The Fragmentation Of History

LizzieMaine said:

I'm not a jelly eater, but the best peanut butter I ever had in my life is that government surplus stuff that used to come in a tin can. Nothing else -- least of all the gloppy stuff Procter and Gamble called peanut butter -- even came close.

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We ate a metric ton of government peanut butter in school. It came as you say in a gallon USDA can. A fresh can required stirring to get the oil blended back in, but after that you were good to go. We also sometimes had peanuts that were packed the same way. They were good peanuts but unsalted.

LizzieMaine said:

*Why* do people feel like they need to have an instant opinion even on topics about which they know essentially nothing? What do they gain from this? And, more to the point, what does society *lose*?

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I suspect it's performative group identity, it's just exacerbated by the speed and fragmentation of the internet.

I grew up in a particular subculture (which I will not specify) which, like many subcultures, draws very strong lines around who's in and out of the group. In exchange for access to the connections, resources, relationships, etc. of the group, you're expected to show your loyalty to the group and willingness to live up to its standards and share its opinions. Not having an opinion on something can be a bit suspect--people start to wonder if you actually think a bad thing is good but don't want to get thrown out of the group--and judging new things is an important part of marking group boundaries and reaffirming how clearly the smart, morally correct, worthwhile people are in the group and the terrible people are not.

Throw the internet into the mix, and the fact that bad news travels farther and faster than good news, and the pressure to prove your group identity turns into a daily event. It's exhausting.

I'm still prone to the "us vs. them" mindset as much as most people, but I did learn to think outside the group by talking to strangers on the internet, so maybe there's hope for us yet.

sweetdreams102 said:

...I'm still prone to the "us vs. them" mindset as much as most people, but I did learn to think outside the group by talking to strangers on the internet, so maybe there's hope for us yet.

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Really good point as I hadn't thought about it in the context of this thread, which highlights a lot of the "challenges" of the internet, but one counter to all those negative things is the idea you bring up.

I'm active on this and two other "social" internet platforms and, overall, they've been great experiences where I've learned a lot from strangers and have made some internet friends. And by learn, I mean having my pre-existing ideas and beliefs always challenged and sometimes changed.

A short example: while I have always been a fan of what we here at FL call the Golden Era, my view of it prior to FL was based on my father's and his mother's GE experiences and what I saw in movies and learned in books. But interacting with passionate people here from different parts of the country (and world) who have many different views has broadened, challenged and changed some of my views on the GE.

On other sites, which do allow for politics, I can say the same. And in all that time, seven-plus years on three sites (and coming and going from a few others), I've only encountered one person that is so rude and obnoxious that you treat him like the loud-mouth guy in the bar that you completely avoid listening and talking to - otherwise, while I don't agree with many people on this or that topic - and they don't with me - (and some can be blunt), I've found the interactions here and on those other sites - overall - polite and respectful.

Sure, we have some dustups, but again, almost always, within the bounds of "fair" fighting. Heck, one of my best internet friends has diametrically opposed views to mine on most of the "big" issues, but I have no doubt of her personal integrity and decency and am proud to call he my friend and hope she feels somewhat the same.

I have no view of how this weighs against all the negatives of the internet - but wanted to highlight a positive that you brought up.

sweetdreams102 said:

I grew up in a particular subculture (which I will not specify) which, like many subcultures, draws very strong lines around who's in and out of the group. In exchange for access to the connections, resources, relationships, etc. of the group, you're expected to show your loyalty to the group and willingness to live up to its standards and share its opinions. Not having an opinion on something can be a bit suspect--people start to wonder if you actually think a bad thing is good but don't want to get thrown out of the group--and judging new things is an important part of marking group boundaries and reaffirming how clearly the smart, morally correct, worthwhile people are in the group and the terrible people are not..

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That is an apt description of a famous classic car club community.

sweetdreams102 said:

Throw the internet into the mix, and the fact that bad news travels farther and faster than good news, and the pressure to prove your group identity turns into a daily event. It's exhausting. I'm still prone to the "us vs. them" mindset as much as most people, but I did learn to think outside the group by talking to strangers on the internet, so maybe there's hope for us yet.

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A shame that both sides of the UK brexit debate couldn't do that.

Fading Fast said:

Really good point as I hadn't thought about it in the context of this thread, which highlights a lot of the "challenges" of the internet, but one counter to all those negative things is the idea you bring up.

I'm active on this and two other "social" internet platforms and, overall, they've been great experiences where I've learned a lot from strangers and have made some internet friends. And by learn, I mean having my pre-existing ideas and beliefs always challenged and sometimes changed.

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If you have heard of the war time expression that referred to GI's that went: "Over-sexed, over-paid & over here, you will start to understand how Americans were all perceived as being wealthy, loud and brash by the British. By the 1960's and working people had money to spend on leisure some of the more adventurous crossed the pond to Uncle Sam country. Ten years later and Freddie Laker's popular sky train had Americans wishing that they had never heard of British larger louts.

But extremes aside, the British were coming back from the US with stories of kindness, politeness and amazingly, a feeling of shared warmth. "They are English, with a different accent," was a commonly heard remark. It might sound silly now, but the internet has given an insight to all those Americans and Brits, who have never travelled to each other's shores. An insight of both similarities and differences. Popular myths have become just that, myths.

There was a delicious moment in a bar in Savannah GA, we were out with my schoolfriend and her husband, someone picked up on our accents and somehow the subject of America's civil war came up. One particularly loud mouth opined that the Brits wouldn't know the pain and anguish suffered by brother against brother. When he finally ran out of steam, my schoolfriend and I enlightened him of the English civil war that resulted in the monarch loosing his head, and when I added that the English civil war lasted nine years all he could respond with was: "No sh*t."

Fading Fast said:

A short example: while I have always been a fan of what we here at FL call the Golden Era, my view of it prior to FL was based on my father's and his mother's GE experiences and what I saw in movies and learned in books. But interacting with passionate people here from different parts of the country (and world) who have many different views has broadened, challenged and changed some of my views on the GE.

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Age as well as the internet, has a similar effect on intelligent people. Chances are most of us have a distinct political persuasion, but we come to know and respect, that others differ, and age tells you that so it should be. It's very sad that the belief of one doctrine or other should exclude from one's life, those with an opposing ideal.

Is our political life merely a parlor game, one with an outcome of no real consequence in the lives of real people?

Of course it isn't. For that reason, I've long found the "tolerance" model, well-intentioned as it might be, to miss the mark. The implementation of certain political perspectives have proven so harmful to so many that they aren't to be tolerated, no matter how superficially well mannered the proponents may be. The hangman may be the most well-mannered fellow in three counties, his wife and kids may adore him and his fellow Rotarians think he's a peach, but none of that alters the fact that he's slipping a noose around your neck. He's no friend of mine.

Ain't everybody gonna love ya, unless you're a cocker spaniel, say, and even then there will be someone who wishes to give you a kick in the ribs. I know of no one who ever made a nickel's worth positive difference in this world who didn't step on some toes along the way. It's to their eternal credit that they didn't let that stop them.

I've met a lot of people I didn't agree with, but I don't think I've ever met anyone who I thought was completely irredeemable, not even politicians. (Of course, there's still a lot of people I haven't met.) I tend to look at The Big Issues as being transacted by classes of people, but the individuals within those classes are generally more nuanced than the positions they get grouped in with.

As sweetdreams pointed out, the Internet tends to force you into a binary way of thinking -- but history isn't binary. Consider the example of World War II. The United States was forced to ally itself with a ruthless, cold-blooded, empire-building hard-liner who was perfectly willing to bring about the death of millions to achieve his goals. But we needed him on our side, we were able to find commonalities -- so in spite of it all, we allied with Churchill anyway.

^^^^^
Ten thousand comedians out of work and we get ...

LizzieMaine said:

As sweetdreams pointed out, the Internet tends to force you into a binary way of thinking -- but history isn't binary. Consider the example of World War II. The United States was forced to ally itself with a ruthless, cold-blooded, empire-building hard-liner who was perfectly willing to bring about the death of millions to achieve his goals. But we needed him on our side, we were able to find commonalities -- so in spite of it all, we allied with Churchill anyway.

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What choice did FDR have? Operation Drumbeat took full advantage of U.S. unpreparedness and resistance to accepting advice and assistance from the British, who’d been dealing with the U‑boat menace since September 1939, in order to launch a devastating campaign against Allied and neutral shipping off the east coast of North America. Drumbeat’s destructive impact far exceeded the human and material toll of the Japanese surprise attack on the U.S. Navy Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbour, Hawaii. During the six months German and Italian submarines were allowed to rampage virtually unchecked in North American and Gulf of Mexico waters, 397 ships and almost 5,000 men and women were killed.
Four days after the attack on Pearl Harbour, Hitler declared war on The US. Two weeks later, the day after Christmas day, 1941, FDR gave Churchill the honour of addressing a joint session of the US Congress. His speech went down well from all sides of the political spectrum, so it wasn't just FDR getting into bed with a war mongerer.
Churchill is despised in many quarters but he was far more preferable than the Quisling alternative of that Nazi, spouting Hitler's rhetoric, Oswald Moseley. Had we sued for peace you can be sure that Moseley would have been Hitler's puppet in power in the UK.

As I say, history isn't binary -- as unpleasant a fellow as Churchill could be (FDR didn't particularly like him on a personal basis, but understood his political utility), he was one of the few leading figures in prewar British politics who had the pragmatism to support the idea of a British-Franco-Soviet alliance in the months after Munich. Had he been able to overcome the appeasement bloc, Hitler might have been cut off at the knees in 1939.

LizzieMaine said:

Had the appeasement bloc agreed with him, Hitler might have been cut off at the knees in 1939.

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Paraphrasing, Edward R. Murrow said that "Churchill went into office with the advantage of being the man who was right."

GHT said:

You are not alone, I looked it up too. The fragmentation of history, thinking about it, isn't just internet inspired, conspiratory theorists have been quoting misinformation for as long as there has been conspiracies, but because it's in a book it must be true. None more so than Dan Brown's highly readable book: "The Da Vinci Code." How those who really want to believe it fervently argue their case.



A brilliant book, but clever though it is, it's a work of fiction.

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I read it not long after it came out; being religious, people kept expecting me to have an opinion on it. It's a cracking yarn, very poorly told (I've never seen such poor narration or clumsy pop-culture referencing). That anyone would base theological - or any - opinions of any consequence on it is to their eternal shame.

sheeplady said:

I wonder if racism stings people this much when they get their wad of twenties from the ATM, or if they're just happy to have their cash no matter who's face is on it.

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I'd say the need of the latter renders the sting of the former all the more acute.

sheeplady said:

As an American I admit that I have next to no understanding of royalty (as a concept). But, given your context and ours, I'd state having the queen on your banknotes is a far sight better for Britians than having Jackson on our twenties.

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Probably depends on your view of the English class system.

EngProf said:

I'll be GLAD to take any and all of those horrible pieces of paper with "Old Hickory's" picture on them that other people don't want.

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Very public-spirited of you.

GHT said:

Is that Andrew Jackson, seventh president of the US? The one who gave the Brits a bloody nose at New Orleans?

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Quite. An amusing bit of trivia: Andrew Jackson's father was born in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland, of which they have made much. The unionists on the council back in the eighties oversaw the opening of a visitor centre marking this (which is still there), and made a big deal of twinning the town with somewhere in the US, and every year since have celebrated..... American Independence *Fortnight*. Carrickfergus is also one of the single-most Unionist (pro-British) councils in Northern Ireland (it has always been made up, historically, of independent unionists, Ulster Unionists, and Democratic Unionists, with the occasional Alliance Party member. The Alliance Party is a non-sectarian party which has historically supported the Union on economic grounds). They have always been blind to the irony.

GHT said:

Fake news is nothing new, Napoleon is depicted on his white charger, Marengo, leading his army over The Alps during the Italian campaign. But in fact he follows the army two days behind, riding a mule.
Jaques-Louis David was commissioned to paint the famous Marengo, whilst artist Paul Delaroche was much less glamorous. I know which I believe. It is as Edward observed, the victor writes the history.
View attachment 166124 View attachment 166126

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Reminiscent of the equally false popular images of William III at the Boyne!

LizzieMaine said:

I'm not a jelly eater, but the best peanut butter I ever had in my life is that government surplus stuff that used to come in a tin can. Nothing else -- least of all the gloppy stuff Procter and Gamble called peanut butter -- even came close.

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Never met a peanut butter I liked. Handul of fresh peanuts in a soft, lightly buttered slice of whit bread, though - yum.

LizzieMaine said:

As sweetdreams pointed out, the Internet tends to force you into a binary way of thinking -- but history isn't binary. Consider the example of World War II. The United States was forced to ally itself with a ruthless, cold-blooded, empire-building hard-liner who was perfectly willing to bring about the death of millions to achieve his goals. But we needed him on our side, we were able to find commonalities -- so in spite of it all, we allied with Churchill anyway.

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Quite so!

GHT said:

What choice did FDR have? Operation Drumbeat took full advantage of U.S. unpreparedness and resistance to accepting advice and assistance from the British, who’d been dealing with the U‑boat menace since September 1939, in order to launch a devastating campaign against Allied and neutral shipping off the east coast of North America. Drumbeat’s destructive impact far exceeded the human and material toll of the Japanese surprise attack on the U.S. Navy Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbour, Hawaii. During the six months German and Italian submarines were allowed to rampage virtually unchecked in North American and Gulf of Mexico waters, 397 ships and almost 5,000 men and women were killed.
Four days after the attack on Pearl Harbour, Hitler declared war on The US. Two weeks later, the day after Christmas day, 1941, FDR gave Churchill the honour of addressing a joint session of the US Congress. His speech went down well from all sides of the political spectrum, so it wasn't just FDR getting into bed with a war mongerer.

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I'm often surprised how many of the "you'd be speaking German if it weren't for us" types are unaware of quite ho the US came into the European War.

Churchill is despised in many quarters but he was far more preferable than the Quisling alternative of that Nazi, spouting Hitler's rhetoric, Oswald Moseley. Had we sued for peace you can be sure that Moseley would have been Hitler's puppet in power in the UK.

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Certainly so, though the notion that those were the only alternatives being so prominent today speaks much of the success of the Churchill mythos.

Edward said:

Never met a peanut butter I liked. Handul of fresh peanuts in a soft, lightly buttered slice of whit bread, though - yum.

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I recently switched to 100% peanut butter. I look for labels with only peanuts on the ingredients list.

The flavor is very far removed from what people typically think of as peanut butter and actually took a little while for me to adjust to. It basically tastes just like peanuts, which is something i'd never realized most peanut butter does not taste like.

"He who cannot draw on three thousand years [of history] is living from hand to mouth."
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

It's my experience that those without any knowledge of history are the most easily taken in by fake news, conspiracy theory, etc. The poor things don't have anything to judge the claims against.

As for peanut butter, put me in the liking "extra crunchy" column.

LizzieMaine said:

The only people who care about Stephen Foster nowadays are horse-racing buffs, who are militant about singing MOKH on Derby Day...

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Stephen Foster Stakes 2021 6/24
Maxfield 4-5
Warrior's Charge 6-1
Sprawl 10-1
South Bend 12-1

Exacta paid 670% to $1 ...and I only sang cadence, and that was at Ft Campbell, Kentucky.

LizzieMaine said:

Please note I'm not talking here about the historical fallacy of presentism, the use of current standards to judge the past.

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It's "cancel culture" gone rampant. People want to erase parts of history which they don't like.

Where I live, it started out with a mural. A work of art. George Washington High School has a mural depicting what Washington's life may have been like. Gadsden Flag. Moultrie Flag. Fighting the British. Declaration of Independence. Slaves. Dead Indians.

Certain people wanted to paint it over. Other people wanted to cover it. Some wanted to preserve it.

It turned into a political fight amongst, the left, the far left, the PTA, the other PTA, various pillars of the community who represent the various ethnic populations, the rainbow flag warriors, the social justice warriors, and the ACLU. No right wing people on The Left Coast (except Arnold Schwarzenegger and Caitlyn Jenner). So different factions of Democrats have to war amongst themselves. Sort of like when people of the same race fight each other in prison.

It eventually spun out of control. The Board of Education wanted to "cancel culture" 44 schools. Change the names of the schools. The people who the schools were named after were somehow offensive. Including Dianne Feinstein Elementary School. So as you can imagine, as in most cities, that meant all of the Presidents, Francis Scott Key, historical military figures, founding fathers of The City, et cetera.

Personally I can't get worked up about taking down statues or changing names. Statues and names are not history. They're merely how people in power at any given time choose to interpret history, and while that interpretation itself is of historic interest, it should come as a surprise to no one when that interpretation changes as time passes.

I never went to a school named after a person, unless there was a historical figure named Ahasuerus J. Central that I never knew about. But I don't think my understanding of history was stunted in any way by not every day walking past a pigeon-dappled effigy of some nineteenth century character, or by seeing his name over the door as I walked in. You can learn just as effectively in a school named "Central," "North End," or "P. S. 148" as you can in a school named after Warren G. Harding.

The town where I grew up was named after a historic figure, but the history there was that the naming was all part of an angle being worked by the town government of the time -- this man had never had anything to do with the town, but he was quite rich, and the idea was if they named the town after him he might be convinced to part with the necessary funds to buy the town a new town hall building. They went ahead with the naming, a delegation called upon him with the appropriate bowing and scraping, and he handed over the cash. When the new town hall was completed, they invited their worthy benefactor to the dedication. He arrived, took one look at the building, snorted "looks like a powder house!", got back on his ship and sailed away, and never had anything do do with the town again.

So you can see why I'm not all that impressed with naming anything after historic figures. I don't think any generation is a fair judge of who should be worthy of such an honor, especially within its own boundaries. The towering historic icon of today is the "who's that goober?" of tomorrow.

As for mural art, controversies surrounding it are in no way whatsoever a modern development. The WPA mural program was ferociously attacked from the right in the 1930s and 40s -- we had a story in the Day By Day thread last year where a mural painted at a Brooklyn airport in 1940 was destroyed by political opponents who claimed that a red star shown on the side of a building and a face in a crowd scene with a moustache like Stalin's offered clear proof that the art was Communist propaganda. There has never, ever, been a shortage of people in this country who will interpret -- and seek to remove or destroy -- artwork according to their own political dogmas. The whole "cancel culture" outcry is, itself, a failure to understand the kind of people Americans have been thruout their history. That, in itself, is an indelible part of our history.

LizzieMaine said:

and while that interpretation itself is of historic interest, it should come as a surprise to no one when that interpretation changes as time passes.
As for mural art, controversies surrounding it are in no way whatsoever a modern development. The WPA mural program was ferociously attacked from the right in the 1930s and 40s -- propaganda. There has never, ever, been a shortage of people in this country who will interpret -- and seek to remove or destroy -- artwork according to their own political dogma.

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Intolerance is a double sided coin deeply etched and displayed whenever individual or collective interest so demands.

Recently, the Oak Park, Illinois Library board voted to destroy a 1930s ice skating mural for the unforgivable sin of excluding
figure skaters of color, which, of course had caused hurt feelings and severe trauma. So, the mural had to go.
The dominant persuasion comprising the board was progressive and their forced rationale for the necessity of
thumbs-downing this particular WPA product was torturously aesthetic in nature. A similar scenario occurred at
Notre Dame where a Columbus mural got the ol' ax since its historic veracity enflamed the souls of undergraduates
apparently too obsessed with themselves to bother with matters more germane to actual life.

Cancel culture exists left and right center focus. A recent Supreme Court cert declined to hear an appeal
for relief from a Washington State florist who exercised her First Amendment right to remain silent and not provide
flowers for a same gender wedding that she objected to on religious grounds. The gay couple returned favor
with legal pursuit because of petty vindictiveness and an all too predictable astigmatism that other people
also have rights; including religious views. The Roberts Court equally predictable, declined to hear the case
despite a salient core constitutional right that Jefferson chose to address.

Human nature in all its guises remains constant through time.

Which is why I don't get worked up about that end of it either way. "History" is about the generation that's telling the story, and generations will come and go and the story will change in the telling. And public art is not the same thing as art in a museum -- and it, too, will come and go with the generations and the shifting priorities of those generations.

I got quite annoyed a few years back when the WPA-built recreation center in my town was named after a longtime city official who had worked there. No doubt he was a fine person, but he had nothing to do with the construction of the building or the circumstances that caused it to be built, circumstances which some of those leading the call to name it after this particular individual would rather not have to acknowledge for political reasons. A truly "historically appropriate" naming, that I would have supported, would have been to call it the Works Progress Administration Memorial Recreation Center, but the people who run my town don't know nuthin' 'bout history. But hey, in another fifty years nobody will know or care who this person was, and it'll be renamed after the Connecticut-based property-management firm that will then control the entire city.

Murals are a particular flashpoint for this type of thing. Several years ago, our then-governor ordered the removal from the lobby of the State Department of Labor a series of panels depicting Maine's often-troubled labor history, on the grounds that it created an uncomfortable and adversarial environment for businessmen having dealings with the Department. These snowflakes with their safe spaces.

There's a big mural project going on downtown right now, where the two bare sides of an old Woolworth's that now houses a hipster cafe and a real estate office are being decorated with public art featuring no representational figures at all. Random geometric color blocks are always a safe choice.

Murals, especially WPA product are generally very high quality and quite often uniquely styled.
One or two murals in any public building from that era always catch my eye for exactitude of subject rhymed
with artistic purpose. Whatever stipend given the work bequeathed value far and away beyond a mere dole pittance paid.
The public gained much more from the WPA than what was actually paid those men and women for their talent and time.

History speaks her own truth and her truth is testament to mankind for better or worse.

Harp said:

A recent Supreme Court cert declined to hear an appeal
for relief from a Washington State florist who exercised her First Amendment right to remain silent and not provide
flowers for a same gender wedding that she objected to on religious grounds.

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I thought that the Supreme Court had already set precedent with the cases of the bakers who would not bake the wedding cakes. So by declining the florist case, the case with the baker stands. The baker has a right to religious beliefs, and cannot be forced to bake a cake. A florist should have the same right to not make a floral arrangement.

With businesses forced to by public health mandate to only serve vaccinated people and enforce mask wearing, the next wave of lawsuits will come from unvaccinated people who are being discriminated against. Bars, restaurants, theaters, sporting events - expecting proof of vaccination before you can come in. They will, "Fight, For Your Right, To Party!"