Memory or history?

[Ford Prefect]

I have heard it said, although I cannot recall by whom that the U.S. has no history only memory. To suit me I define history is the record of hard facts while memory is subject to self editing and becoming nostalgia. So the turn of the century in America becomes a Courier and Ives postcard of industriousness and healthy activity. While history remembers that women were listed amongst a man's chattels and property, were not allowed to vote or hold real property and blacks were kept in line by State condoned acts of terrorism.
Memory allows one of our members to think that only the Spanish messed up South and Central America while history recalls the United Fruit Company, Allende/Pinochet, Gunboat Diplomacy and the Bay of Pigs.
It seems once an event has passed out of living memory it ceases to exist, even sooner if the memory is unpleasant enough. Vietnam is gone. The years of bloody riots, burning buildings, protesters gassed and beaten and even shot, unarmed, for the crime of speaking out against government policy.
The first World War has become somehow confused with the second and has become a gallant battle against tyranny, instead of a bloody waste of Europe's youth in a struggle between imperialist powers with America joining at the last moment to ensure they got in on dividing up the spoils of the German Empire.
I'm not really ranting against the U.S. here. I'm not ignorant of the good done and resources spent on helping others. I am just indulging in the pastime of the ageing, ranting about how youth doesn't pay any attention to the importance of what has gone before. How they (or you as the case may be) are blinded by the struggles and successes of their own time to the extent that they don't understand what foundation supports their lives.
There are places where the citizens of a country can trace the roots of their ancestors back thousands of years. Blood relatives walked the same land they live on not centuries but millennia before. Romans at a time when they controlled a quarter of the earth's surface without motorized transport or instantaneous communication. Ethiopians that walk the land where man first became man. In America you might go back three hundred years. And the reality of those few years is becoming more and more a Disney version of the truth. A feel-good entertainment that avoids any unpleasant thoughts.

Sorry for taking up so much cyber-space. I thought I had something to say.


It is so trite but true:

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
George Santayana

[DCrazy]

Commandment 11: Thou shalt not display the Nazi Swastika in any context, for fear of punishment of three years.

[Pandora]

To me the difference between history and memory has nothing to with truth or forgetfulness or the amount of remembered details. It is a difference in story-telling: History tries to connect the dots: it's not just about what happened when, but also about what lead to what, and so on --- sort of an integrated - but possibly quite abstract - account of all you are and what made you what you are. Memory, in contrast, is very vividly remembered single events, but lacking a common theme or story that would unite them all.
A nation (or a person) needs both: history without memory is boring and stale. Memory without history has no useful effect on future actions.

[Will Robinson]

...The first World War has become somehow confused with the second and has become a gallant battle against tyranny, instead of a bloody waste of Europe's youth in a struggle between imperialist powers with America joining at the last moment to ensure they got in on dividing up the spoils of the German Empire....

Is that accounting of America's motive for entering WWII historical or one of those memory things also?
I don't recall America receiving any new territories in the european theater. We may have been reluctant and late to the fight but I don't know of any reason to characterize our involvement as motivated by greed.
Even with the cost of our soldiers lives set aside, you should add up the cost America paid rebuilding Europe and then show me where we took a 'share of spoils'!!

[Foil]

...
A nation (or a person) needs both: history without memory is boring and stale. Memory without history has no useful effect on future actions.

Agreed!

However, I'll also agree with Ford Prefect that the presentation of history in the United States has often been more entertainment than fact. From my limited experience (I'm only 30), this is not only in Hollywood, but sometimes even in our educational system.

[De Rigueur]

Is that accounting of America's motive for entering WWII historical or one of those memory things also?

I think he was talking about WWI there, although I agree with you that his remarks were little more than slander.

IMO, when that past is referenced (whether you call it history or memory), it's usually being filtered, edited, and used as propaganda.

[Will Robinson]

I think he was talking about WWI there, although I agree with you that his remarks were little more than slander.

IMO, when that past is referenced (whether you call it history or memory), it's usually being filtered, edited, and used as propaganda.

Ahh, I didn't follow the sentence too well if that's the case, but wasn't it America that told France and Great Britian after WWI that we disapproved of the way they were splitting up the middle east and sending the Jews to live there? And again, what "spoils" did we take?
But I guess I should wonder if that is the teaching of accurate history or someones manipulation of the facts that makes me think I "know that" ?

[CUDA]

edit; heh pulled a Will and didnt read it correct

[tris]

memory is your own perspective of a matter of the past

history is written by the victors

[Ford Prefect]

If you didn't follow the thread of the sentence too well Will it was because it was poorly written. I was referring to WWI. And in contrast to the European powers the U.S. has never (well hardly ever) directly occupied or colonized foreign lands. That does not mean that they have never attempted to gain influence over foreign politics and the make up of foreign governments.
Perhaps this opinion has been influenced by my upbringing in Canada where the British opinion that the U.S. took all the glory without the sacrifice has much influence. The U.S. suffered only 2% of the total casualties in the war. The number is still staggering at 116,000 dead but compare that to the U.K. at 900,000 or France 1,375,000. Even Canada at one tenth the population of the U.S. suffered 65,000 dead.
WWI was a useless, murderous, waste of human life undertaken for no purpose other than empire building by all the participants.

Actually while digging around for this answer I found another good reason for the U.S. to enter WWI. Money.

We didn't win a thing we set out for in the last war. We merely succeeded, with tremendous loss of life, to make secure the loans of private bankers to the Allies. -- Senator Gerald Nye of North Dakota, Chairman of the Senate Munitions Committee (circa 1936)

By 1917, American loans to the Allies had soared to $2.25 billion; loans to Germany stood at a paltry $27 million. -- The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

[Mobius]

And for the record, in both world wars, New Zealand took more fatalities as a percentage of population than any other country. After both world wars, NZ was largely vacant of able bodied men, and in fact, if it weren't for the friendly US soldiers stationed here, our population would still be trying to recover!

[Flabby Chick]

The old ww1 ww2 chestnut huh?

Forget the subplots, it's all bollocks. The world learned that it's good to wipe out insane leaders by kicking their ass befoe they make a mess.

And genocide isn't a nice thing and should be stopped.

Shame we didn't apply what we learnt till it was too late.

[De Rigueur]

if it weren't for the friendly US soldiers stationed here, our population would still be trying to recover!

Please let us know if we can be of further assistance.

[Ford Prefect]

The old ww1 ww2 chestnut huh? Rolling Eyes

Forget the subplots, it's all bollocks. The world learned that it's good to wipe out insane leaders by kicking their ass befoe they make a mess.

And genocide isn't a nice thing and should be stopped.

Shame we didn't apply what we learnt till it was too late.

This is what I'm talking about Flabby. Somehow WWII, where there was a clearly evil, aggressive regime to be opposed gets mixed up with WWI which was pure imperialist warmongering on both sides. WWI was a horror show and every participating nation was as guilty as every other of aggression. There was no \"good\" or \"evil\" side just murderous greed and stupidity.
Who was the insane leader that needed to be knocked out in WWI?
Where was the genocide? Oh wait! It was in Turkey against the Armenian's but that was on the \"good\" side wasn't it?

[De Rigueur]

every participating nation was as guilty as every other of aggression.

Even New Zealand? What do you say, Mobius?

[Flabby Chick]

This is what I'm talking about Flabby. Somehow WWII, where there was a clearly evil, aggressive regime to be opposed gets mixed up with WWI which was pure imperialist warmongering on both sides. WWI was a horror show and every participating nation was as guilty as every other of aggression. There was no "good" or "evil" side just murderous greed and stupidity.
Who was the insane leader that needed to be knocked out in WWI?
Where was the genocide? Oh wait! It was in Turkey against the Armenian's but that was on the "good" side wasn't it?

Yup your right, i was putting both in the same pot.