Heroification of Thomas JEfferson

It is hard to think of a figure in the history of America who has been portrayed as an evil person who was out to hurt our grand country other than a few obvious figures. As students, we are bombarded by positive images of everyone from our first president George Washington to our current president George W. Bush. While there is nothing wrong with pointing out the amazing accomplishments of these men, there is a problem with our current view of most of our history. We as Americans have a skewed image of our past; due to the poor representation by most textbooks, many “famous” Americans, who were actually sneaky and cruel people, are seen as heroes because of the fact that most textbooks tend to heroify many people.

“Heroification, a degenerative process that makes people over into heroes.”

This definition is taken directly from Loewen. IN his preface and his first chapter, he goes in depth to try and explain how he feels that most people are made out to be someone that they are not. Now, it is not as simple as that, there are many things that need to be taken into account. He feels that this takes place in the majority of Americans history books and is quite

detrimental. Because of this, Loewen feels that we have an altered view of our past; we think we are a much greater people than we actually are. This, in turn leads to us as Americans having an ego problem, as we feel that we are better than any country out there. Now “heroifying” someone is not as easy at it seems. To do this, many steps must be taken. The first thing that textbooks do is give unequal time to certain people. It is very obvious that most white male leaders are given more credit than minorities. Additionally, males dominate over females in terms of credit given as well. Next, there is the light in which most people are portrayed. Loewen uses the examples of Helen Keller and Woodrow Wilson in his first chapter. When we first hear those two names we more than likely think of what amazing people they were and the obstacles that they had to overcome to achieve what they achieved. However, in reality these two people were much different than they were portrayed. Loewen feels that most textbooks are guilty of showing people only in a positive light, not giving both sides of the story. Most textbooks simply state the good things that people achieved and not the bad. The reason for this is simple. We as Americans do not want to feel as though we are not a great and amazing country. Therefore, we portrayed our historical figures in a positive light so we feel that we are a great people who are capable of achieving anything. Finally, Loewen feels that another injustice is that people that hold high positions are given more praise than those that do not hold a prestigious office. For example, most textbooks have something about every single president of the United States, even the ones that did nothing in office to help our country. He feels that this is because of the fact that most textbooks want students to think that since he was a president, he had to be an amazing person and that he had to help this country out in someway. Overall, all of these factors lead to the fact that Loewen feels that most of the textbooks out there give a skewed image of our ancestors because of the fact that we as Americans d

Some topics in this essay:
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