History Vs. Pop Culture

[The Rube]

Re: History Vs. Pop Culture

Doesn't negate my point. I'd argue wive's tales and superstition were far more prevalent back in the day, making the percentage of good vs bad information being attainable relative the same now as then. The biggest influence is ubringing and envioronment, and as Kepler noted a far greater percentage of the population 2 centuries ago was more inclined to worry about pure survival than education. I've probably muttered , "damm kids" to myself every bit as often as my dad, his dad, his dad, his dad...

With apologies, not trying to negate it, just was pointing out that everything is bigger now. True information and false information. And it moves faster, too.

[Kepler]

Re: History Vs. Pop Culture

With apologies, not trying to negate it, just was pointing out that everything is bigger now. True information and false information. And it moves faster, too.

Although there is so much information that any specific piece is tiny by comparison, hence the short attention span of the media and by extension the public.

[LynahFan]

Re: History Vs. Pop Culture

Doesn't negate my point. I'd argue wive's tales and superstition were far more prevalent back in the day, making the percentage of good vs bad information being attainable relative the same now as then. The biggest influence is ubringing and envioronment, and as Kepler noted a far greater percentage of the population 2 centuries ago was more inclined to worry about pure survival than education. I've probably muttered , "damm kids" to myself every bit as often as my dad, his dad, his dad, his dad...

Back in the day, learning how to survive WAS education. The consequences for not learning when to plant the crops or where to hunt for food were slightly higher than for kids today who goof off in school. In that sense, I'd argue that people of yesterday were in some ways more educated about their society and culture than most people are today. Or perhaps a better way to think about it: there is almost no education gap between the best and worst educated people in an agrarian society. The "worst educated" are not all that different from the best.

[pirate]

Re: History Vs. Pop Culture

But thrift is just a secondary characteristic. The real quality -- the one that matters -- is a deeper matter of character, and that's what I believe never changes. It varies between individuals, but the percentages stay the same (1:8:1). The cooking conditions change, but the ingredient is always Man. That's why (well, one of the reasons why) "the Greatest Generation" is a crock. TGGers met extraordinary challenges -- their "greatness" insofar as it exists at all is attributable to the test, not the test taker. Drop the Li'l Wayne Generation into the Siege of Stalingrad and you'll have the same amazing stories of perseverance and sacrifice, or, if you don't, that's only because they're soft from years of playing video games instead of milking frozen cows.

If the TGGers had had video games, they'd have been just as lame as Gen X.

The emphasis needs to be on setting the right conditions. The people will take care of themselves, for good or ill. The Spartans didn't know much, but they knew that.

It's valid to compare person x and y who have the same conditions and turn out differently -- that's a character difference. But comparing generations or nations is not valid -- aggregate comparisons are meaningless.

Have to disagree with you here. Young men willingly signed up to go to Europe and the Pacific in WWII, they represented all walks of economic and educational background. They put off working or college to go fight and die. Today, with all due respect to our armed forces, that is not the case. The Lil Wayne generation isn't volunteering for anything and they lack the character you mention in your posts. Not to say every single one lacks character but the range of acceptable behavior has expanded so dramatically that the Lil Wayne Battalion would make McHale's Navy look like Sgt York.

[alfablue]

Re: History Vs. Pop Culture

Have to disagree with you here. Young men willingly signed up to go to Europe and the Pacific in WWII, they represented all walks of economic and educational background. They put off working or college to go fight and die. Today, with all due respect to our armed forces, that is not the case. The Lil Wayne generation isn't volunteering for anything and they lack the character you mention in your posts. Not to say every single one lacks character but the range of acceptable behavior has expanded so dramatically that the Lil Wayne Battalion would make McHale's Navy look like Sgt York.

????

Young men and women are currently signing up to fight and die for our country right now. Willingly. They are putting off work, college, family, and sometimes great carreers to do that.

WWII also had a draft, and most of the armed forces were drafted into serivice. I suspect with the right fight/enemy/threat to our country that Kepler would be proven right.

We tend gloss over that there was a significant part of our population that was firmly against fighting in Europe, and I'm sure that was true even after we were attacked. Which sound quite a bit like what happened after 9/11. The big difference for WWII was that 9 years after we were attacked, the war had been over for 5 years, and we were looking at containing Communism in Korea.

One thing to recall- Truman was warned about not using the bomb by someone telling him "what would you say to someone who found out that you had a weapon that may save 1,000,000 American lives?" (1M was the estimate for losses when invading the main Japanese islands).

Pop culture tells us that the entire country was behind the war. History glosses over the fact that many American lives were getting back to what should be considered normal almost 6 months before the war ended. And that attention was being lost.

[Kepler]

Re: History Vs. Pop Culture

Have to disagree with you here. Young men willingly signed up to go to Europe and the Pacific in WWII, they represented all walks of economic and educational background. They put off working or college to go fight and die. Today, with all due respect to our armed forces, that is not the case.

But it would be if the Bulgarians were overrunning Europe and the Laotians bombed San Francisco. The war on terror does not have that same "attractiveness." It's closer to the Indian Wars than Panzer General. For that matter, the government doesn't make the same propaganda effort now because modern armies aren't masses of untrained bumpkins, they're smallish companies of highly trained experts.

Young males will always go where the action is. Personal risk doesn't factor into it because (1) they have nothing to lose, (2) they think they're immortal, (3) they're full of masculine insecurity, (4) they're bored, and (5) they've been pumped full of romantic mythology about battle.