I wouldn’t try to say that everything on Wikipedia is absolute truth… but I would bet it does better than many text books, or at least high school text books. A book I recently read “Lies My Teacher Told Me” explains in detail how censored our high school history text books are. The author feels most of the censorship is due to the idea that editors and publishing companies don’t want to offend anyone and so will not include any controversial information.
For example: Helen Keller was a Socialist, and actively campaigned for a Communist government, using her celebrity status to be heard. She felt that Communism was the only way for the average US citizen to be treated fairly. The author points that after reading twelve high school history books (these twelve books are responsible for almost all history taught to American high school children) only one even mentions her Socialist views, and yet it was really who she was. How can this be ignored? As the author points out, high school history books only discuss her life up until she graduated college. Obviously the people in power in the US hate Communism, but not because it was a military threat. Theoretically, Communism means that all people share their wealth, no one is any richer than anyone else. Is it any wonder that rich and powerful people feared Communism?
Putting this information into text books is likely to offend some idiot that thinks we should only be patriotic cheerleaders, even if it means omitting important information. As you can see the Wikipedia entry, unlike high school textbooks, contains this information.
As long as Wiki articles cite sources, why would schools its use?
What is really interesting is that Wikipedia, to me, shows how companies and the government fight for information, for people’s minds. How? Try Wikiscanner.virgil.gr. This is a site that scans Wikipedia entries, logs their IP addresses, and then finds out where those edits came from. After setting up this site, people found that corporations and governments were editing Wiki entries to hide information, or change how things were worded to make them less damaging. Some examples:
- Diebold, the company that makes electronic voting machines, removed all criticism and controversy about their company.
- “Somebody from the Turkish Treasury removed the part on the Armenian genocide.”
- Someone at the NRA added that Iraq was involved in 9/11 to a 9/11 entry.
- “Dow purges an entire section labeled ‘Environmental and human rights controversies’ that included information about the Bhopal disaster, Agent Orange, and silicone breast implants.”
- Someone at Fox News edited Al Franken’s entry, with respect to his problems with Fox News
- Someone in the Republican party changed the word ‘occupying” to “liberating” in an entry about Iraq. “Over two years after the invasion of Iraq, someone from the Republican party edited the entry on the Baath Party from “In June 2003, the US-led 2003 occupation of Iraq occupying forces in Iraq banned the Ba’th party” to “In June 2003, the US-led 2003 occupation of Iraq liberating forces in Iraq banned the Ba’th party.”"
In “Lies My Teacher Told Me” the author talks about political pressure can change what appears in high school text books. Would Texas allow text books that openly criticized religion, or presented studies that promoted gun control? Would any of the heavily Republican states allow a negative (honest?) presentation of the US “occupation” of Iraq? I doubt it.
But Republicans are not only to blame, and not just politicians either. America is very patriotic, almost Nationalist, and unfortunately a lot of people would take issue with children learning the truth. Like say… how Christopher Columbus was so brutal to American Indians, that women often killed their newborn babies, so that they would not grow up under Columbus’ rule. If an American Indian failed in his gold quota, he cut off fingers or hands.
I would say that Wikipedia is a better tool for children to use. Do any history books talk about the US overthrow of Guatemala in 1954? I posted about this event here, and had thousands of visitors read it. (It was voted up to the front page of Reddit.com) If it was common knowledge that the US had overthrown a *democratically* elected leader of a country, and installed a brutal dictator, why did so many people read my article?
They did because it is NOT common knowledge, except to people who seek out this type of knowledge, or happen to take a college history course that discusses it. (Is there a connection that *government run schools* seem to censor information, but private universities are more open? Possibly because politicians cannot, or at least have a harder time, swaying what books and information a University teaches?) Why is this not taught in high schools? Would our country be so full of blind patriots Nationalists if more of us were taught how the US government REALLY treats poor countries?
If you look at the Wikiscanner page tracing edits on the page about the History of Guatemala you can see where people disagree and change information about Operation PBSUCCESS, the CIA operation that overthrew the Guatemalan government.
You can see people ‘arguing’ over the causes of the coup. Was the United Fruit company’s political pressure to blame, or McCarthyism and the fear of Communism (Arbenz, the president that was overthrown, had allowed all political parties into the country, including the Communist party).
As the author of Lies My Teacher Told Me states: “History is not facts, history is furious debate.”
And most importantly, here on wikipedia, people are debating what forces were mostly to blame for the US overthrowing a democratic government and installing a brutal dictator. In high school text books, the fact that the US did such a thing is not even mentioned. If they DID, possibly more people would have questioned attacking Iraq, and the world would be a much different place. Possibly a nicer place…
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Wikipedia, in my opinion, is about as important a tool for truth and democracy as anything ever conceived. Some schools have banned, or tried to ban its use. Recently though some schools are working with it, not against it. 
