and secondary school textbooks.

Do people understand that these textbooks will tell our children more than just the history of our nation, but that they will, in fact, be the framework within which they define who we are as a people?  These textbooks will influence how our children envision their role on this planet, not to mention perhaps even how they decide to vote when they’re old enough.

This reform is not, should not, and must not be the domain of politicians.

Whether or not I agree with these reforms is beyond the scope of my post, though I look forward to hearing your thoughts about them.

My real concern lies with the fact that no economists or historians were involved, according to the New York Times, in any of the revisions.

A group of politicians just rewrote our children’s history books.

I don’t really care whether they live on the left or the right of the spectrum.

This is an extremely dangerous turn of events.