|
December 04, 2004
Dusty curmudgeon shakes fist
That's my headline. Maybe I should have said "wags finger." That befits a cultural dinosaur like me. The BBC was shocked to learn that nearly half of Britons polled had never heard of Auschwitz: Among women and people younger than 35, 60 percent had never heard of Auschwitz, despite the recent popularity of films such as "Schindler's List," "Life is Beautiful" and "The Pianist," which depict the atrocities of the Holocaust. The rape of education in the west by politically correct 'studies' programs and legions of literary theorists hell-bent on eliminating the lie of 'history' and 'certainty' surely has nothing to do with that. If we had fewer courses devoted to redressing the imbalances of sexual ideology through ecofeminist theory and deconstruction, and had more courses about, oh, I don't know, HISTORY, we wouldn't need the BBC to catch us up on the things that matter. Now if you'll excuse me I'm late for a graduate course exploring the theme of maidenhood in the western imaginary. Today we talk about our personal experiences, and I'm woefully unprepared. posted by Dennis on 12.04.04 at 12:08 PM
Comments
All it takes for someone to learn history is to have ONE good teacher in that subject. Because one good teacher will spark the interest enough that the student will start looking things up herself. I've had three - sadly, the middle one, while fascinating, also had a beautiful baritone voice that invariably put me to sleep, it was so soothing and I was so overtired. It's a shame about not knowing Auschwitz. People should know about that, and about places like Chelmno, which are largely forgotten because they were not concentration camps but death factories. (Chelmno - Kulmhof - had a grand total of four survivors.) B. Durbin · December 5, 2004 09:00 PM |
|
March 2007
WORLD-WIDE CALENDAR
Search the Site
E-mail
Classics To Go
Archives
March 2007
February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 May 2002 See more archives here Old (Blogspot) archives
Recent Entries
War For Profit
How trying to prevent genocide becomes genocide I Have Not Yet Begun To Fight Wind Boom Isaiah Washington, victim Hippie Shirts A cunning exercise in liberation linguistics? Sometimes unprincipled demagogues are better than principled activists PETA agrees -- with me! The high pitched squeal of small carbon footprints
Links
Site Credits
|
|
That's frightening, and I have no doubt that number will increase as the generation that actually experienced World War II dies off and the young get all their knowledge (such as it is) from movies. The Holocaust is becoming as remote in the memories of today's generation as World War I was to my own. World War I?: "Snoopy and the Red Baron" The Rumanian tyrant known as Vlad the Impaler became Count Dracula who became a Halloween costume and Count Chocula on a cereal box. "Nazi" or "fascist" becomes "anybody I don't like". Hitler becomes "a really bad dude, almost as bad as a politician I don't like". And boys think Hitler was "cool". How long before Hitler's face is on a cereal box?
"Those who will not remember history are condemned to repeat it."
-George Santayana
"The only thing we learn from history is that we do not learn from history."
-G. W. F. Hegel