In Texas It's Hard to Tell the Lions From the Jackels

A couple of points of Werther's criticism that must be called to account are: First, I am neither weary nor patrician. Those who know me will attest. Such characterization only serves to denigrate my sincerity. Second, although Werther correctly describes the essential quality of the epigram, and properly reminds us that H. L. Mencken was given to witty remarks, it is wrong to cast that characterization upon the serious statements of serious men like Toller, Santayana and Herodotus, among others. Yes, perhaps Mencken and certainly Ambrose Bierce engaged in irony, satire and even outright lies to make their own points clearer and more clever, but such a literary device shouldn't detract from the honest meaning each of them gave to what they said about History. As another friend of mine remarked, it's sometimes hard to tell the difference between irony and History. For many it's a matter of taste. As a writer of fiction, quite literally a teller of stories, I often see the truth in what is wholly made-up.

And as a civilized man I did not mean to imply that the barbarians making up the History curriculum for Texas' schools even know what a foible is. If they did, I don't doubt they would happily stab such into the gut of Thomas Jefferson instead of simply erasing him. Be it with or without a sword, I have never doubted the earnestness of those in Texas determined to have their own way with the truth and call it History. They don't take it lightly and neither do I.

However, this is a free country and still a representative democracy. In the grand scheme of the universe, quite often we get what we deserve. That may be especially true in Texas these days. The United States is also a big country. Nobody has to live in Texas. Certainly parents with school-age children can vote with their feet. Maybe some will. Perhaps many of them. There are lots of large companies with offices in Texas. When they begin having trouble recruiting top candidates because of Texas' schools, you can be sure it will be noticed. And if those entrusted with buying textbooks in other states are so easily cowed by the choices of the Texas School Board, well admit it — there's no hope for any of us is there? I think that argument is a hoax, a monster under the bed, textbook terrorism meant only to scare not inform. The nation's largest public school systems will not buy into this nonsense.

Finally, while I am hardly ambivalent or relative on the subject of historical accuracy and institutional propaganda, I try not to be hypocritical either. The intentional falsification of History is not just the policy in Texas. It is, and always has been, The American Way. The list of things in our own national story which we systematically cover-up, obscure and deny altogether — beginning with hundreds of years of racial slavery and the genocidal annihilation of the people living on this continent before we got here — is too long and painful for the comfort of any civilized psyche, mine or anyone's.

Werther no doubt understands that History must have a perspective and so too must those who read it. So, I leave him — whoever he really is — with the closing lines from Stanley Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon." It is a lesson to all historians and to all of us.

"It was in the reign of George III that the above-named personages lived and quarreled; good or bad, handsome or ugly; rich or poor, they are all equal now."

Richard Greener, a critically acclaimed author and former broadcast industry executive, blogs at PAPADABLOGGER and the Huffington Post.