In USA I think it’s all the religious stuff deifying the founding enslavers. Let’s be honest these people were genocidal enslavers, rapists, etc. The “revolutionary war” was largely so that they could maintain slavery and their disgusting privilege. These people are idiotic fash, not the geniuses they’re portrayed as. They were fighting for evil.
This understanding of the history of USA almost completely explains most of its history.
The “revolutionary war” was largely so that they could maintain slavery
The civil war obviously was. The revolutionary war was back when the British were still pretty heavily involved in slavery, though. Is there evidence this was a specific driving factor?
Fighting for evil? I know one example is not enough, and ignores completely the plight of native americans from the founders. But to say they were fighting for evil I would say is a mischaracterization.
Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen (Muslims); and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan (Mohammedan) nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
How could someone evil write something this cool?
Most likely, everyone dead by 1950 was a total bastard, if you measure them by modern standards. If you go all the way back to the 1700’s, that’s could include tolerating or participating in slavery, and of course colonial atrocities.
The American founding fathers were radical progressives for their day, though.
I also can’t say that for certain; John Brown, comes to mind.
The best president is probably FDR, who was also dead by 1945.
Edit: Because it’s kind of funny for me, I’m leaving the John brown part, but you definitely meant people in power.
There are plenty of bright spots if you look.
That Europeans discovered the ‘new world’, and that it was inhabited by ‘savages’ aka people with forgettable cultures, skills, and lifestyles.
Which certainly persists to this day. People saying that the USA is “only 250 years old” while ignoring all of the First Nations/ indigenous peoples. It even ignores all of the European peoples that were there before the it was called USA.
I don’t seem to encounter this with Canada very often which is interesting. And if we are going off of dates the current nation/ government is created why don’t people say “oh well Germany is a young nation, they don’t understand history”?
I mean the USA as a country IS 250 years old, so I’m not sure where the issue is with that statement.
Pictures of the civil rights movement are in black in white even though color photography existed for decades. They’re only in black and white to make kids think it was longer ago than it was.
Color photos were a thing, but they were significantly more expensive than black and white until around the 1970s. They were mostly saved for special occasions.
Plus, news papers didn’t really do much full color until the 80s. Before the mid 50s it was basically just the comic pages that had color. It was the launch of USA Today in 82 that popularized the way newspapers use color today.
Photographers capturing events shoot a lot of film, and there was no compelling reason to shoot in color at the time.
It’s almost certainly isn’t a conspiracy to make students think it happened a long time ago.
They are in black ad white because that was what was frequently used for newspapers and stuff. Color film was often not as clear and the color tech they used was very hard to use with dark skin. So action shots of a march or speech ae just esier to do in black and white at the time.
Schools definitely like to pretend that its over and thats probably why they dont show any color pictures, as there were almost definitely color portraits of MLK and stuff, but the tech was actually a surprisingly limited factor as well.
I first realized that in high school. Where it was showing civil rights photos from the 60s-70s in black and white, and acted like racism was OVER.
It would be interesting if this question prompted people to write the country as well as their answer.
Columbus discovered America.
At least this is what I was taught when I was in elementary school back in the '90s.
I have no idea if it’s changed thus far.
Columbus was the first European to explore Cuban isles. Lief Erickson explored Newfoundland about 400 years before I believe.
Indigenous people discovered and settled the Americas >20,000 years ago.
I was taught Captain Cook discovered Australia, he wasn’t even the first European
He wasn’t a captain either
Neither was Cap‘n Crunch
Everyone knows it was Cap‘n Crunch
It’s especially funny since dude never even touched USA, but USA is racist/genocidal enough to worship dude anyway.
I fucking hate Columbus day.
Let’s pop open the diaraies of his crew mates and him and do a read a loud, then! Let’s talk about it.
I passionately hate Christopher Columbus and the worship of him.
I also despise the fact that it’s a national holiday here in the States. I’m not even sure precisely what it is that we’re celebrating.
I mean if we’re going to commemorate explorers why not Marco Polo or Ponce de Leon or Lief Erikson.
Checks and balances in the US government. Government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Constitutional rights being unassailable.
All these are lies. I think it can be fixed, but it won’t be easy.
I think it can be fixed
I mean, good luck. The Principle-Agent Problem is a classic of sociology, particularly with respect to business. If you can solve it, there’s a Nobel in Economics waiting for you.
Democracy is an attempt at aligning in the interests of the plurality principles with their government agencies. But there’s obviously a whole lot of flaws with democracy generally speaking, even before you get into the particulars of the American system.
I do think that the Lockean Social Contract, as the foundation for any governmental system, is a more interesting and more well-thought-out concept to explore than the mythology surrounding the American three-branch system. Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent does an excellent job of breaking down how a public body can be turned against its own interests. Zinn’s People’s History gives a ton of insight into the underbelly of the American political beast and how people respond to industrial and state oppression. State and Revolution does an excellent job of describing the role of the state in society and how it can best be dismantled.
But the endless debate around whether US Government works as described or intended really loses the forest of social economy for the ideological tent post trees. Fetishization of the US system only contributes to its rot and our own downfall.
You mean Chomsky, the pedo-ally?
The very same.
That’s less a lie and more ‘teaching the ideal.’ The problem isn’t learning how the system is supposed to work. That’s how you learn to be a mechanic. You learn how an engine is supposed to work so you can spot where it’s gone wrong. The issue is more one of there are millions of people and they get 10 minutes on how it’s supposed to work and then only 3 of them go into politics and learn how it actually works/doesn’t work. Democracy requires more than a one week chapter on civics, once a year. We all have to be mechanics, or at least be prepared to try.
Pretty much every history class not so subtly points you to the conclusion that the US had racism, it was bad, but we defeated it so people complaining now are just spoiled.
…when I was a kid. That shit is probably way worse now.
That’s more a Yankee standard education. The semi-former Confederate states are more along the lines of it was good, but good got defeated, so we have to keep up the good fight.
Not really a lie but I’m surprised how little they covered major international events, especially wars like WWI/WWII/Korea/Vietnam, etc.
All of them were basically a 3 paragraph maximum excerpt before you went back to reading about some random local policy or societal change that didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.
Biggest lie though was teaching kids that secondary sources like news publishers were reliable sources of information lol. NYT and the Washington Post sucked a long time before the internet. WP especially was just straight Imperialist propaganda sometimes.
Just because they’re not a primary source doesn’t mean they can’t be biased or reporting false information.
Not really a lie but I’m surprised how little they covered major international events, especially wars like WWI/WWII/Korea/Vietnam, etc.
Is this in the US?
Because the version I learned about in my indoctrination American education was a lot of this was covered, but on a extremely Pro-american slant. Like literally everyone was struggling until America stepped in and stopped the Nazis, communists, etc. Even the narrative around the Vietnam war was that it was Americans helping the poor struggling citizens of Vietnam.
Yeah, I’m guessing the more liberalized history books chose to just omit it as opposed to justifying it.
Most of the things are more or less simplified for children.
I would not go as far as to call them outright lies.
There are many outright lies though. There is also much underestimation of the intelligence of children.
people also get really bent out of shape that history changes… because we learn more about it and historians change their consensus and interpretations of events over time.
Pluto is no longer a planet. It was a planet for a long time, but the definition changed because of new evidence that was discovered.
But people are so stubborn about stupid shit like this, they’d rather ‘protest’ these changes and new interpretations than just chill and be like ‘oh ok, makes sense’. Or god forbid… choose to learn the new information rather than stay stubbornly ignorant about it.
Your teacher in 4th grade wasn’t lying to you about Pluto or anything else, they just didn’t know and they teach what is in the book, and the authors of the book probably didn’t know either.
Omitting important context entirely is not simplification. Just saying ‘these are the words and principals they aspired to, but did not do themselves’ can be conveyed to young children but generally isn’t taught until they are in their teens.
I don’t know if its a lie exactly, but probably the most damaging thing was being conditioned into not defending or speaking up for myself.
I got attacked, thrown into a main road. I was told it was my fault for making myself an easy target because I was playing in some woods after school.
I so rarely ever defended myself because of how scared I was of the punishment being worse than the bruises. I used the internet to escape from it and my parents threatened to take away my PC if I ever got an after school detention. I felt like defending myself was wrong.
The only times I did defend myself was when it was extremely bad and I no longer cared about the possibility of punishment. A guy was sexually assaulting me and I punched him in the face so hard that he completely stopped, almost like his brain rebooted for a good several seconds. Then his nose started dripping blood over the floor.
Teacher was fucking furious with me. When asked why I did it I just looked at the floor and muttered “I don’t know”. I was probably about 14, I didn’t really know what sexual assault was, like maybe if he had been ripping my clothes off? I just knew I didn’t like what he was doing and wanted him to stop.
I remember in school learning about the different areas of the tongue tasting different things, and then we had an experiment to try it, and everyone was like “wow it works!” but I told the teacher it didn’t work for me, and I got told I was doing it wrong =w=
Anywho, the entire thing about different tastes being localized to different areas is bullshit, so that’s 1 point to me and 0 to the teacher
Yah you didn’t succumb to confirmation bias. I knew as a kid this was wrong because they said viewer was treated in the back… yeah then explain when i got laundry detergent on my fingers forgot about it and when to clean my fingernails layer and the tip of my tongue is absolutely tasting bitterness.
Was also confirmation bias in action
We “learned” that in 6th grade science.
I remember the same teacher had a test question which was something like “you and a friend are playing at a landfill, and your friend spills sulfuric acid all over themselves, what should you do?” and the ‘correct’ answer was “pour sodium hydroxide on the spill” instead of my answer of “pour water on the spill.”
I had another science teacher who made a huge deal about her chronic Lyme, which is this really weird alternative medicine thing.
My daughter and I did this for one of her science projects. I would drop lemon juice or sugar water somewhere on her tongue, and she was able to taste everything everywhere.
It was so long ago I don’t remember, but I hope we got a good grade on that one!
Same experiment I had lol. Had to pat down our tongues with a paper towel and then put sugar/lemon/pepper and whatever else on it :3 and yeah, I very much could taste everything everywhere haha
The lesson is to give the authority figure the answer they want to hear so they’ll leave you alone!
This guy works ^
What they teach: humans only have five senses (touch, smell, etc) What is true: humans have ~20-30 senses (including time, balance, and many more)
5 senses
4 states of matter
oil is made from dead dinosaurs
the American Dream
China is evil
Communism is bad
We were taught 5 states (solid/liquid/gas/plasma/condensate (BEC and superconductors)), which has always felt like a decent enough explanation for 3rd graders. If you barely understand how to read a phase change diagram, you don’t really need the confusing duality of being told “hey so this is totally wrong if you’re a chemist, but fundementally true if you’re an engineer” when you’re still iffy on concepts like “vacuum boiling is not witchcraft”.
I’m clearly a bit older (prior to plasma categorized) and was taught 4.
Huh, that’s really interesting. I’d have expected it was prior to condensate being introduced, not plasma, since plasma can be easily demonstrated in the classroom but condensates have really only been easily demonstrable for at most two decades. Very curious - do you remember if you had a standardized curriculum, and if so which one it was?
Honestly I think it was just three now that you mention it and the other reply. Have no clue the curriculum, it was in the 70s.
I also found it weird, I was taught 3 in school, but Plasma was already being considered a different state, just wasn’t taught in schools. Condensate had only just been experimentally created and I didn’t even knew about them until this thread.
Yeah, I graduated high school in 2005, and it was three phases of matter, but there’s also plasma, but we aren’t going to talk about it.
The United States was founded on principles of liberty and equality for all.
Technically, it was founded on the principles of liberty and quality for all. Just not the practices of liberty and quality for all. it was an aspiration, a goal of our forefathers.
But the way they teach it in school is pretty deceptive— as if it was all accomplished magically on that day in 1776, when, even today, it’s a constant struggle— a goal that we’re much closer to, but still remains elusive. that’s the part they don’t teach.
But the way they teach it in school
Nah, I was taught the latter way in school. They pretty explicitly told us about the 3/5 compromise, the lack of voting rights for women, etc. Really, its pretty hard to avoid the idea that all people were not seen as equal in the eyes of the constitution when ratified, when you know that we have a whole unit on the civil war coming up.
it was an aspiration, a goal of our forefathers.
I just do not believe this. These are people who regularly raped their slaves, and then enslaved the progeny.
It was an aspiration for white men specifically. It took centuries for the definition of humanity to expand from that perspective.
While I was taught that in elementary school, I was also taught about the 3/5ths compromise as early as middle school. By the time high school rolled around I was being taught about reconstruction and the corrupt bargain of 1877. I guess I’m lucky I got a good education in the north because I am aware that’s not necessarily the standard nationally.
My AP history teacher gave us copies of Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States as a supplemental to our textbooks. She was an awful teacher overall, but I appreciated her trying to make sure we had multiple perspectives.
Then I went to an elite east-coast private college, where I almost failed US History because I called the professor out for teaching Lost Cause bullshit.
Any academic peddling lost cause bullshit is a complete joke. Just curious, were they from the south?
Of course they were.
He also characterized the 2000 election as “a perfect tie” that could’ve just as easily been decided by a coinflip instead of the more historically agreed upon view of the Supreme Court ratfucking Florida’s recount.
Yeah we talked about colonialism in my middle school.
However, it was discussed as a fact of history, not in terms of a political narrative.
Sometimes moralizing is necessary. In Canada we had one teacher go into detail on the kidnapping of indigineous children and the residential schools they were sent to where they were often beaten or raped. I’m glad that teacher did that since many of my contemporaries were not aware of that history and some remain oblivious into adulthood. There’s nothing worse for a nation than people having a false sense of pride in it (as we’re seeing in the US currently).
In Canada we had one teacher go into detail on the kidnapping of indigineous children and the residential schools they were sent to where they were often beaten or raped
That isn’t moralizing dude. That’s just telling facts.
The moralizing/politicizing part is when you tell the kids that it’s their fault and they should feel bad about it. It isn’t, and they shouldn’t.
I was also taught these things in the south, living in North Florida. As part of a 1 semester Florida history class in middle school, we also went into each of the spanish conquistadors and how they murdered their way across the continent.
If we didn’t have this lie, people wouldn’t be as mad when they found the parts where it is untrue.
the necessary lies of civilisation (timestamp link to 23:16 where discussion starts)
Three Cue Reading Comprehension.
All because phonics had been taught for so long that cheaper options for textbooks began to become available due to copyrights ending.
