forbidden knowledge

I was a teenager when perestroika hit my native country, Soviet Union. First came a flood of long supressed historical facts, and the so-called 'reevaluation of values'. All of a sudden, building the bright future was no longer a lofty goal; everyone looked back and was horrified at the price of the country's accoomplishments during the past 70 years.

Our history textbooks became completely obsolete. I don't think my history teacher opened them at all. By the end of high school, my country's history has been completely rewritten, and I developed a firm contempt towards history as a branch of human knowledge. There is no truth to it, I thought bitterly; all historians do is rewrite books when politically necessary. Winners write history. Whoever pays the piper orders a tune. Shame.

If you think this can't happen here, think again.

In her book The language Police , Diane Ravitch documents eforts from both right and left to strike out 'objectionable' words from school textbooks. Below is a sample of such words and topics from the book, as quoted here :


Anchorman (banned as sexist, replace with “anchor person” or “newscaster”), p. 171
Bitch (banned as reference to female dog), p.172
Bookworm (banned as offensive, replace with “intellectual”), p.172 – ditto: Egghead p. 175
Cro-Magnon Man (banned as sexist, replace with “Cro-Magnon people”), p. 173
Dirty old man (banned as sexist and ageist), p.174
Fat (banned, replace with “heavy” or “obese”), p.175
Fellowship (banned as sexist, replace with “Friendship”), p. 175 (Sisterhood is not mentioned)
Founding Fathers (banned as sexist, replace with “the founders, the framers”), p.175
[..]
Satan (banned), p. 182 – God is also banned, p. 176
Yacht (banned as elitist), p. 183

Among the images to Avoid are: Women who are not team players; Men or boys in active problem-solving roles; People of color who abandon their own culture or language to achieve success; American Indians as primitive or warlike; Asian Americans as working in a laundry or as musical prodigies or class valedictorians; Latinos who are lazy or passive; Mexicans grinding corn or riding donkeys; Jews always wearing business suits, glasses, and carrying briefcases; People with disabilities as saintly like Tiny Tim, or as a burden to others; Fat social misfits; Old ladies with twenty cats; and Irish policemen, pages 184-194

Among the topics to avoid are: Conflict with authority (parents, teachers, law); Crime; Dialect (especially black dialect); evolution presented as fact rather than scientific theory; Guns and shooting; Lying or duplicity of any kind; Physical violence; References to Humanism that might give it the status of religion; Religion; Unpunished transgressions; or Winter holidays (probably because of the pagan origins of many of them -Y.B.), pages 194-195



There is also a list of books forbidden in school libraries or removed from school reading lists around the country. It is actually very extensive and can be found here . Included are Catcher in the Rye, Alice in Wonderland, both The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Advetuntures of Heck Finn, Brave New World, Gone With The Wind, and basically every other known book.

The newest victim of special interest groups lobbying is the history of India as described in school textbooks. Apparently, this year, the State of California has commissioned 6th grade history books. During the reviewing process, two conservative US-based Hindu groups came forwards with changes, amounting to rewriting and whitewashing the country's history :


Instigating the California debate were two US-based Hindu groups with long ties to Hindu nationalist parties in India. One, the Vedic Foundation, is a small Hindu sect that aims at simplifying Hinduism to the worship of one god, Vishnu. The other, the Hindu Education Foundation (HEF), was founded in 2004 by a branch of the right-wing Indian group the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

[..] In one edit, the HEF asked the textbook publisher to change a sentence describing discrimination against women in ancient society to the following: "Men had different duties (dharma) as well as rights than women."

In another edit, the HEF objected to a sentence that said that Aryan rulers had "created a caste system" in India that kept groups separated according to their jobs. The HEF asked this to be changed to the following: "During Vedic times, people were divided into different social groups (varnas) based on their capacity to undertake a particular profession."

The hottest debate centered on when Indian civilization began, and by whom. For the past 150 years, most historical, linguistic, and archaeological research has dated India's earliest settlements to around 2600 BC. And most established historical research contends that the cornerstone of Indian civilization - the practice of Hindu religion - was codified by people who came from outside India, specifically Aryan language speakers from the steppes of Central Asia.

Many Hindu nationalists are upset by the notion that Hinduism could be yet another religion, like Islam and Christianity, with foreign roots. The HEF and Vedic Foundation both lobbied hard to change the wording of California's textbooks so that Hinduism would be described as purely home grown.[..]



A Wall Street Journal article today (you have to be a subscriber to access) deals with this issue blow by blow. It also explains why this issue concerns everyone in this country, not just Californians. California is the biggest customer of eduicational textbooks, accounting for 10%-12% of the market. If California want changes made in their textbooks, it is more economically feasible for the publisher to adopt their version as the standard text. As a result, everyone gets the washed-out Californian books.

Christian, Jewish, Muslim groups also constantly put pressure on educational resource publishers. Trouble is, the history of human sociaty from times immemorial is largely the history of CONFLICT between these groups. There is absolutely no way to make everyone happy, unless history is stripped off of most of its unpleasant facts. And we are left with a certain consensus reality, far different from what actually is. Apparently, this is quite allright with those who rpomote the changes:

"There is no such thing as an objective history," Jain says. "So when we write a textbook, we should make students aware of the status of current research of leading scholars in the field. It should not shut out a love for motherland, a pride in your past. If you teach that your country is backward, that it has no redeeming features in our civilization, it can damage a young perspective."

With all the recent talk about India being the new rising superpower, it all makes sense. What better way to unite people than a strong national idea backed by a monotheistic-type religion.

Make no mistake, the debate here is not about who got the facts right, even though schoarly debates were conducted to thouroughly investigate the issue.

This is all about who gets to influence the minds of growing children. The power of this tactic can not be underestimated. When one generation is raised on different books and differe views, it is enough to completely obliterate the whole area of human knowledge. And create a brave new world.

However, I can tell you that it damages a young prospective a lot more to realize, little by little as you are growing up, that you are told twisted lies. That a lot of things are hidden from you. That your textbook tells an optimistic story, but has a glitch here and there, hinting that there is a grimer reality behind it all. And you, having no point of reference to make sense of those glitches, feel utterly lost. And then everything crumbles, as it usually does, and you realize that your own people are not as noble as portraied, but rather are cruel or apathetic, unfair of tyrannical, .. well basically they are people like everyone else.

And this is what is.

I'll stick to living books when I teach my own children.

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