In 3rd period last Thursday, we as a class debated upon whether or not Texas should take Thomas Jefferson out of the history books because his idea of the separation of church and state. I however do not believe that this should even be an option because he is one of America's Founding Fathers. I honestly do not think we should have the right to delete people out of history just because some of us do not believe in his ideas. Very few people are fans of Hitler, yet we still keep him in our textbooks because his actions made an impact on history. If we were to erase hum out of our textbooks, then what is stopping us from deleting other people out as well, or even changing how we view these people.
The history books are biased in ways because we are telling history from our point of view. There really is no way to make the textbooks completely unbiased because even with the facts, there are slight opinions.
This idea of changing the texbooks parallels with 1984 with the quote "The past controls the future." If we were to alter the past, we would never know about the changed events in the future. We might never know of Thomas Jefferson as a Founding Father; he never existed. How are we given the power to change events. It shouldn't be as easy enough to alter facts and replace them with new information!
History is a priviledge to learn about and to look after. We should cherish all of it no matter its harshness.
Yours Truly,
Deana
Hey there Deana :)
ReplyDeleteAlthough a bit short, your post was pretty good. I definitely agree with your statement about how no person should be deleted from history, just because we may not agree with their opinions or ideas today. Who are we, to try and alter the past? Everything that has happened up to this point in history has made an impact on the state of the world today, whether we realize it or not. Every single person who has lived in this world has made some sort of print on history, whether we recognize them or not in the textbooks.
I especially like the statement in the last paragraph when you said "History is a privilege to learn about and look after. We should cherish all of it no matter its harshness." I have come to believe that this is true. We are human beings, and we make mistakes. We should take those mistakes and not be ashamed of them, but learn from them, so that we do not repeat the past.