Centers of Power and Control

By Miguel Reinoso

Students in high schools and colleges are required to memorize a lot of stuff, frequently disconnected from a relevant context that provides the links to our present world. Most history teachers and instructors do not go beyond the content material of an officially approved textbook. Very seldom history instructors provide their students with history sources and material for critical thinking and analysis of the forces behind the present world order.  The major problem occurs with the study of history since the colonial times.

High school students in the United States or Latin America take history classes because they are required, but they perform very poorly. Most of the time students of history in high school and college study just enough to pass their tests.  Most of what they memorize starts to fade away immediately after the test.

The interesting thing about history, as James W. Loewen says, is that “outside of school, Americans show great interest in history. Historical novels … often become bestsellers.” (Loewen, 1995)

The reason why history classes are so boring in most schools is because they are based on textbooks, which in order to be aproved by the officials who deal with educational policy, need to go along with the modified history version of the people in power. Domination systems are passed from one generation to the next, expanding their control and sophistication in order to shape the minds and customs of people in order keep them under control. However, we must understand that, just as the laws of physics in the physical world cannot be violated, our actions in the social world will always bring equivalent reactions spreading in different directions.

According to Newton's first law of physics an object at rest remains at rest and an object in motion continues to move at the same velocity, unless an external force is exerted upon it. In any case, any action causes a reaction of equal force, even though such reaction sometimes may not be perceived by our human senses. When we speak about communist and socialist countries, the ex-Soviet Union, and the capitalist world, we need to look objectively at the historical forces that lead those parts of the world in that direction. It is easy to condemn an individual, gorup, or society based on our perceptions of the reality and the information we have, but it is much harder to look objectively at our actions and its consequences. In the Christian world, the Apostol Paul also stated that our all our actions have consequences, which he stated in agricultural terms: "A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life." (Ga. 6:7)

An analysis of the forces leading to the Volshevik rise to power in Russia should include a study of the expansionist tendencies of the British, the French, and the Germans, and the occupation of Russia by the United States after World War I.

“Errors in history books often go uncorrected, partly because the history profession does not bother to review textbooks,” says Loewen. But also because the knowledge of the real world would open the minds of people, would help them to understand the roots of the problems in our societies, seek changes, and overthrow the dominating groups from power.