I’m currently reading an old book by Lynne Cheney, wife of US Vice President Dick Cheney and former head of the National Endowment for the Humanities, called Telling the Truth: Why our culture and our country have stopped making sense– and what we can do about it. So far, it’s a pretty strong critique of the (then) emerging trend of relativism in academia brought on by post modernism.

Cheney’s book is divided into seven chapters, each addressing a different aspect of the damage done by post modern theory. To make her point, she uses documented examples and presents them in a way that is itself neutral, yet makes obvious the lunacy of the application of relativism to the situation:

Thus, One Nation, Many Peoples recommends that we not burden students with too many names and dates and places: “The information-dominant approach to the social studies curriculum fails as a vehicle for multicultural education.” Instead, we should emphasize that history is “socially constructed,” that it reflects the circumstances in which it is written rather than the reality of the past. We should teach students to appreciate different interpretations and work to open their minds to “multiple perspectives.” We should give credit to to “noncanonical knowledge and techniques"– including, presumably, the kind offered by Leonard Jeffries.

I’m no friend of post modernism, and I’m a strong proponent of schools teaching people how to think and pursue knowledge and truth, as opposed to teaching students what to think and to believe that truth is relative. And this blog would be a great place to expand on that, but I want to finish this book first. I’ll let you know how it turns out.