“We don’t need no stinkin’ history!”
I don’t know exactly what an “influencer” is supposed to be. Does it have something to do with influenza? Whatever: Britain’s got one, he’s all of 22 years old, he’s on TV a lot–and he says Word War II studies are “too intense for young students” (https://ijr.com/millennial-influencer-ww2-studies-too-intense-for-young-students/).
He thinks that “instead of focusing so much on our history and holding on to the past,” we should just, like, let it go, and teach “more relevant” subjects like Brexit and Climbit Change, blah-blah-blah.
Oh–you mean, those Climbit Change lessons in which they teach kids the world is gonna end in just 12 years and we’re all gonna die, die, die unless the governments will all get together and DO SOMETHING, etc.? Or those Brexit lessons that teach ’em that anyone in favor of Brexit must be a Nazi? Like anyone even knows what a Nazi was, anymore.
Remarked one commenter, “They sit there playing war games on their PlayStations and X-boxes and then tell us they get traumatized by history lessons?” To say nothing of playing “Zombi Apocalypse” around the clock.
But yeah, gotta keep history out of the schools–if only because it takes time away from teaching kids to be gender-fluid–which is like lighter fluid, only it has no practical use. It doesn’t even have a silly use. That’s how it fits so perfectly into what we have come to call “public education.”
Forget World War II! It never happened! Now, boys ‘n’ girls–how many different genders can you name in sixty seconds?
As the saying goes if you don’t learn from history you are doomed to repeat it, and that appears to be happening now.
“As the saying goes if you don’t learn from history you are doomed to repeat it, and that appears to be happening now.”
Back in the early nineties, or perhaps even before, it occurred to me that when the public’s collective memory of WW II disappears, we will be in real trouble. I hate being right, but I think that I am.
And not just WWII but communism, which lead to millions of deaths. I heard that communism is seen favorably by 1 in 3 millennials. I fear this century may surpass the 20th century as the bloodiest century in human history if we keep on this trajectory.
You’re quite right. The crimes of Nazi Germany were horrific, but Stalin and Mao killed many more people than Hitler.
Unlike Stalin and Mao, Hitler does not have the benefit of a marching and chowder society at virtually every Western looniversity.
That’s a good point.
And how about the millions of Christians the Ottoman Muslims killed during WWII?
Oooooh, that’s Islamophobia!
Slavery was horrible, and we certainly should teach about it; however it is not the only horrible thing that happened. Neither was it uniquely American, in fact America began to rid itself of slavery starting with Massachusetts, in 1800. The Civil War was fought over states rights and the burning states rights issue was slavery. Each new state added to the Union had become a political football with the pro slavery faction wishing to expand the practice and the anti slavery faction attempting to halt the further spread of it. When Kansas was about to become a state, the issue boiled over into literal violence.
My point here is that the issue of slavery in the US was never a settled status quo until after the Civil War. Much of the US was opposed to slavery from its very inception as a country. Britain made slavery legal when this was a British colony and that never set well with many people.
In my reading of 20th century history (which is of particular interest to me) I have realized that no event can be isolated from its context. With me, it started with the early space program which led me to the Cold War. Why were there north and south Vietnams, or Koreas? That goes back to WW II, but WW II makes sense only in the context of WW I, which drew a great deal of the map of the 20th century. If you study this, it becomes apparent that the roots of this go back much further and into ancient hostilities which continue to plague civilization.
When young people are taught history, they can be easily manipulated into believing just about any viewpoint. It’s challenging to present history in an unbiased manner, but it’s also essential. Sadly, most youngsters don’t develop an interest in history on their own and suffer through the classes they take. In many ways, I understand how some older cultures didn’t consider someone an adult until they were 30.
Now it’s more like 50.
In sub teaching in all grades from Pre-K to 12th grade for the last three years, you can’t notice how much time is taken up teaching about the horrors of slavery. But the horrors of WWII? No, not important. These public school “educated” students don’t have a clue.
This is so terrible