Telling the Truth: Why Our Culture and Our Country Have Stopped Making Sense--and What We Can Do About It

by Lynne V. Cheney

Challenging the rhetoric of multiculturalism, radical feminism, critical race theory, and other popular trends, Lynne Cheney calls for the restoration of truth and reason to a central place in our lives. In Telling the Truth, Cheney gives us a detailed examination of American cultural and political institutions, journalism, and education. She shows how a disdain for objective truth and principles has created a moral and intellectual crisis that threatens the foundation of America's legal, political, and social order.

Genres: Politics, Cultural

256 pages, Paperback

First published October 16, 1995

Reviews

[Erik Akre · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this book in a period of wanting to understand thinking that opposed my own values. I thought that understanding the conservative viewpoint would give me a better understanding of myself. The book would receive a higher rating from me, if I took into account what it taught me. Since I was taught negatively, and since the book is so narrow-sighted and presumptuous, however, I had to rate it low. The one-star rating is not just about mediocre writing and bland argument; it's also about my strong disagreement with her ideas. These ideas threaten the diversity and richness of our American culture, and their ultimate purpose is to obliterate opposition to the power structure as it is.

The book was written a while ago, maybe ten years or more, back to when Dick Cheney was our vice president. Lynn Cheney, I think, would not have had the authority to publish a book like this if not for her high position in government at the time.

So, can you hear the voice of the powers that be in her argument? Listen: Cheney is concerned with "truth" having different meanings to different people. She is concerned that our society is trying to contradict the truth that some must win, and some must lose. She is concerned with ideological "disunity" in the American populace. She is concerned with our doing away with "norms of success, effectiveness [and] efficiency." She is fearful of postmodernism, and confusion, chaos, and uncertainty. Stick to the status quo, she says, and all of these things will go away. "Multiculturalism" is the enemy; why can't everyone be the same? (Pesky, annoying opposition!)

What clinches this book as garbage is the fact that Cheney offers no argument as to why the status quo is better, except that it is, well... the status quo. Everything would just be so much more comfortable if people stopped thinking for themselves, and changing things, gol darnit! Cheney reveals herself as a wealthy, extremely privileged person, just wanting America to do what it's supposed to do, so she can be more comfortable, less worried about people like her losing power.

I'm glad I read this book. I ask, Is this all that wealthy conservatives really have to offer to support their ideology? Should I spend my time reading another of these books to find out? Hmmmm...

[Elbrozzie]

To tell the truth, I skimmed this book. The problem with it is in the title -- Cheney believes in Truth. In an of itself, that is an audacious claim since her husband perpetuated one of the greatest lies in recent history (let alone Mrs. Cheney's false claim that she did NOT write a lesbian novel, Sisters).

The "truth" Cheney advocates is a singular one solidly within the a classical Western tradition. She is an absolutist who believes in and advocates for a meritocracy. Worse, she is, at best, a mediocre, humorless writer which makes it hard to laugh at just how ridiculous and mean-spirited she is.

[Kevin Kirkhoff · Rating 3 out of 5]

A hard book to read. Cheney was head of the National Endowment for the Humanities, so the book is written from that perspective. It's not so much about "not lying" as it is about how our universities should be telling facts instead of professor's ideologies (both Liberal and Conservative). This would have been a good book for me, but alas, it was written far above my head.

[Atchisson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before she was the Vice-President's wife, she was just a great social commentator. This study on the failure of so many to recognize rights and wrongs was accurate then and frighteningly prescient now.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author of this book was the former head of the National Endowment for the Humanities. From her vantage point, she could view intelligently the process: from the French deconstructionist/ postmodern philosophers to the academics saying that "truth" was over, to our current P.C. culture. Recommended for those questioning the validity of the P.C. movement.