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Date: | Thu, 24 May 2007 09:20:59 -0500 |
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Lyle E. Browning wrote:
Kids who grew up in the 50's were certainly taught a rosy view of our
past. Into the 1960's that was still true. Then came the counter-
culture, exploring all sorts of things that were seen anything in
opposition to the stultifyingly dull, the insipid Leave It To Beaver
type of life. The bloom came off the rose and we then discovered the
downside of past hero type folks. Rather than having the maturity to
say, "whoa, these guys weren't all perfect, but they had some good in
them", that they were imperfect but did good things, we did the bi-
polar thing and consigned them to the trash heap. Was that idealism?
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My wife took a senior course at Temple University a year ago which used the
book, "Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era" by Elaine
Tyler May (1999). The book is about white Americans in the 50s. You would
not know there were African Americans in the U.S. except for a few brief
remarks including one in the introduction, "Although the nation remained
divided along lines of race and class, and only members of the prosperous
white middle and working classes had access to the surburban domesticity
that represented the "good life," family fever swept the nation and affected
all Americans."
Why don't those who are complaining about "PC" history give us some examples
of exactly what they object to and a few examples of "PC" texts widely in
use in universities. There are certainly none that I am aware of that are in
use in high schools. Don't you think seniors in high school are mature
enough to hear that their country has sometimes behaved in a less than
perfect manner?
Paul
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