I was moderately amused by this … is “take down” the right phrase? … of Howard Zinn by David Greenberg in the New Republic.

In my adolescent rebelliousness, I thrilled to Zinn’s deflation of what he presented as the myths of standard-issue history. Do you know that the Declaration of Independence charged King George with fomenting slave rebellions and attacks from “merciless Indian Savages”? That James Polk started a war with Mexico as a pretext for annexing California? That Eugene Debs was jailed for calling World War I a war of conquest and plunder? Perhaps you do, if you are moderately well-read in American history. And if you are very well-read, you also know that these statements themselves are problematic simplifications. But like most sixteen-year-olds, I didn’t know any of this. Mischievously—subversively—A People’s History whispered that everything I had learned in school was a sugar-coated fairy tale, if not a deliberate lie. Now I knew.

And then he read more, and knew more, and proecessed Zinn differently now, right?

And as we course back from his adolescent reminisces and what he learned in high school — “yes, even here, and even then my high school teacher was puncturing the meaning of Columbus Day”, and able to dovetail it as not all-together new (there was a phase of  “debunking” going on in the 1920s — when your HL Menckens were  out to defuse American mythology somewhat glibly)…

Somewhat wiped out by World War 2 and the dawning of a Cold War cultural conservatism in a 1950s Cold War fear…

But to barter the problems of Howard Zinn and what often times comes across as fighting an “America Sucks” contest…

Such discussion tends to fall ashunder to to defenders of Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels (oft proposed as a hoped for “reasonable” mainstream Conservative hope of the Republican Party.  The next best hope, now that the governor of Virginia has crashed and burned through corruption.)  From the National Review, by way of commentary from the Washington Monthly blog…

From kindergarten through graduate school, American education is a sewer of left-wing ideology, and Zinn’s work is an especially ripe excretion. Governor Daniels’s office was right to bring attention to it — shoring up the integrity of public institutions is part of what governors are there for.

I suppose if we go back to the New Republic commentator, we’d find the disapproval of the History teacher’s Columbus Day commentary.  I have occasionally seen these comments about Howard Zinn from fawning liberals, that “some schools” use his book instead of a regular text book — which is problematic for the reason that the New Republic article suggests (or, for that matter, the National Review bit) — but always leads me to wonder…

Where and Who?  Other than, maybe, the school attended by Robert Nifkin in the Daniel Pinkwater book?

I see the comments defending Daniels and arguing for the National Review’s “sewer of left wing ideology” on the matter of textbooks — which, after all, are heavily vetted by the educational system of the state of Texas — chime in that Daniels isn’t specifically referring to the textbooks.  I suppose he means here, the teachers…  Which comes out to a whole lot of “HM”.  Dedicated, and it’s a tough job, and not worth blasting… there is this common experience I’ve shared with people about a history teacher coming in as a hired football coach — despised by most everyone except some jocks.   [He also brought his act together whenever the principal came in to observe the class.  And, in his defense — ].  The other History teacher I remember from high school… I recall on her first day made some weird harrangue against hippies.  (She notorious for spending over half the class period doing the attendence.)

This is not a hotbed of radical politics, whether of a sewer metaphor or otherwise.  If I can spot where my fellow students in rural Washington in the late 1990s would be plucking up a any radical political notions — hm… Rage Against the Machine was pretty popular amongst a few students.  Also we might get into something a little odd in Literature class, when I once answered a comment from someone in the class who asked, “What?  Are these characters gay?” in reading the “The Importance of Being Earnest” with the obvious answer The author is” — and here, going back to the Texas Board of Education’s vhetting process…  the efforts to omit biographical details were hilarious…

I don’t believe Zinn’s book was available in the school library.  Not that it would have been checked out by anyone.  Probably about the same calcuation happens throughout Indiana’s public school establishment —

So, it’s college where more students are exposed to it… though, the joke here is that he’s name checked by a lot of postering political hipsters who haven’t actually read much of his damned book…  And wading into what it is that Mitch Daniels worries about, … Hm… this corner of “from pre school through graduate school” sewer metaphor the National Review writer has in mind…

… I guess it’s the idea that the boring textbooks will be supplemented by fiery left wing teachers who got indoctrinated in college courses by Zinn?

Can someone assure me that it is not in use anywhere in Indiana? If it is, how do we get rid of it before more young people are force-fed a totally false version of our history.

If he could just quarantine its influence to college… and not let it seep down into the high schools?

In an interview with Inside Higher Ed Wednesday morning and in a statement he issued later in the day, Daniels stressed that his concern about Zinn related to the state’s elementary and secondary schools – and not wanting teachers to be advancing Zinn’s views there. In his statement Wednesday afternoon, Daniels went after Zinn again.

“I merely wanted to make certain that Howard Zinn’s textbook, which represents a falsified version of history, was not being foisted upon our young people in Indiana’s public K-12 classrooms,” Daniels said in the statement. “No one need take my word that my concerns were well-founded. Respected scholars and communicators of all ideologies agree that the work of Howard Zinn was irredeemably slanted and unsuited for teaching to schoolchildren.”

I suppose the idea might be that we have the official Texas Board of Education approved textbook — all well and good — but then… the  fear that an occasional teacher making a snide comment on this or that?

Fifty years ago when I took US history in a Catholic secondary school that had too many rich jerks, our history teacher, a Korean War veteran, active military reservist, and dedicated anti-Communist made damned sure we all knew about how ridiculous and evil McKinley’s statements about bringing civilization to “our little brown brothers” in the Philippines were. He was an excellent performer, but his satire on McKinley is still vivid in my memory.
Can’t quite imagine that combination nowadays, but it does show things can be more complex than we expect.

Of course, other spots on the political spectrum have other problems with Zinn… why bring in 9/11 Truthers yelling that he’s a damned gate-keeper of public opinion?  Why not?  It’s amusing to showcase the whole spectrum of controversies.

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