The Great War or World War One. A War now being called the beginning of the Second Hundred Years War. We exist in the ugly aftermath. It took over a century to recover form the first of these in the 14th century.
So we still have a ways to go.
In Europe parts of the Near East, and the Anzac countries. This great war this human disaster is remembered. The current 2014~2018 Centennial is observed, and honored.
In America which has no collective National memory much less an International one,...nothing.
It's as if it never happened.
Think of it. To adult Americans today that great event. One which made the very world they exist in. That is the cause of everything they see around them. To them that War is not even a rumor.
I watched a video of American twenty somethings who were asked in the context of the centennial about the Great War. It would have been funny had it not been so tragic.
They're ignorance was total.
Absolute,...Total.
2 comments:
It’s only in America that the ignorance is total. In Europe or Latin America, they would know.
Twenty years ago or more I read that most American school teachers didn’t think that teaching geography was of great importance. I was appalled. How can you know shit about the world if you can’t even pick out countries on a map, or spot the planet’s most prominent geographical features? The pursuit of ignorance has proven to be a huge success.
Z
Somewhere in the late 1970's history, and civics began to disappear. A few generations have matured with no idea where they came from or even where they are on the planet.
We remember the famous sad, but funny Australian YouTube videos of Americans trying to find their own country on an atlas.
Some pointed to the oceans.
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