Telling the Truth: Why Our Culture, Our Country, and Our Schools Have Stopped Making Sense and What We Can Do about It

by Lynne V. Cheney

Book Overview

A prominent conservative spokeswoman charges that an attack on truth is undermining the nation's educational, legal, and political institutions and social mores. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684811014
• ISBN13: 9780684811017
• Release Date: October 1995
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 255 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.8" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

The absolute truth and accuracy in analysis

I have read other books on this subject, and I can unequivocally say Lynne Cheney's analysis and explanation of the cultural decline of our country and the direct connection to liberalism is without a doubt the most erudite book on the subject I have read to date. Anyone who criticizes this book is in the liberal camp and as liberals regularly do will criticize the messenger. No, Lynne Cheney would not have made a better Vice President, as Dick Cheney is one of the best VP's this country has ever been blessed to have. However, she knows her subject matter and writes with clarity and expertise. I highly recommend this book. You are missing out, if you do not read this one! BRAVO,MRS. CHENEY and thank you! I am ready for your next book!

George didn't pick the wrong running-mate, but Dick did!

A previous reviewer suggested that Mrs. Cheney ought to have been Bush's running mate. I think she'd have made a better running mate for Mr. Cheney, i.e. a presidential one!Mrs. Cheney makes so many wonderful points in this book that it's hard to decide where to start.The most striking aspect of the book, and the feature that distinguishes it most from other attacks on academic leftism, is how informed her analysis is. Unlike many critics, she really knows the details of political correctness: its history and early motivations, its original goals and how they differ from its current construals, and the sociological forces that have moved it away from its early ideals.This book, as a piece of intellectual history, is nearly unrivaled by anything written recently.Most insightful are the various comparisons between the political idealogy of fascism and American, leftist, political correctness. Mrs. Cheney knows, as anyone who does a little research, that there is nothing wrong with fascism simpliciter. And very much like fascism, political correctness has been steered off course by a number of malicious forces. Everybody knows that even the fascism of 1930s Germany was what you might call a mixed bag. Had it remained true to its original goals and idealism it might have turned out to be a very positive social system, and may have helped more people than it hurt. Mrs. Cheney would certainly agree. And such is the case with political correctness.My father told me something when I was a boy, and I was reminded of it many times while reading this book. He said, "Son, 99% of the beliefs of 99% of the population are false. It's up to you to find that other 1% of the 1%." The arithmetical mistake aside, it's advice well taken.Cheers to Lynne V. Cheney for finally putting some serious research and careful analysis into a critique of academic leftism. It's about time someone did!

Death to relativism, new life for the humanities

The Republican vice-presidential nominee's wife adds considerable gravitas to the Bush campaign: much more than Lieberman adds "ethicas" to the Gore ticket.Her incisive and highly readable tome decrying the deconstruction of the humanities by latter-day relativists is a refreshing breath of air in today's politically correct climate. If Bush doesn't get elected, Mrs. Cheney's book risks being burned, just as books disagreeing with Nazi positions were literally burned for being "socially incorrect."I found her book more readable than Allen Bloom's "Closing the American Mind" -- mainly because she focuses more on examples than on philosophical underpinnings.She reveals and documents how academics no longer care about facts or excellence. All is judged by how well it advances a professor's political agenda. So relativists are sure to criticize her book for being in opposition to their attacks on objective scholarship. I have no hope that they will respond to Cheney's challenge to:"Try to show I am mistaken if you wish, but do so with sound evidence and sound reasoning. Invective and ..........."They will not, because evidence and logic are precisely what they oppose, such as in the claims that Aristotle stole Egyptian philosophical works from the library at Alexandria (which was not even built before Aristotle's death).America did not listen to Prof. Bloom, an obscure midwestern academic. Perhaps it will listen now to a former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities and a vice-president's wife.

A Prophet Saying What Needs To Be Said!

The author, Lynne Cheney has taken on a subject that needs to be addressed in any modern society. Our societal goal is to make sure our people are free to live in a nation free from fearful hate name calling. The book is a counterbalance against manufactured revolutionary theory, which originates in a few multi-cultural studies departments at institutions of higher learning, and passed on by a lazy pliant media. She points out that many have abandoned the study of truth, removing impartiality, and replacing it with feel good idealism not grounded in reality. Political correctness actually labels people and prevents a free exchange of ideas. The book using quotes and ideas exposes so-called various scholars who are actually marginal to the discipline of history and points out that many do not accurately represent the accountable study of history. The author points out that the better route is a more broaden, encompassing, worldly and diverse approaches in academic life and teachings. If we cannot tell the truth, search for the truth and solve problems from the truth, we can't begin to help others find real solutions. History shows that pioneers end up with arrows in their backs. And Prophets are seldom listen to until it is too late.

excellent-eye opening, america wake up!

Ms. Cheyney takes us out into the real world. What our politicians,school districts and universities are doing to our children and our culture. She documents her stories from FACT, not political correctness, she exposes what is going on in the world of dis-information and situational ethics. Even the word fact has come under assault in today's culture and that's frightening.