The National History Standards developed at the University of California at Los Angeles and released in the fall of 1994 are the most egregious example to date of encouraging students to take a benign view of — or totally overlook — the failings of other cultures while being hypercritical of the one in which they live. Published in two volumes — one for U.S. history and one for world history — and intended for schools across the nation, the standards suggest that students consider the architecture, labor systems, and agriculture of the Aztecs — but not their practice of human sacrifice. The gathering of wealth, presented as an admirable activity when an African king, Mansa Musa, undertakes it, is presented as cause for outrage when it occurs in the American context. One suggested student activity is to "conduct a trial of John D. Rockefeller on the following charge: ‘The plaintiff [sic] had knowingly and willfully participated in unethical and amoral business practices designed to undermine traditions of fair and open competition for personal and private aggrandizement in direct violation of the common welfare.’"
Although the standards for U.S. history neglect to mention that George Washington was our first president or that James Madison was the father of the Constitution, they do manage to include a great deal about the Ku Klux Klan (which appears seventeen times in the document), Senator Joe McCarthy and McCarthyism (cited nineteen times), and the Great Depression (cited twenty-five times). The U.S. standards also pay little attention to scientific and technological achievement. Among the figures not discussed are Alexander Graham Bell, the Wright Brothers, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Jonas Salk, and Neil Armstrong (or any astronaut). The exquisite consciousness of race and gender that characterizes the standards may have contributed to the omission of this group (its members are all white males), but it is also the case that science and technology are now held in extremely low regard in certain parts of the academy. Feminists argue that science represents destructive male thinking. Why not call Newton’s Principia Newton’s "’rape manual"? asks one. Both feminists and environmentalists argue that because of the high value that science places on objectivity and rationality, it is now in deep and deserved crisis — information that tends to come as a surprise to practicing scientists. Did the authors of the U.S. standards decide that in the case of a field so disdained by so many of their colleagues, the less said the better? Whatever the motive, to overlook American accomplishment in science and technology is to omit some of our most dazzling achievements.
The World History Standards do mention Edison and Einstein; and while there is heavy emphasis on the role that technological advancement has had in increasing the brutality of war, there is also some recognition that science has played a role in improving quality of life — though it is usually coupled with a reminder that not everyone has benefited equally. Students are asked, for example, to assess "why scientific, technological, and medical advances have improved living standards for many but have failed to eradicate hunger, poverty, and epidemic disease."
In the World History Standards, the fact that women generally had different roles from men in the ancient world is seen simply as a matter of gender "differentiation" — until it happens in Athens, the birthplace of Western civilization. Then it becomes a matter of’ "restrictions on the rights and freedoms of women." Just as sexism is first introduced in the context of Greek civilization, so, too, is ethnocentrism — as though in previous cultures in Asia and Africa, people had never considered their ethnic group superior. Nowhere is it mentioned that it was, in fact, in Western civilization that the unjust treatment of women and minorities was first condemned and curiosity about other cultures first encouraged.
In one of the sillier sections of the World History Standards — and one of the most quintessentially politically correct — students are asked to read a book about Michelangelo, not in order to discuss art, but so that they can "discuss social oppression and conflict in Europe during the Renaissance." In what may be the most irresponsible section of the World History Standards, fifth- and sixth-graders are asked to read a book about a Japanese girl of their age who died a painful death as a result of radiation from the atomic weapon dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. No mention is made of why American leaders decided to use atomic weapons, about the casualties they believed an invasion of Japan would have entailed, for example. No mention is made of death and suffering caused by the Japanese. The rape of Nanking is not discussed, nor is Pearl Harbor, nor the Bataan death march. What fifth- and sixth-graders would be likely to conclude is that their country was guilty of a horrible — and completely unjustified — act of cruelty against innocents.
I’m not opposed completely to her point. Political Correctness begins to grate on one after a while, and many post-modernists are pretty negative, but there’s a subtlety in her writing that feels like absolute poison [actually, not so subtle]. The post-modernists take things apart – deconstruct them. What is presented as "truth?" Is it "true?" what is the context of this writer – personal, political, historical? They read behind the text, in the spaces between the words, and try to find deeper meanings. Lynn Cheney sees that as destructive and bad for kids. She also thinks that the American academicians specifically criticize Americans, and that it’s bad for Patriotism. She’s not totally wrong about that. A kid that knows about Thomas Jefferson’s involvement with Sally Hemmings will not see him as a Saint after all. Likewise, the philanderings of Benjamin Franklin or Albert Einstein might raise similar questions in a child’s mind.
You can probably already hear the same kind of Paranoid Conservatism that comes out of her husband’s mouth. Here’s a contemporary review of her book. Like her husband, she is a smart, informed, well-educated, articulate person. But she’s also just as arrogant and reactionary as he is, and their enemies are the same – "Liberal Intellectuals" dead-set on destroying Patriotism and American values. It’s little wonder that they’re in cahoots with the Religious Right. They both believe that this collective "pseudocommunity" of "Liberal Intellectuals" are determined to erode the fabric of American society and poison its children’s minds. I expect she’s even correct that many Academics do have political motivations, do want their students to question the stereotypic heros of the past. But certainly not so much as in the 60s and 70s. But even if she has a legitimate point, or he has a legitimate point, that doesn’t detract from the virulence of their respective messages. And speaking of telling the truth, hubby Dick could use a few lessons…
I know a lot of the kind of people both of them are talking about. "Liberal Intellectuals" are a pretty neat bunch of people, many of them 
from the same modest circumstances and heartland that produced the Cheneys. In some ways, I’m one of them. The Cheneys’ oversimplifications and their accusations of sinister motivations are simply untrue, and betray a shared paranoid caste that will do [has done] this country much more harm than their figmentary enemies will ever do. Bet you a nickle that both of them devoured the books of Ayn Rand in the 60s when we were all younger. They just never got over them…
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