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Title: Telling The Truth by Lynne V. Cheney ISBN: 0-684-82534-1 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 17 September, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.19 (21 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Partisan Polemic
Comment: The book begins with an explicit comparison between Mrs. Cheney and "Goldstein," the subject of the daily 'minute of hatred' in Orwell's 1984 (where citizens are required to hurl abuses and invectives at photos of a symbolic, anonymous enemy of the state). While on a partisan level such a comparison is blatant rhetorical martyrdom, it may also be a refreshingly honest glimpse into how Mrs. Cheney sees herself in relation to the 'educated elite' in the US -- innocent effigy incurring the wrath of a totalitarian regime.
In fact, Cheney has more or less co-opted Orwell, liberally sprinkling her chapters with quotes from his works. The quotes underlying intent seems to be to undermine a liberal social agenda and support compassionate conservatism -- a fact which Orwell, a staunch socialist and member of the Workers Party of Marxist Unification who fought for the party in Spain during their civil war, would probably abhor.
Her comparisons of the PC trend to the 'Thought Police,' (in which the most aburd of absurd, and unfortunately true, examples of PC militarism are drudged up), quickly devolve into sweeping condemnation of any intellectual endeavour that cannot be reconciled to her particular brand of political and social conservatism.
Cheney begins the book with a revealing quote. If you already agree with the quote (to follow), there's no need to read "Telling the Truth" unless you particularly enjoy hearing someone repeat what you already believe -- and if you disagree or haven't yet formed an opinion, no need to read "Telling the Truth" because all of her arguments already presuppose you agree on this fundamental level:
"Any attack on intellectual liberty, and on the concept of objective truth, threatens in the long run every department of thought."
George Orwell, "The Prevention of Literature"
Nowhere does Lynne explain how philosophical arguments against objective truth are simultaneously an attack on the freedom of intellectual liberty, but most people intuitively grasp that replacing the idea of Objective Truth and The Answer in the humanities with an absurdly extreme 'anything goes' relativism in which any and all ideas are equally valid just doesn't hack it. Mrs. Cheney tries to tap into fears of this extreme relativism, and at one point claims that children, somewhere in the United States, are being taught that Egyptians flew in gliders. Presuming all archeological and scientific evidence points to the exact opposite, the idea would indeed be absurd. As absurd as, say, Creationism, a subject Cheney does not address on her quest for absurd relativism in our schools. (It's a 'theory' like evolution is 'just a theory' only if the two ideas can't be judged by the same criteria, i.e. the scientific method).
The book is cleaved along partisan lines, and occasionally slips into political bickering involving current (well, 1980s-90s) events and people -- all negative and dastardly examples happen to be of liberal politicians, all forthright and righteous and right examples happen to be of conservative politicians. If you buy this book, be wary of Truths that are so intensely partisan -- and rhetoric that is so intensely political.
Rating: 1
Summary: I didn't actually read this book
Comment: But on the other hand, I think the title is funny. So, there!
Rating: 4
Summary: There should be a zero stars rating for Zeros to use
Comment: Well let's see, my cousin Mike is also Lynne's cousin Mike, which is neither here nor there. Mike used to work at Bethesda Naval Hospital, where he did surgery on Reagan, Bush #1, etc., and I was the first person from SC to make the top 10 in the Science Talent Search (I had as many 800s on my college boards as I'm ranking this book). Bad genes SOMEWHERE... or so my fellow alum Leroy Hood would say.
Caltech- U.S. News & World Reports decided to Tell the Truth for once, a few years back, and rank it #1- used to have the motto "The Truth Shall Make You Free", but that had religious connotations, so they got rid of it.
But back in 1986, a Caltech professor warned- in a Challenger Commission appendix that was granted as a concession to him by the lawyer that headed it (in order to prevent his resignation)- that "In any successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled."
It's because the failure of engineers and scientists to deal adequately with reality (i.e., "the truth") often produces such spectacular and undeniable results (e.g., Columbia, February 2003) that someone having such a background cannot afford the same level of flippancy in this regard (e.g., "I did not have sex with that woman" ... after all, what is "sex"? ... heck, what is "is"?)
And as one who has been a genuine victim of the kind of "diseased minds" alluded to above ("when he lies, he speaks in his native tongue, for he is a liar, and the father of all lies"), I particularly identify with Dr. Feynman's sentiment, generalized in Mrs. Cheney's book.
The criticism that I would make is that Mrs. Cheney does not acknowledge the significantly positive aspects of the 1960s; notably, the opposition to the war in Vietnam that would not have been possible had the United States been anything like the Soviet Union, and generally alluded to by Timbuk 3's 'Big Shot in the Dark': "you used to believe in the power of music, and all that revolutionary stuff... you got it right the first time."
In other words- as echoes the essential message of her book- in a solar system whose sun will eventually burn out, and in a universe that will expand forever into a freezing nothingness, philosophy is all that matters.
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Title: America : A Patriotic Primer by Lynne Cheney, Robin Preiss Glasser ISBN: 0689851928 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Pub. Date: 21 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: A is for Abigail: An Almanac of Amazing American Women by Lynne Cheney, Robin Preiss Glasser ISBN: 0689858191 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Pub. Date: 16 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Academic Freedom by Lynne V. Cheney ISBN: 1878802135 Publisher: John m Ashbrook Center for Public Pub. Date: 01 January, 1992 List Price(USD): $3.00 |
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Title: Kings Of The Hill : How Nine Powerful Men Changed The Course Of American History by Richard Cheney ISBN: 0684823403 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: 09 May, 1996 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Everyday Graces: A Child's Book of Good Manners by Karen Santorum, Sam Torode, Joe Paterno, Michael Lamb ISBN: 1932236090 Publisher: Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) Pub. Date: October, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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