Leaving art out of history

the lost angeles times ^ | 08.26.07 | richard pells

[ken21]

The vast majority of American historians no longer regard American culture as an essential area of study. Instead, what they care about is social history -- the struggles and hard-won accomplishments of women, workers, African Americans, Latinos, Asians and Native Americans in a country often inhospitable to the poor and the powerless.

[ken21]

concise article.

our european and american cultural heritage is being used by socialists.

[Borges]

Rather the study of the circumstances of production of said culture has taken precedence of the cullture itself.

[ClaireSolt]

Multiculturalism inhibits the understanding and evaluation of culture. The most prominent American historians and heads of the big organizations are communists. I was in academe until 1987 and didn't see that coming, at all.

Social history has added an interesting dimension but the dialectical inclination of the professors gives them tunnel vision. I am amazed that practicing Afro American historians never acknowledge that slavery was an institution throughout history. They see some unique injustice in the experience of their ancestors. That is not what studying history is for.

A lot of this came into clear focus when I found out that teachers came from the lower social strata. They have a chip on their shoulders and wear it like a badge of courage. I thought they were hard to get along with and changed professions.

[irv]

the fixation with social history has led to a severe case of tunnel vision among American historians, an almost exclusive preoccupation with the exploited and victimized, along with an oppressive orthodoxy about what kinds of courses should be taught and who should be hired at universities.

The problem is much worse than merely that they fail to teach important things. The things they do teach are selectively one sided.

Within the last five years I've taken 2 classes in American history and 2 in "World" history. I was relieved when I found only a little blatant anti-American propaganda in the world history courses, after having to endure so much of it in American "history."

[Chode]

lets see. they've sold themselves, to themselves, from the beginning of time, right up to this very day...

it's only the few hundred years they were selling each other to whites that they have a problem with? is that about it???

[knarf]

"The vast majority of American historians no longer regard American culture as an essential area of study. Instead, what they care about is ....

Now isn't this just something.
Not the majority ... but the vast majority ... of American historians.

I haven't read the article, but I surmise that these "historians" are in fact publishers of books for public schools ... just another means of 'justifying' their existence.

[Sherman Logan]

a country often inhospitable to the poor and the powerless

This is the problem in a nutshell.

Any realist looking at history would realize the poor and powerless have generally had it better here than just about anywhere else. That's why they came and continue to come here whenever they can.

But the historians don't compare America to other real countries, they compare it to their own imagined ideal of absolute justice.

Not surprisingly, we don't look so well in that comparison.

Other countries, of course, are not compared to the same ideal. That would be racist and ethnocentric.

[ClaireSolt]

Well, my father’s family was Irish. So, if I wanted to, I could fixate on how St. Patrick and others were enslaved by Irish in the sixth century. 25% of the people in the Roman emmpire were slaves.