# I knew it was too good to be true: my history teacher and hypocrisy. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 3, 2005, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-knew-it-was-too-good-to-be-true-my-history-teacher-and-hypocrisy/288185 "2005-02-03T16:34:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2005, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-knew-it-was-too-good-to-be-true-my-history-teacher-and-hypocrisy/288185/21 "2005-02-03T18:00:24Z")
> [@CandidGamera](#): > > The proper response was, of course ‘I was in the military more recently than you, pencil-neck!’ Then you tie the bandana around your forehead, and blow him up with an explosive arrow. > > Totally sweet. That’s hilarious. Be sure to scream _“NOTHING IS OVER!”_ in the process. Though there was a time when your computer teacher was right. Windows versions prior to Win95 didn’t have true multitasking, and some would argue that Win95 didn’t, either. If one were trying to be generous, your teacher’s information is simply out-of-date. Way to fight the power, though. Peace out. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2005, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-knew-it-was-too-good-to-be-true-my-history-teacher-and-hypocrisy/288185/22 "2005-02-03T18:01:14Z")
> [@Airman Doors](#): > > For a place that attempts to dispel ignorance, there sure is a lot of it here. Whatever gave you the idea that college was about dispelling ignorance? 😃 In any large educational institution, or any small one for that matter, you are bound to find a few that seek to **promote** ignorance, for whatever reason. It’s just sad that, in my experience, most of them are in the Social Science department. These are the people I teach with every day. At least you’ve realized that you just have to suck it up, keep your head down, and grab the credits. ---
**Author:** ![CandidGamera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/candidgamera/32/2878_2.png) [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2005, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-knew-it-was-too-good-to-be-true-my-history-teacher-and-hypocrisy/288185/23 "2005-02-03T18:04:48Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > Though there was a time when your computer teacher was right. Windows versions prior to Win95 didn’t have true multitasking, and some would argue that Win95 didn’t, either. If one were trying to be generous, your teacher’s information is simply out-of-date. > > Way to fight the power, though. Peace out. If I recall correctly, the class in question was taken in 1998, or possibly '99. And we were specifically talking about the ‘modern’ versions of Windows. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2005, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-knew-it-was-too-good-to-be-true-my-history-teacher-and-hypocrisy/288185/24 "2005-02-03T18:16:23Z")
> [@Epimetheus](#): > > Well, it wasn’t unless you changed your tune: > > [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=5721466#post5721466](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=5721466#post5721466) > > I apologize **Airman Doors** , I must have confused you with someobdy else, though for the life of me I cannot recall. Anyhow, It is obvious this isolated case was something you were just sensitive to, and I agree that the teacher was wrong for giving false information, and even more so for not listening to your experience in the matter. Thankfully not all teachers are like this, though most teachers might get defensive if a student said bullshit to them instead of raising a hand and saying that the information is wrong. Incidentally, this goes hand in hand with my previous rant. School is for learning. As a student I am responsible for learning what the professor has to teach, not for taunting other students for their participation. The other half of that contract is that the professor is not supposed to give erroneous information, because that diminishes the value of the other information, the important nuts-and-bolts stuff that he’s really there to teach. Nobody said that you had to stop learning when you started teaching, yet in this case that seems to be what happened. Next time I expect him to bring up “stress cards” that are handed out to boots in Basic Training like this other dude that I work with (a former Marine who “heard” that they pass them out). :rolleyes: If you don’t know what you’re talking about, don’t say it. If you’re just wrong, accept your rebuke with magnanimity and get on with it. If you perpetuate lies, expect people to call bullshit on you. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2005, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-knew-it-was-too-good-to-be-true-my-history-teacher-and-hypocrisy/288185/25 "2005-02-03T18:30:29Z")
**friedo:** \*Your experience is typical of higher education. That’s what you get when you are taught by people who have never had a real job and have no perspective whatsoever. \* Other people have already called you on this stupid, baseless generalization. I’ll just add that there are also plenty of dummies out there in “real jobs”, outside of academia, who have their heads up their asses and hand out bullshit instead of accurate information. ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2005, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-knew-it-was-too-good-to-be-true-my-history-teacher-and-hypocrisy/288185/26 "2005-02-03T18:34:35Z")
> [@woodstockbirdybird](#): > > On a somewhat tangential note: what is it with history professors? Every single one I’ve ever had has been a stereotypical hippie (a couple even had ponytails, 20+ years out of date). I’m politically pretty firmly on the left, but it always bugged me that the history teachers I had seemed to be teaching from their own ideological perspectives. Hehe. My adviser as I was getting my history degree was a former military man with a tight crew cut who specialized in military history(natch), he rather stood out in a department that included at least one avowed communist, several socialists and a raving pack of lefties. They didn’t even want to be in proximity to him, his office wasn’t even in the history pod, but way down the hall off to one side. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2005, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-knew-it-was-too-good-to-be-true-my-history-teacher-and-hypocrisy/288185/27 "2005-02-03T18:39:34Z")
> [@eponymous](#): > > And may I ask just what a “real job” is? I assume you think that someone who teaches at the college level doesn’t have a real job, else you wouldn’t have made this ridiculous claim. I’d think you might get a bit irked if someone made a sweeping generalization about those involved in comuter science aren’t doing “real work” or aren’t part of “reality”. I know this is the Pit, but come on… You’re right that being a professor is real work and, even in college, which was a thoroughly miserable experience, I had some good ones. And non-coincidentally, I noticed a dramatic correlation: all the good professors had become prominent figures in their fields working in industry or government before ever becoming a teacher. By far, the most ignorant and incompotent teachers were those who had gone to college at 18 and simply never left. They were the ones who felt confident in standing in front of a class and spewing half-truths, misconceptions, urban legends and outright lies that even I, a mere Cecil-reading undergrad knew were bullshit. Acadamia fosters such ignorance because there is little competitive advantage in correcting it. At my job, if I tried to convince my boss that an array lookup occurs in exponential time I would be quickly corrected, lest I tried to optimize for this condition in my code, and my qualifications would probably be seriously questioned. Nonetheless, a computer science professor of 30 years tried to convince me of this extremely elementary fallacy, probably because he’s never written code anywhere that actually mattered. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2005, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-knew-it-was-too-good-to-be-true-my-history-teacher-and-hypocrisy/288185/28 "2005-02-03T18:49:40Z")
Yes, yes, but I have heard of these cards that enlisted are supposed to carry with them in Iraq. I am desperately trying to remember where I heard about them–NPR? Daily Show? Nightly news as a tidbit? It was recently (this fall). Sorry, cannot recall. Maybe that is the source of info for the instuctor? 2 things: I think it is wrong of the teacher to just make blanket statements with no support–no matter the subject. But it is also wrong and shortsighted to just yell out “bullshit” b/c you disagree with a teacher’s statement-no matter your age or job. You didn’t ask, but I would (if I were you) request (civilly) a cite from your teacher–maybe he is an anti-military hippie(?), but then again, maybe he has some info that you don’t know about. IMO, a class discussion about media and the military, “loose lips sink ships” to embedded press is an excellent topic for HS history discussion. A good teacher would see that. No teacher is gonna with, yep it’s ok to yell out BS in my class… ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2005, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-knew-it-was-too-good-to-be-true-my-history-teacher-and-hypocrisy/288185/29 "2005-02-03T18:52:51Z")
**friedo:** _Acadamia fosters such ignorance because there is little competitive advantage in correcting it._ Sorry, but you have just outed yourself as a non-academic bullshit-spewer. I’ve held various jobs both in industry and academia, over the course of about seven and ten years respectively, and I have seen a whole lot of extremely competitive ignorance-correctors in both contexts. I have also seen a whole lot of lazy, ignorance-enabling gamesmanship in both contexts, including in the computer industry. ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2005, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-knew-it-was-too-good-to-be-true-my-history-teacher-and-hypocrisy/288185/30 "2005-02-03T18:59:40Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > The Canadian Forces have similar restrictions. We’re specifically prohibited to talk to reporters “off the record”, to say “no comment” (you’re suposed to direct the reporter to a press liason officer if you can’t comment), to confiscate recording equipment, etc. Gads! Thank goodness I didn’t join the military and instead work for a Fortune 50 company where we have…pretty much the same rules. Of course, i can’t go to jail, but it’s not like the government is the only one that doesn’t want the non-trained to deal with the press whenever possible. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2005, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-knew-it-was-too-good-to-be-true-my-history-teacher-and-hypocrisy/288185/31 "2005-02-03T19:04:04Z")
Just to spell it out, academia provides an institutional “competitive advantage” for ignorance-correction in several different ways: - In teaching, ignorance is anti-competitive because (a) fellow teachers who find you handing out misinformation, or who have to re-educate your former students to correct their misconceptions, will criticize you and work against your re-appointment or your tenure; (b) students who identify your mistakes will criticize you for them on evaluations, which also works against your career advancement. - In research, ignorance is anti-competitive because colleagues in your specialty will savage your publications for mistakes, leading to loss of professional status and opportunities, and again, working against your career advancement. Now, there are certainly plenty of ignorant professors who manage to succeed without correcting their ignorance, just as there are plenty of ignorant people in industry who manage to succeed without correcting theirs. But let’s not infer dumb generalizations about all of academia from those examples. (By the way, some of **my** most brilliant and least ignorant professors and academic colleages have been people who never worked outside of academia. So much for your bullshit theory that it’s only industry experience that teaches people to correct their ignorance.) ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2005, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-knew-it-was-too-good-to-be-true-my-history-teacher-and-hypocrisy/288185/32 "2005-02-03T19:08:41Z")
I’m a history minor at the same uni that Airman attends, and this guy has a rep for being a total bastard. Unless you need a course that he’s teaching, the advice I got was to avoid him at all costs. That said, not all history professors at our uni are raving lefty loonies. The professor I had for History of World Civilizations I and II is hardly liberal, let alone a lefty. I’m taking the same guy for History of the Soviet Union now (which is his field of expertise), and instead of getting hero worship for Lenin, I’m getting a pretty clear-eyed assessment of things. Last semester, my prof for Recent American History was a former Air Force colonel who was recently retired after teaching at the Army War College. Again, this course wasn’t a liberal tirade against the white establishment. Last December, I had the privilege of attending a party given by a member of the History Department. I got to meet at least half of the professors there, and none of them are horribly liberal, either. Most of them take their profession and their field seriously and want to transmit truth to their students, not polemicism. They leave that for the Political Science Department. 😉 Robin ---
**Author:** ![Big\_Norse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/big_norse/32/9954_2.png) [@Big\_Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Big_Norse)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2005, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-knew-it-was-too-good-to-be-true-my-history-teacher-and-hypocrisy/288185/33 "2005-02-03T19:31:08Z")
> [@kidchameleon](#): > > > [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > > > The Canadian Forces have similar restrictions. We’re specifically prohibited to talk to reporters “off the record”, to say “no comment” (you’re suposed to direct the reporter to a press liason officer if you can’t comment), to confiscate recording equipment, etc. > > Gads! Thank goodness I didn’t join the military and instead work for a Fortune 50 company where we have…pretty much the same rules. Of course, i can’t go to jail, but it’s not like the government is the only one that doesn’t want the non-trained to deal with the press whenever possible. I have the same restriction and I work for a small consulting company who just happens to have “industry experts” the press likes to call. I’m not one of them, therefore, I can not be quoted about anything. **Airman** as an Air Force Brat and a former academic, I learned that this sort of thing comes with the territory. History professors tend to lean left, there are some who love military history and therefore respect the military, and there are those who do not. You just have to spot the prejudices of the professor and work around them. If they’re good professors they won’t let their personal opinions get in the way of your education, but since there are bad professors out there, some will. It’s like any other prejudice, sometimes you just can’t win, and you’ll never change their mind. (Being female in a university history department can sometimes be a challenge.) Academia is not the only place you encounter anti-military prejudice, it’s amazing what people assume about my upbringing when they learn that I was a military kid. (And for some reason it seems to bother non-military types that we call ourselves “brats.”) ---
**Author:** ![Big\_Norse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/big_norse/32/9954_2.png) [@Big\_Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Big_Norse)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2005, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-knew-it-was-too-good-to-be-true-my-history-teacher-and-hypocrisy/288185/34 "2005-02-03T19:34:15Z")
And come to think of it, your thread title is misleading. He’s not being a hypocrite, he’s being an ass. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2005, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-knew-it-was-too-good-to-be-true-my-history-teacher-and-hypocrisy/288185/35 "2005-02-03T19:50:57Z")
I worked at a job once at an institution many consider evil, and they did print us up little cards with “spontanious” rebuttles to customer’s objections and complaints. ---
**Author:** ![Mentor\_and\_Liar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/2acd7d/32.png) [@Mentor\_and\_Liar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mentor_and_Liar)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2005, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-knew-it-was-too-good-to-be-true-my-history-teacher-and-hypocrisy/288185/36 "2005-02-03T19:53:17Z")
There may be more truth to it than you think. From the Raleigh N.C. [News and Reporter](http://www.newsobserver.com/nation_world/iraq/story/2008013p-8388436c.html) January 10, 2005: > [@](#): > > Public affairs officers from all the branches of service learn the basics of training troops in dealing with the media at the Defense Information School at Fort Meade, Md. They then tailor the training to their units and coming missions, said Lt. Col. Gerard Healy, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon. Teachers at the school suggest that public affairs officers use some form of the plastic reminder cards. The cards are common but are not universal, Healy said. I used Google to search for “[wallet-card talking points Marines](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&q=wallet-card+talking+points+Marines+&btnG=Search)” The second time I accessed that link, I was asked to register, but it is cached [here.](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&q=wallet-card+talking+points+Marines+%22News+%26+Observer%22&btnG=Search) ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2005, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-knew-it-was-too-good-to-be-true-my-history-teacher-and-hypocrisy/288185/37 "2005-02-03T20:08:07Z")
And that’s fair enough. Note that I did say “in my experience”. I objected to the implication that we aren’t intelligent enough to give the “right” answers. If they’re issued to some people, well, that’s a point in his favor, I’m not ashamed to say. But it’s not universal by any means (especially since I had never heard of it), despite what he claims. And his patronizing “You haven’t been in the military recently” made me wish more than anything else in the world that I had been wearing my uniform. ---
**Author:** ![NurseCarmen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5daacb/32.png) [@NurseCarmen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NurseCarmen)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2005, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-knew-it-was-too-good-to-be-true-my-history-teacher-and-hypocrisy/288185/38 "2005-02-03T20:27:49Z")
The transcript isn’t out yet, but today’s DoD press briefing had a doozie of a quote from a Gerneral serving in Afghanistan (IIRC). You certainly could print that out and make copies to pass out. I’m just guessing, but I suspect that the general wasn’t going off the card. I’ll check tomorrow if the transcript is posted yet. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_H](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a5b964/32.png) [@Bill\_H](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_H)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2005, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-knew-it-was-too-good-to-be-true-my-history-teacher-and-hypocrisy/288185/39 "2005-02-03T21:10:45Z")
Just wanted to point out that in pretty much any organization, be it military, corporate, government or academic, there are rules in place about who speaks to the press (or other outsiders) and what they say. When you’re part of a group and you’re expressing views as a member of that group, you’re no longer speaking as an individual, and you have a responsibility to represent the groups views. ---
**Author:** ![Harborwolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Harborwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harborwolf)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2005, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-knew-it-was-too-good-to-be-true-my-history-teacher-and-hypocrisy/288185/40 "2005-02-03T21:25:07Z")
> [@Bill H.](#): > > Just wanted to point out that in pretty much any organization, be it military, corporate, government or academic, there are rules in place about who speaks to the press (or other outsiders) and what they say. When you’re part of a group and you’re expressing views as a member of that group, you’re no longer speaking as an individual, and you have a responsibility to represent the groups views. Indeed. I had a job working summers at a local State Park and I wasn’t supposed to talk to the media. It never came up, but I still wasn’t supposed to do it. I will say that I am simply amazed at just how deep these cards you people get go. There have been multiple posts by former military and each one is different. If only television would hire these obviously talented writers, then I would have something to watch. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-knew-it-was-too-good-to-be-true-my-history-teacher-and-hypocrisy/288185.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-knew-it-was-too-good-to-be-true-my-history-teacher-and-hypocrisy/288185.md?page=3)