Its hard to remember, with how much the media and institutions talk about it like it was just yesterday and we are "still healing" but we are only a scant few years from it starting a century ago. Heck we aren't even that far from the end being nearly a century ago.
Its why we keep seeing stories crop up about faked WW2 vets and Holocaust survivors, because its literally a demographic about to approach extinction but the Powers That Be don't want to lose the hyped up social pressure they've taught people to give that title.
What kills me is that the propaganda has done nothing to help the understanding of WW2 in anyway. So, instead people operating off of low-information institutional disinformation, they start operating off of low-information self-made misinformation, or low-information counter-narrative disinformation. The institutions have behaved so egregiously that we have to kind of start from scratch with people to go over the basics. And when we're talking about normie a-political a-historical types, it's a real slog because they don't even know where to begin.
I remember taking my friends to go see Dunkirk when it came out in theaters, but they had never heard of the battle. They are into anime and fantasy, they had no reference point to WW2 outside of highschool history classes. I basically had to give them an ultra-simplified run-down on the when, who, and why of anything that was going on. Now, how are the tens of millions of Americans who are just like them going to understand WW2, when they know the institutions can't be trusted. Even if they hear correct information, it might be out-of-context and they might misconstrue what it means. Maybe they think something like: the USSR was always on the allied side.
I actually do understand the complaint of some of these Neo-Liberals complaining about anti-intellectualism and anti-institutionalism... but GOOD LORD: IT'S YOUR FAULT YOU DUMB BASTARDS! If you weren't dedicating the institutions to a full-spectrum propaganda war, they wouldn't be so anti-institutional, and they wouldn't fall for RandomFucko619's YouTube video on how Bulgaria will be a Super Power in 2020. And since I do know what they're lying about, I'd rather see the institutions raized to the fucking ground, rather than reform them because RandomFucko619 isn't saying anything crazier than you are!
The Ukraine chicken-hawks get to me because they started saying shit like "we should do to Putin what we did to Hitler"... "What? Firebomb every major city in Russia and murder 15 million people?" The aggressiveness in the stupidity makes me lose my mind, and the faggot "I fucking love history!" historians are writing books to profit off of the disinformation in exactly the same way as RandomFucko619 is... except they have a PhD.
Now, how are the tens of millions of Americans who are just like them going to understand WW2, when they know the institutions can't be trusted.
Its a real issue because all the "neutral" sources are actually heavily painted towards the common consensus and narrative, to a point where its nearly impossible to even find anything remotely outside of that. You get the high school simplified version, and the longer detailed version that is a lot of boring details only really interesting to mega-autists who enjoy tank specifications and playing Risk.
So the only way to receive information outside of it is to listen to people who have thier own axe to grind, and are just as likely to be painting it to their flavor. But it is new information, that is usually completely factual once you verify it, so you begin to question everything and trust them more.
What makes it extra dumb is that if you really tried to lay out a neutral-as-possible understanding of the war, you'd not have a position that was too far away from what the Mainstream wants. It would be super easy to say "some Jewish elite were being fucked up in Weimar and it upset a lot of people" and then its not hard to follow that with "but that doesn't justify the Holocaust and the levels Nazis went to regarding it." And numerous other spots where the two sides differ heavily in what they are saying. The majority of the time, most people would end up on the side of the mainstream anyway.
But instead it was a full circled wagon. Weimar doesn't get mentioned in the slightest so the Nazis just woke up and decided to be evil just cuz. Which makes it super easy for the opposite side to point out reasons and crumble the entire tower of propaganda. Which creates the super easy hole of "what else were they lying about?!?!" to be filled with all sorts of anything.
I actually do understand the complaint
I get what you are saying, but their complaint isn't actually their complaint. Their complaint is that people don't just reflexively trust "the experts" (academics, talking heads and anyone on the approved list). Otherwise they are just as anti- as the people they decry in these ways.
we should do to Putin what we did to Hitler
I still cannot even comprehend why I'm supposed to hate Putin/Russia. Like, I get why people did in the Cold War and guys who lived through that can't let it go. But otherwise he/they have done very little different or worse than what our "allies" do. And unlike them, he/they at least back up their shit with actual actions on their own instead of demanding the US do it for them.
Yet he/they are spoken of like its just the natural state of things that you will hate and despise. And thereby they can casually talk about deporting, genocide, and invading like they aren't even real people.
The majority of the time, most people would end up on the side of the mainstream anyway.
I guess I'm grateful that my friends allow me to teach them the history they don't know, because they trust me to separate out known facts, and then my opinions.
(Believe it or not, when I'm genuinely trying to teach someone a subject I come off much less opinionated than I do here.)
Their complaint is that people don't just reflexively trust "the experts"
Which is weird because so much of their youth was spent condemning the knowledge of the institutions which they undermined, destroyed, and then replaced with their own bullshit.
I still cannot even comprehend why I'm supposed to hate Putin/Russia
In fairness, he did not defensively invade Ukraine. Since the coup, he's been attempting to divide out the geo-strategic, or politically useful, portions of Ukraine that he can.
Fair point.
Its hard to remember, with how much the media and institutions talk about it like it was just yesterday and we are "still healing" but we are only a scant few years from it starting a century ago. Heck we aren't even that far from the end being nearly a century ago.
Its why we keep seeing stories crop up about faked WW2 vets and Holocaust survivors, because its literally a demographic about to approach extinction but the Powers That Be don't want to lose the hyped up social pressure they've taught people to give that title.
What kills me is that the propaganda has done nothing to help the understanding of WW2 in anyway. So, instead people operating off of low-information institutional disinformation, they start operating off of low-information self-made misinformation, or low-information counter-narrative disinformation. The institutions have behaved so egregiously that we have to kind of start from scratch with people to go over the basics. And when we're talking about normie a-political a-historical types, it's a real slog because they don't even know where to begin.
I remember taking my friends to go see Dunkirk when it came out in theaters, but they had never heard of the battle. They are into anime and fantasy, they had no reference point to WW2 outside of highschool history classes. I basically had to give them an ultra-simplified run-down on the when, who, and why of anything that was going on. Now, how are the tens of millions of Americans who are just like them going to understand WW2, when they know the institutions can't be trusted. Even if they hear correct information, it might be out-of-context and they might misconstrue what it means. Maybe they think something like: the USSR was always on the allied side.
I actually do understand the complaint of some of these Neo-Liberals complaining about anti-intellectualism and anti-institutionalism... but GOOD LORD: IT'S YOUR FAULT YOU DUMB BASTARDS! If you weren't dedicating the institutions to a full-spectrum propaganda war, they wouldn't be so anti-institutional, and they wouldn't fall for RandomFucko619's YouTube video on how Bulgaria will be a Super Power in 2020. And since I do know what they're lying about, I'd rather see the institutions raized to the fucking ground, rather than reform them because RandomFucko619 isn't saying anything crazier than you are!
The Ukraine chicken-hawks get to me because they started saying shit like "we should do to Putin what we did to Hitler"... "What? Firebomb every major city in Russia and murder 15 million people?" The aggressiveness in the stupidity makes me lose my mind, and the faggot "I fucking love history!" historians are writing books to profit off of the disinformation in exactly the same way as RandomFucko619 is... except they have a PhD.
Its a real issue because all the "neutral" sources are actually heavily painted towards the common consensus and narrative, to a point where its nearly impossible to even find anything remotely outside of that. You get the high school simplified version, and the longer detailed version that is a lot of boring details only really interesting to mega-autists who enjoy tank specifications and playing Risk.
So the only way to receive information outside of it is to listen to people who have thier own axe to grind, and are just as likely to be painting it to their flavor. But it is new information, that is usually completely factual once you verify it, so you begin to question everything and trust them more.
What makes it extra dumb is that if you really tried to lay out a neutral-as-possible understanding of the war, you'd not have a position that was too far away from what the Mainstream wants. It would be super easy to say "some Jewish elite were being fucked up in Weimar and it upset a lot of people" and then its not hard to follow that with "but that doesn't justify the Holocaust and the levels Nazis went to regarding it." And numerous other spots where the two sides differ heavily in what they are saying. The majority of the time, most people would end up on the side of the mainstream anyway.
But instead it was a full circled wagon. Weimar doesn't get mentioned in the slightest so the Nazis just woke up and decided to be evil just cuz. Which makes it super easy for the opposite side to point out reasons and crumble the entire tower of propaganda. Which creates the super easy hole of "what else were they lying about?!?!" to be filled with all sorts of anything.
I get what you are saying, but their complaint isn't actually their complaint. Their complaint is that people don't just reflexively trust "the experts" (academics, talking heads and anyone on the approved list). Otherwise they are just as anti- as the people they decry in these ways.
I still cannot even comprehend why I'm supposed to hate Putin/Russia. Like, I get why people did in the Cold War and guys who lived through that can't let it go. But otherwise he/they have done very little different or worse than what our "allies" do. And unlike them, he/they at least back up their shit with actual actions on their own instead of demanding the US do it for them.
Yet he/they are spoken of like its just the natural state of things that you will hate and despise. And thereby they can casually talk about deporting, genocide, and invading like they aren't even real people.
I guess I'm grateful that my friends allow me to teach them the history they don't know, because they trust me to separate out known facts, and then my opinions.
(Believe it or not, when I'm genuinely trying to teach someone a subject I come off much less opinionated than I do here.)
Which is weird because so much of their youth was spent condemning the knowledge of the institutions which they undermined, destroyed, and then replaced with their own bullshit.
In fairness, he did not defensively invade Ukraine. Since the coup, he's been attempting to divide out the geo-strategic, or politically useful, portions of Ukraine that he can.