Howard Zinn and public education.

by: pageian

Great post by Adam Baldwin at Big Hollywood regarding Howard Zinn and his attempt to indoctrinate students into his blame America first view of the world.  In Zinn's best selling book "A People's History of the United States" he states that:

"Objectivity is impossible, and it is also undesirable… because if you have any kind of a social aim… then it requires that you make your selection on the basis of what you think will advance causes of humanity.". 

Essentially Zinn is arguing for the old liberal mantra that it's better to look good than to feel good, that being politically correct is more important than actually being correct.  Zinn believes that you can change history to whatever you want it to be as long as your motives for doing so are to influence those studying your version of history towards socialism and socialist causes.

This is the crux of socialism to me, the facts don't really matter, it's what you want to believe and want to be real that is important.  If you want to believe in global warming or if it's important to you because of the social credibility it gives you with people who like to act like they care then you can ignore any inconvenient facts.  Facts such as the temperature hasn't gone up in over ten years, scientists have been routinely hiding and destroying any data that doesn't support their predetermined conclusions and that they've been lashing out at anyone who disagrees with them in an attempt to kill any discussion on the matter.  The facts, in this case, don't really matter to liberals because they think their goals supersede any need for intellectual honesty.  Liberal goals, by the way, always seem to revolve around some anti-capitalist agenda.  In a good liberals mind everything that's wrong with the world always comes back to capitalism even if the facts and real history show that capitalism has done more to raise the quality of life around the world many times over compared to socialism.  The fact that nearly every country that's tried socialism has failed miserably and lowered the standard of living while inviting miserable suffering and human rights abuses doesn't compute with a liberal.  They think they know better and if only they had the final say socialism would instantly work.

These are the types of things Howard Zinn is trying to bring to public education.  Socialism and history as he sees fit.  He ignores the many great things his own country has done and focuses on the things that he thinks are bad, distorts the truth and molds it into a reality that blames America and capitalists for everything that he perceives to be wrong.