Telling the truth

America is in the middle of a vast experiment, says Lynne V. Cheney, testing whether a society can thrive when more and more of its citizens doubt the importance of truth - or even whether such a thing as truth exists. Schoolchildren are being taught that the ancient Egyptians flew in gliders. University students learn that science is a white male conspiracy. In fields ranging from history to law, scholars and practitioners alike argue that their goal is not truth but the advancement of politically useful views. Journalists fall into the same pattern when they disdain objectivity and use the news to advance their viewpoints, as do psychologists who help their patients "recover" memories of events that never happened. Public figures tell us one thing today and another tomorrow and blithely accuse those who point out their inconsistencies of an "excess of literalism." In our postmodern world, everything has become relative. "Truth," according to a film at the Whitney Biennial, has become nothing more than "what is believed.". As Telling the Truth reveals, the battle against this irrationality is being waged on all fronts - not just on college campuses, where "political correctness" has been spotlighted, but in schools, in the workplace, in popular culture and the media, in the legal system, in politics and government. Telling the Truth is a systematic expose of the ways in which all of the doctrines that have come to the fore in our postmodern era - from multiculturalism to critical legal studies, from radical feminism to critical race theory - have affected not only the academy but also the wider society, where they threaten the foundations of our legal, political, and social order. Cheney shows in revealing detail how government agencies at both the state and federal level have funded scholarship, programs, and exhibitions that are part of the assault on truth. Most citizens, she contends, would object to these activities - if only they knew about them. A cry of alarm and an impassioned call to arms, Telling the Truth is essential reading for an understanding of America's intellectual and moral crisis.