Chapter review: Down the Memory Hole

We see things not as they are but as we are. -- Anon. ~1890

That Anon. ~1890 person correctly intuited what human cognitive biology and social behavior usually does to how most people see reality most or all of the time. -- Germaine, 2021

When information which properly belongs to the public is systematically withheld by those in power, the people soon become ignorant of their own affairs, distrustful of those who manage them, and--eventually--incapable of determining their own destinies. -- Richard Nixon, ~1993

Down the Memory Hole: The Disappearance of the Recent Past is chapter 10 of James Lowen’s 2018 book Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. Here, Lowen focuses on the reasons that history textbooks have limited coverage of the recent past, roughly events that most living people have some direct or nearly direct knowledge and memories about. For example, far fewer Americans have direct experience with WWII than the Vietnam War. In general, events that occurred before a person's birth date fade from recent memory to the true past as time passes and no one alive has direct experience. Treatment of recent history in textbooks is quite different from treatment of people and events that are fully in the past. 

Presumably, recent history books for post high school students and professional scholars are more honest and detailed. Lowen comments on why the recent past is underplayed and is not something that public school textbook authors and publishers can treat honestly or in depth: 

We read partly in a spirit of criticism, assessing what the authors got wrong as well as agreeing with and perhaps learning from what they got right. When we study the more distant past, we may also read critically, but now our primary mode is ingestive [learning]. Especially if we are reading for the first time about an event, we have little ground on which to stand and criticize what we read. .... Thus authors tiptoe through the [recent past] with extreme caution, evading the main issues, all the main “why” questions.

The “why” questions are directed at why history sometimes unfolded as it did. Answering those questions is critical for students to get a feel for cause and effect in the past, and how linked events can echo in their own lives in the future. American history textbooks generally do a poor job of answering those questions, especially for the recent past.

Authors and publishers defend their admittedly bad job of dealing with the recent past to a lack of historical perspective. They argue that with the passage of time, historians gain insight from hindsight and in later decades give a more informed and nuanced account of recent history. Lowen properly attacks and rejects the historical perspective shield as nonsense, citing fear as one key reason:

Each of these matters is still contentious, however. Some parents are Democrats, some are Republicans so what authors say about the impeachment and trial of Bill Clinton will likely offend half the community. .... Homosexuality is even more taboo as a subject of discussion or learning in America’s high schools. Affirmative action leads to angry debates. The women’s movement can still be a minefield even though it peaked in the 1970s. Every school district includes parents who affirm traditional sex roles and others who do not. So let’s not say much about feminism today; let’s leave it in the 1970s.

Many teachers also lack courage or simply run out of time. .... most teachers never get near the end of the textbook. .... Like publishers, teachers do not want to risk offending parents.

Without [the shield of] historical perspective, textbook authors appear naked: no particular qualification gives them the right to narrate recent events with the same Olympian detachment and absolute certainty with which they declaim in events in the [true past].

The passage of time does not in itself provide perspective, however. Information is lost as well as gained over time. Therefore the claim of inadequate historical perspective cannot excuse ignoring the [recent past]. 

Leaving out the recent past ensures that students will take away little from their history courses that they can apply to the world.

Lowen then goes on in great detail about the awful textbook treatment of recent past events such as the Iraq war and the 9/11 attacks, usually cloaked in the myth of America being an innocent “international good guy.” Lowen is blunt about the American presence on the international stage: 

Textbooks find it hard to question our foreign policy because from beginning to end they typically assume the America as “the international good guy” model .... Like all nations, the United States seeks first to increase its own prosperity and influence in the world. .... We preach democracy while supporting dictatorships.

He also points out that historical perspective can change based on changes in society. Woodrow Wilson was one of those who history initially treated negatively, but now more positively due to anti-communist ideology of the 1950s.[1]

Question: Should recent history be treated more honestly and address questions about “why” some events happened, e.g., the 9/11 attacks are inexplicable if most Arabs and other people in the Muslim world see America as a great hypocrite, not an innocent international good guy? 

Footnotes:

1. Lowen comments on Wilson’s changed historical perspective: “During the Cold War our government operated as it did under Wilson, with semi-declared wars, executive deception of congress, and suppression of civil liberties in the name of anticommunism. Wilson’s policies, unpopular in the 1920s, had become ordinary by the 1950s.”