Granted I left school some 15 years ago, I never once in Collage or Public school had any class that was required that even mentioned WW2. Prety sad huh.
In Florida, about 10 years ago, a Jewish group got a law passed that required high schools to teach about the concentration camps. I'm not sure if it has to be in a history class or if it can be in English class (by assigning a book on the subject to be read). I was already out of school by then so I don't know the details. I just know this from my teacher friends. It is the only part of WW2 that ever gets mentioned in the classroom.
A couple of years ago we had a history professor at IUPUI in Indianapolis trying to teach an alternative history. One that professed that the holocaust was western propaganda and never happened. Needless to say he got his @ss fired and run out of the state.[:D]
Doh...Man It has been a while, we did get a ton of Holacast stuff in school, I almsot compleatly forgot about that, so I was abit wrong but that was the only WW2 stuff we got, almost every year of school from 6th grade up we had some of that, once a year.
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Obi-wan Kenobi said it best: A lot of the reality we perceive depend on our point of view
"Who ignores history is condemned to relive it" - Georges Santayana.
I think it's sad that this very same thing happens all over the world... [:(]
WWI is "ancient history" nobody remembers, WWII is almost forgotten and even recent wars (like Korea and Vietnam) are forgotten.
I really have no idea why is that but it seems that young generations nowadays have almost 0 interest regarding history and that only people with love for wargmaes (i.e. Grognards like us) and/or history buffs have desire to know.
BTW, when I was small kid I vividly remember my old grandfather telling me stories of fighting in WWI on Eastern front (my country was then part of Austro-Hungarian Empire).
I was sitting in his lap, he was showing me his wound scars and telling me stories of country far far away (he was captured in 1915 and repatriated home in 1922 - since he was forest engineer he was not in PoW camp and instead he was foreman on some large Russian estate somewhere in the east)...
"Who ignores history is condemned to relive it" - Georges Santayana.
I think it's sad that this very same thing happens all over the world... [:(]
History teach us only one simple thing – history teach us nothing. Sometimes you can foresee news on this or that modern event while reading some book on history, it's only hard to get a big picture which is best to veiw ''from a distance'' I mean it takes some time to make analogy clear
History teach us only one simple thing – history teach us nothing. Sometimes you can foresee news on this or that modern event while reading some book on history, it's only hard to get a big picture which is best to veiw ''from a distance'' I mean it takes some time to make analogy clear
Nah... after careful consideration of what you wrote I still believe in this... "Who ignores history is condemned to relive it"
ORIGINAL: Subchaser
History teach us only one simple thing – history teach us nothing. Sometimes you can foresee news on this or that modern event while reading some book on history, it's only hard to get a big picture which is best to veiw ''from a distance'' I mean it takes some time to make analogy clear
You repeat here the attitude that makes Santayana's perception so accurate. As history recedes into the distant past and people forget the facts and circumstances that caused the world to move as history caused it to do, the same sad influences bring further misery because the lessons of history, not the history itself, have not been learned and retained.
Song of a Common Soldier
This is the song of a common soldier.
The war I fought in has long been over and done.
It was your side that won.
I fought under the sign of the Iron Cross.
The honor and glory with which my life was lost forgotten.
You held history's pen.
No, you won't find my soul down on its knees
Offering up any apologies, my friend.
In your world I see a million monuments to shame;
The lessons of history ignored like yesterday's rain.
Now that I see what you've let your world turn into
I can't think why anyone would ever fight for you again.
...
-Thomas Williams.
Put my faith in the people
And the people let me down.
So, I turned the other way,
And I carry on anyhow.
ORIGINAL: Subchaser
History teach us only one simple thing ? history teach us nothing. Sometimes you can foresee news on this or that modern event while reading some book on history, it's only hard to get a big picture which is best to veiw ''from a distance'' I mean it takes some time to make analogy clear
You repeat here the attitude that makes Santayana's perception so accurate. As history recedes into the distant past and people forget the facts and circumstances that caused the world to move as history caused it to do, the same sad influences bring further misery because the lessons of history, not the history itself, have not been learned and retained.
Amen to that. Circumstances change - technology advances, various "isms" come and go - but it's people who make things happen, who make decisions (or fail to do so) and act (or don't) based on their perceptions. And in thousands of years of recorded history, people haven't changed.
Study history, and understand it, and you'll be better equipped to understand the world you live in. Individual events will still surprise you, but the patterns are as predictable as sunrise.
Some days you're the windshield.
Some days you're the bug.
Yep, Al, you are so right, but only a few people ever get the idea. We live our lives among the masses, who, in America, generally suffer from constipation of the brain and diarrhea of the mouth.
Put my faith in the people
And the people let me down.
So, I turned the other way,
And I carry on anyhow.
History teach us only one simple thing – history teach us nothing. Sometimes you can foresee news on this or that modern event while reading some book on history, it's only hard to get a big picture which is best to veiw ''from a distance'' I mean it takes some time to make analogy clear
I'm not sure Subchaser's comment (quoted) needs to be dismissed in such a hurry. There are a few key components with which I for one agree.
1."History teaches us nothing." It's literally true. You can't point to "History." Nor does "history" have a soapbox in the Library of Congress from which history 'holds forth' every afternoon at tea time. Under good circumstances, all you have is people talking/writing about historical events and sources of information upon which the writier/talers are drawing for information. While that may in turn sound trivial, it forces you to ask "who's teaching the history?" and "who's learning the history?" Consider, for example, how many people will still say something like 'The Zero was the best plane in the PTO at the start of the US-Western Allied conflict and the IJN pilots were the best pilots' simply because they've read lots of anecdotes and a few general histories that simply offer that sort of generalizatoin without bothering to clarify what is meant by "best" and without asking the question "Does the empirical evidence really support this claim?"
2. "History teaches us nothing." The phrase also causes one to reflect on the fact that "History" changes. For example, that which the world knew about USN operations in the PTO via Morison differs from the more nuanced perceptions of PTO combat that result from reading material published in the 3.8 decades since the completion of Morison's gigavolume set.
3. "History teaches us nothing." I'm not sure that even people who are very well informed about history necessarily learn from it or avoid repeating mistakes that were made in the past, even when those mistakes are well documented and have been openly discussed at length in many peer-reviewed articles and books. Call me a cynic, but I don't see much learning in the Middle East, Central Africa, Spain, or for that matter in the US (considering the national conduct from about 1954 to date), or in any Central/South American state.
As far as I can tell the only "nations" (that is the collective leadership of thos nations) that have demonstrated any real learning with respect to international policy are the UK and Japan. But that's just an opinion.
Show me a fellow who rejects statistical analysis a priori and I'll show you a fellow who has no knowledge of statistics.
It is not that so much that history teaches us anything, but that there is a benefit to learning through the study of it.
Like any activity with respect to learning, one must have the capacity to learn (some people lack this simple skill) and not rely on a single source for all material.
Before you can see where you are going, it helps to know where you have been and how you got to where you are now.
"Life is tough, it's even tougher when you're stupid" -SGT John M. Stryker, USMC
HISTORY will teach exactly as much as you are prepared to learn. The real lessons
lie not in the dates and events (they are a framework to hang the story on), but in
the thoughts, emotions, and reasoning or the people making the decisions. Folks
don't just get up one morning and decide, "I think our army is better than theirs---
let's declare war on them and see." Generally they arrive at decisions we can look
back on and say were "bad ideas" for what they consider to have been the best of
reasons.
In our example, it is impossible to say that the Japanese made a "wise choice"..., but
unless you dig into the political, social, economic, and military history of the Empire,
it's impossible to say whay they thought they were taking the "honorable and only
path" available to them. It's easy for writers with hindsight to accuse Roosevelt of
"having allowed Pearl Harbor" for political reasons..., and just as stupid. You have
to dig into the entire American "mind set" and thought process at the time to under-
stand why "indications" that seem so telling in hindsight were ignored or mis-interpre-
ted when they occurred.
If you allow yourself to buy into "one book philosophy's" like that "the Holocaust didn't
happen" garbage, then you will be right to say "History is bunk". Or more accurately,
"my study of history is shallow, one-sided, garbage". History IS...., it's what people
make of it that is important.
learning from history is primarily a question of WHAT you WANT to learn from it.
WW2 also started because many people in Germany believed in revenge to be necessary to restore honour to germany taken from it because of the versailles treaty. As we know today, wrong lesson. To understand the decisions undertaken at that time, you have to pretend to know only what people could know at that time. This should be the first approach. There also is a national experience to it.
For example, the Iraq war last year. great turmoil between europe and US, esspecially Germany and France and the USA. Now a lot of americans might think we are cowards, but on the other hand, we got a first hand experience on what war can do to a country (well, after our tour across europe, that is...). Imagine every major city of the US destroyed.In Germany, that pretty much was the case.It does reduce your interest in war a lot, even today. It took about 10 years for us to allow german combat forces to fight outside NATO. Considering us having been the front-line of the Cold War for 40 years,then adding the war experience, I find it not only understandable, but necessary to undertake such a change at a slow and careful pace.
To give the americans an example, consider what impact the Civil War still has in many southern states, and how long it took for the south to recuperate from it (the southern states still were the pourest in even 1960, a hundred years later).
fact is. People do learn from history. The question is wether it always is the right lesson they learn (or they think they learn). By trying not to make a mistake again , they make another, sometimes with even worse consequences (otherwise we wouldn't have to number wars). Sometimes, somthing positive turns up (french-german relations, for example, but also US-german relations (might not be that good at the moment, but still better then at any time pre 1945).
Bougainville, November 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9. It rained today.
