The state of Florida has been roundly criticized for educational reforms that have not pleased teachers’ unions, administrators, or the radical left. Among some of the more pointed criticisms are claims that slavery is not portrayed as evil as it should be; that Joe McCarthy is presented as an anti-Communist hero rather than the demagogue he actually was, who created “Red Scares” and “witch hunts”; and that the new U.S. history curriculum sacrifices “scholarship” for a biased, overly positive narrative about America.
The criticisms are largely cherry-picked and designed to create national revulsion rather than soberly critique a new approach to teaching about America. McCarthy was, in fact, an “anti-Communist hero” and a dangerous demagogue at the same time. McCarthy raised awareness about disloyalty in the government, as the Venona intercepts later confirmed, at least in some cases. The Wisconsin senator’s methods were crude, scattershot, and ended up ruining many innocent lives. But to dismiss him, as most on the left do, conveniently leaves out the dire threat some of those government employees posed to the security of the U.S.
As far as the way to teach slavery, it’s hard to understate the evil of the “peculiar institution.” It was brutal and inhuman, and no one, as far as I can tell, claims anything different. One of the requirements is to teach that enslaved people “developed skills” for their “personal benefit.” No amount of pettifogging by the left can make that statement untrue. The question is, does it portray slavery as anything but evil? Putting a positive spin on a tiny part of slavery as an institution hardly minimizes the brutality or the immorality of it, and the curriculum reflects that unmistakable moral judgment.
What Florida and several other states are wrestling with is the development of a new paradigm that sees the United States in a more positive light while taking an unabashed view of our troubled history. Highlighting America’s undeniable contributions to the freedom and liberty of mankind does not cover up our sins. Pointing to U.S. leadership in the modern world in a largely positive light does not mean that our mistakes and errors are forgotten.
The left wants to revel in our sins and errors in judgment to the exclusion of our enormous contributions to improving the human condition. Florida appears to have found a good balance in Hillsdale professor Wilfred M. McClay’s Land of Hope: An Invitation to the American Story as a recommended textbook. Compared to Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, which is often used in Advanced Placement (AP) classes, McClay’s treatment of American history gives a far more complete picture of the American story.
Encounter Books sat down with McClay for a penetrating interview about the thinking that went into writing Land of Hope.
We have long had a need for a well-written and appealing history of the United States that, while being informed by the best scholarship, does not lose sight of the big picture about our nation’s admirable and exceptional history. Too many of today’s textbooks are overburdened with detail and disfigured by partisan animus, and leave students of the American past confused, ill-informed, and unprepared for the task of citizenship in a free society.
In my youth, there was a broad consensus about American history: the good, the bad, the spectacular, the evil. Encounter Books asked McClay, “How did Americans lose confidence in their own story?”
Some of this came about for reasons that are entirely commendable. We have had, and continue to have, serious national problems, such as our problems of racial inequality, missteps in our relations with other nations, and other problems that show us to be in conflict with our national creed and our deepest values. We are very far from being perfect, and it has been important for Americans to face up to these problems, rather than pretend that they do not exist. Self-criticism is both healthy and necessary in our form of government.
The trouble comes when the self-criticism loses all sense of perspective, and becomes relentless and corrosive, taking the nation’s flaws as the totality of its being. We have to agree before we can disagree. The loss of basic consensus, and the consequent erosion of our sense of patriotic membership and national unity, have made the solution to our problems far more difficult.
“Generally, traditional texts address industrialization after the Civil War with trepidation. A few words are offered in support of free enterprise and the amazing economic accomplishments of the period, but the story is overshadowed by coverage of ‘robber barons,’ the growth of labor unions, strikes, income inequality, and urbanization,” writes Mark C. Schug in a review of the book for EconLib.
Indeed, it’s here that the portrayal of the government as “heroic” comes in. The passage of the progressive agenda in the early 20th century, which gave the government power over the economy, is portrayed as an unalloyed positive.
As with almost everything in American history, there was much good that came about as a result of the passage of that agenda, as well as much that can be criticized and even condemned. McClay, unlike Zinn and many leftist historians, understands that simple fact, which makes his textbook an excellent counterweight to the left-wing denunciations of everything American.
Florida’s reforms appear well thought out and are a good starting point for further tweaking of America’s story.
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