"New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common."  –John Locke (1632-1704)

          Maybe because we see ourselves as a Good People, we inherently attach noble motives to the most violent and barbarous acts of our government.  This is where we have to read alternative history, not just the history of our high school textbooks, or our patriotic apologists.  Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States is as good a place as any to begin our search.  Mr. Zinn presents a well-researched, sober view of the history of our country that focuses on the "others" in the story.  For example, he explores the settling of Plymouth Rock and Jamestown from the point of view of the displaced natives.  Along the way, he dispenses with many of the myths surrounding the coming of age of the United States.  Some people would rather not know the truth about these things; others simply refuse to believe that what they've "known" all their lives could possibly wrong.  The default defense in both of these cases is to then label books like A People's History un-American, or unpatriotic, or liberal hogwash, when all Mr. Zinn is trying to do is his job as a historian: getting closer to the historical truth, which includes seeing the picture from the point-of-view of all who were involved, not just the white Euro-settlers.  This point-of-view seems radical because it is so far removed from what we have been taught for the better part of our lives. It may be a little more painful, but it doesn't make it any less true.  Should Mr. Zinn’s be the only book we read about American History? Certainly not, but this book, or one like it, should be one of the books we read to help us see the whole picture.
          All countries, all empires, have their birthing myths, and their tall heroes striding across the pages of their history books; our history is really not that much better or worse than any other.  Like most countries and empires, we are fed a version of this history designed to foster patriotism, loyalty, and the readiness to serve one's country in time of need–there's nothing unexpected or inherently wrong about this.  The interesting thing about it to me is that the citizens of our country are among the last to understand the truth.  
          To use but one example, we've been told all of our lives that Christopher Columbus "discovered" America.
Of course there have been those who have said for a long time that Columbus couldn't have possibly discovered a place that already had a teeming population in the tens of millions; but it has recently become fairly common and public knowledge that the Chinese made all of these voyages and many, many more, seventy years before Columbus ever thought about his voyage; that they discovered and mapped the "Magellan Straits" almost one hundred years before Magellan; that they knew the benefits of fruit as a preventative for scurvy hundreds of years before the "Limeys" did; this list could go on.  What I find interesting and cogent to the point is that this has been known by those that make it their profession to know such things (mapmakers, historians, professors, anthropologists, etc.) for hundreds of years, but the Columbus "concept" has been a hard one to unhitch with "facts." Christopher Columbus was a brave, intelligent, deeply-flawed sailor who, to put it gently, almost certainly did as much harm as he ever did good, and whose claim to fame should be limited to being probably (but not necessarily) the first European to sail to the Caribbean. Instead, well, we know the rest.
          The entire history of the European settlers' dealings with the Native, or Aboriginal Americans has been subject to one long revision, almost in inverse proportion to the receding "threat;" once the settlers had safely corralled what was left of the natives into their "pens," or reservations, they began to examine their consciences and methods, and more critical views of their own behavior were advanced.
          Even Benjamin Franklin, one of the greatest Americans of all, has a confession to make from beyond the grave.  Of all of the things that he is justifiably famous for, the one thing that he is probably most famous for is the kite and the lightning in the bottle.  It seems to have never happened.  He wrote about trying it, but it has lately come to light that he didn't actually do it.  
          Karl Marx is famous for a quote, "Religion is the opiate of the masses." This quote has been used over and over again, and has in many ways defined what many in the West know about Karl Marx.  In fact, the full quote is this: "Religious suffering is at one and the same time the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering.  Religion is the sigh of the oppressed culture, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions.  It is the opium of the people."  That middle sentence is beautiful; how many times have we ever heard that one attributed to Karl Marx? Does this quote alone mean therefore that Karl Marx was a great guy and we should adopt all of his theories? Certainly not, but reading the whole quote does put the most famous part of it in a different light.
          These can be described as "alternative histories."  They are neither "left" nor "right," although some historians indeed have a pointed story to tell.  They are well-researched, well-documented versions of events that long ago passed into an almost unchallenged rite of passage for schoolchildren in the Western World: learning about the Great Discoverers, the Founding Fathers, the taming of the Wild West, and Manifest Destiny.  More and more of these alternative histories have come to light–many simply because the science and technology have gotten better, many because diligent and sometimes courageous historical detectives have challenged the myths.  Since these more recent findings challenge some of our most dearly held concepts about Who We Are, they tend to be dismissed, or ignored, or even demonized.
             
          Much of what is embedded in our collective psyches about the settling of the western frontier has come from a form of cinema known as the Western. The great Hollywood director John Ford is more responsible for what Americans know about their relentless push across the continent in pursuit of lebensraum than any historian.  The myths of the Wild West are many, while the true story is harder to come by.  Many Americans would just as soon leave it that way.
          I think that most citizens tend to swallow the myths of their own country, while having a much more jaundiced opinion of the myths of other countries.  This is why people from other parts of the world sometimes look at our foreign policy decisions with such scorn: they often know us better than we know ourselves.  We have a particularly bad case of myth believing in our country, partially because we are still quite young.  Nobody has ever stuffed our myths down our throats...yet.  Most other countries and empires at some point in their histories were forced at the point of a gun (or a spear, or flaming arrow, or nuclear bomb) to confront their myths.  Not us... not yet.  Vietnam, I suppose is where we lost our "myth virginity."  We were made to realize, as many a child does at some point early in their teens, that we are not invincible.  One doesn't win every single game.  We found out, via the attacks of 9/11, that we aren't invulnerable, either.  This is a hard fact for most Americans to swallow, and it has led to the desire for revenge.                  
          We're still a nation in our adolescence–gullible, volatile, vain, stubborn, and self-absorbed.  A rich teenager. A rich teenager with no guardians.  Rich enough to say to hell with parents, teachers, relatives, anyone–we can do what we please when we please because... who's gonna stop us?  There's no doubt that every empire at the top of their game has echoed these sentiments. And every last one of them has come tumbling down.
 
         "The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic."  –John F. Kennedy