26 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Did Bush Pick the Wrong Cheney to be Vice-President?, October 20, 2000
This review is from: Telling The Truth (Paperback)
Lynn Cheney's intelligent book greatly enhances the body of literature dealing with America's cultural decline over the past 30-40 years. Her positions are astutely made, and the work is rich in specifics. Unfortunately, it was Mrs. Cheney's brave refusal to hold back that serves as book's sole drawback. Her graphic descriptions while generally appropriate can be nauseating at times. In her discussion of the assault on the arts, she references many the shock displays regurgitated into public view by too many so-call museums. There is just no tasteful way to relate "exhibits" that feature animal carcasses, human waste products, or pornographic debris that would make Bob Guccioni jealous. The one instance where the frank minutia seems gratuitous is the recounting of a heinous family murder that begins chapter 3. Readers may wish to skip this anecdote rather than forego a few nights sleep.
Beyond this tendency to lay it all on the line, Mrs. Cheney can hardly be faulted for the brilliant dialectic. A good portion is devoted to the revisionist theories currently being force fed to college students-especially in humanities-related studies. She rightly comments on the execrable danger presented by the one-sided indoctrination that has replaced factual learning and the presentation of multiple perspectives in America institutions of higher learning. The author, herself, demonstrates an exceedingly open mind; she speaks of the good aspects she sees in philosophies such as feminism, multi-culturalism, and Afrocentrism, even though she finds militant versions of these perspectives harmful.
The title of the book concerns the overall dismissal of the concept of truth that Mrs. Cheney explains is threatening so many segments of our culture. She does not truckle in the face of her imperious adversaries, boldly stating, "when we find ourselves faced with situations that violate good sense-whether it is how our children are being taught or how our legal system is abandoning the principles that have long undergirded it-we should, each of us speak out about what we see. We should not let ourselves be intimidated by seemingly sophisticated statements about how there is no reality and thus no truth."
This book was published in 1995 when her husband's political career seemed to be in permanent hibernation, but it does contain some forward-looking criticism of Al Gore. Reviewing the vice-president's controversial environmental tome, she castigates his animus toward western civilization and the infallibility of truth. She opines "as Gore describes it, the worldview that led to the scientific revolution has been responsible for everything bad (including `the atrocities of Hitler and Stalin') and nothing good, which does cause one to wonder what worldview the vice president imagines gave rise to anesthesia, (the) polio vaccine, and--his pet project-the information superhighway.
Any credible book that advocates veracity naturally criticizes Bill Clinton for his inimical views on truth and his widespread effort to disgrace the concept. Let's hope that this work serves as a fortuitous augur of an era that celebrates and strives to emulate all that is honest and noble in our American heritage.
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2.0 out of 5 stars
Who "Wrote" this Disservice?, July 12, 2011
This review is from: Telling The Truth (Paperback)
This book came about using data ( and Writings) compiled by her underlings at NEH during her tenure there. Her underlings were of her same political bent. She went into the chairmanship of the NEH with these political ideologies and uses anecdotal evidence to make a broad-based claim on the state of humanities as a whole. She's attempting to prove what she already believed, not searching for the truth--which is the point of humanities study. She was appointed to the NEH because of who her husband was, not because she cares or even engages in humanities studies. She believes that the study of history should solely encourage patriotism (see all her other books)and her remarks about history standards in high schools should show us that she cares nothing for true humanities study. What she and all her defenders fail to see is that history hasn't changed, but the information we now have allow us to see it as the complicated monster that it is. She should never have been chair of the NEH. She doesn't have the knowledge or mind for it. We study the humanities because they are supposed to help us shape our future--they are correctives for human thought. They show us where we went right, where we failed, and only through their studies can a democratic society progress. That is not what this book is about. This book is meant to be inflammatory, to inspire anger, which is on the opposite side of reason. She wants you to believe that the hoof is the whole pig, and for that, she has done us all a disservice.
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15 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
excellent-eye opening, america wake up!, August 27, 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: Telling The Truth (Paperback)
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.
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