A well thought and brave article imo, considering today's tendancy toward nationalistic chest thumping over WWI and II, not just in Britain I might add, but Australia, NZ and possibly the US as well. To steal the words of a German friend "this increasing culture of commemoration starting from the 1970s has created a movement in the opposite direction. It is no longer what we are and do that determines our identity, but what our grandparents and their ancestors were and did".

Isn't it time we got over our obsession with past wars?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/30/first-world-war-worship-sickening-avalanche

Much though I question a lot of that commemoration culture (and hand wringing), I think your friend may be a little off track in his comments on identity. I would suggest that it's in our understanding, however inaccurate, of the past that much of our identity is vested and that can influence what we are and do in the present. 

Here's Guy Halsall's response to Grove et al. 
http://600transformer.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/the-first-world-war-right-and-left-wing.html

As well as addressing what he sees as inherent left and right wing biases and thus the whole issue of objective 'truth' in historical interpretation, he critiques some of the arguments proposed by revisionist thinking. He also takes up your final point saying:.

"Banging on about courage, patriotism and national honour, celebrating national victory and apportioning national blame only does the opposite, perpetuating the factors that took Europe and her empires over the precipice."

ferval wrote:

Much though I question a lot of that commemoration culture (and hand wringing), I think your friend may be a little off track in his comments on identity. I would suggest that it's in our understanding, however inaccurate, of the past that much of our identity is vested and that can influence what we are and do in the present. 

Here's Guy Halsall's response to Grove et al. 
http://600transformer.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/the-first-world-war-right-and-left-wing.html

As well as addressing what he sees as inherent left and right wing biases and thus the whole issue of objective 'truth' in historical interpretation, he critiques some of the arguments proposed by revisionist thinking. He also takes up your final point saying:.

<quote>"Banging on about courage, patriotism and national honour, celebrating national victory and apportioning national blame only does the opposite, perpetuating the factors that took Europe and her empires over the precipice."</quote>

Ferval and Islanddawn,

"commemoration culture" It's big money too. For instance now the "Westhoek" (region around Ypres) 2014 and following years will be a good year for the local commerce...

With commemoration there is nothing wrong as long it commemorates the misery caused to the humanity and that includes all sides...did some research this evening about the German presence at the commemoration and it seems that they will be present through the person of the German president (name Glauck if I remember it well. And on 14 July 70 countries' delegates at Paris to start the memory of WWI (including the "Central powers").

"Here's Guy Halsall's response to Grove et al. 
http://600transformer.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/the-first-world-war-right-and-left-wing.html
As well as addressing what he sees as inherent left and right wing biases and thus the whole issue of objective 'truth' in historical interpretation, he critiques some of the arguments proposed by revisionist thinking."

I started to read the URL for several pages but at the end stopped because it is also some "hand wringing" about bias which is many times bias in itself too...We discussed it already on the Historum site...my point of view is that moral stances have nothing to do in history writing...the historian can nowhere have a moral opinion or has to try to minimize the influence of it in his historical review as much as possible being aware that that isn't a good quality of a historian... 

"Banging on about courage, patriotism and national honour, celebrating national victory and apportioning national blame only does the opposite, perpetuating the factors that took Europe and her empires over the precipice."

Yes, that's also my opinion, but that has nothing to do with the history writing about the WWI, its causes, reasons, occasion. (and one has first to start a discussion about the concept of the words "cause", "reason", "occasion").

It remembers me the "construction" (at the end 19th century) of the nowadays Flemish identity (Flemish "Volk"). Perhaps Nordmann with his Irish background will understand what I mean. As an "internationalist" some will perhaps condemn me as a "leftist", but that isn't true either. And I am also not blind to the other cultures arriving in Belgium with other attitudes as religion, way of life and so on, especially if they don't want even in the slightest way to integrate into the "mores" of the accepting country...
But all that has nothing to do with honest history writing and has only to do with my "personal" "opinion"...My individual crusade against "biased" history...

And yes I know, as the above quote mentions, that many people use even not biased "national" history to the construction of their "national" feelings (saw yesterday on the ARTE channel a 1H30 documentary about the new Russian nationalists and their counterparts (Lenin, Stalin, Putin and all that))

About WWI as I did already in the past a lot of research I am preparing a reaction to message 155 (page 16)from the American Athena on the Historum site:
http://historum.com/war-military-history/66514-so-who-really-started-world-war-one.html

Kind regards and with esteem to both,

Paul.

In full agreement with the idea that there are far too many people who do not identify with their own lives and their own times but instead falsely live off the (supposed) memories of their grandparents and great-grandparents etc.

Hence, for example, we have the BBC commissioning 2500 hours of First World War centenary programming to be broadcast over the next 5 years. This mind-numbingly mammoth broadcast schedule has already begun in earnest as we speak in January 2014 and yet the centenary of the outbreak of the war isn't for another 6 months yet.

The excessive Titanic centenary commemorations in 2012 were an early indication of this somewhat disturbing trend.

Vizzer,

it brings always money for someone...the hotels for instance in Belgium...when the crew has to be installed on location...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parade's_End_(TV_series)

Kind regards and with esteem,

Paul.

There is no doubt Paul that it'll certainly be welcomed by the tourist and film-making industries in Belgium and Northern France.

Two of my friends (a couple) who when they married decided to spend their honeymoon touring the First World War battlefields. Needless to say we were surprised and taken aback by their unusual choice of destination. This was particularly so because they were both young (in their late 20s), popular and trendy but neither had previously given any impression that they were also both secretly history buffs.

That said - this was in the 1990s so there was no centenary-type bandwagon which they were jumping on. In fact the 80th anniversary of the First World War was no landmark at all compared to the much more high-profile 50th anniversary of the Second World War. So their motivation was obviously one of a genuine personal interest. One might say, therefore, that the Maldives' loss was Messines' gain.

The current situation, however, seems quite different. I'm not sure how the media in Belgium is treating the forthcoming centenary (in terms of it being an historical event rather than as a commercial opportunity as such) but in the UK it already seems to be a case of overkill - literally.

P.S. Talking about Flanders, I was very taken with the locations there (standing in for mediaeval England) filmed by the BBC and used in the drama series The White Queen last year. There is, after all, a lot much more to Belgian history than just 1914-18.

Vizzer,

thank you very much for exposing the UK situation.
And yes "The white queen". I was ready to add that too yesterday as the film has partially Bruges as decor...Bruges, film town  ...
An yes the rich Belgian history...but to my book as part from the european and worldhistory with all the interconnections...I just some minutes ago learned about "global history" (never heard about it)
Read the English language URLs about global history

PaulRyckier	Sujet du message : Re: Présentation des nouveaux membres Publié : 01 Fév 2014 18:30
Eginhard Inscription : 21 Sep 2008 23:29 Message(s) : 958	Surya a écrit : Bonjour à tous, Je me suis inscrit un peu par hasard aujourd'hui en voyant un sujet qui m'intéressait et auquel personne n'avait répondu... Je connaissais le forum par ailleurs, mais je n'y passais pas beaucoup de temps. Je suis agrégatif en histoire à Lyon cette année, et même si à peu près tout m'intéresse, je suis avant tout moderniste et espère me spécialiser dans l'histoire de l'Asie du Sud-Est/de l'Asie orientale aux XVIe-XVIIe siècles (pour faire simple). Ca me tient d'autant plus à coeur qu'en voyant les quelques messages de présentation récents, presque aucun ne mentionne la période moderne, comme toujours parente pauvre dans l'imaginaire historique commun... Je suis particulièrement intéressé par le mouvement de Global history, sans en être, loin de là, un grand connaisseur. Sinon j'ai une affection toute particulière pour l'histoire mérovingienne (mon 2e coup de coeur, disons), et comme tout le monde ici, j'aime voyager, lire et rêver... Surya, "Je suis particulièrement intéressé par le mouvement de Global history, sans en être, loin de là, un grand connaisseur. " Jusqu'à maintenant jamais entendu de "Global history" et étant seulement un amateur dans l'historiographie ce n'est peut-être pas grâve... Après une recherche rapide: http://global.history.ox.ac.uk/ http://www.global-history.de/who_we_are/index.html http://www.global-history.de/ À la première vue je pensais que c'était l'étude de l'histoire mondiale, un sujet que j'ai aimé dès mon début sur le ex-forum histoire du BBC en 2002 et puis sur le ex-forum français "Histoforums". Je n'ai en effet que des histoires mondiales dans differents langues dans ma bibliothèque personelle. Les autres livres d'histoire j'emprunte dans la bibliotheque locale... (ou laisse les envoyer d'autres bibliothèques). Mais maintenant je vois que c'est autre chose...merci pour cet apport... Cordialement et avec estime, Paul.

Surya

Sujet du message : Re: Présentation des nouveaux membres Publié : 01 Fév 2014 18:36

Hérodote Inscription : 01 Fév 2014 12:31 Message(s) : 5 Localisation : Lyon

C'est toujours un plaisir de partager ! en gros, la World history c'est l'étude de la première mondialisation, plus développée chez les anglo-saxons que chez nous. Même si récemment, le collège de France a créé une "chaire d'histoire globale de la première modernité" pour Sanjay Subrahmanyam, du sur-mesure pour ce poids lourd en la matière (auteur d'une biographie de Vasco de Gama assez célèbre, et d'une synthèse très bien faite sur les Portugais en Asie). Ca montre que l'historiographie française commence à s'ouvrir...

And yes the so-called Flemish history...before 1932 the nowadays Flanders didn't exist. It was spread over the County of Flanders, the Duchy of Brabant and the Prince-Bishopric of Liège. Later it was part of Burgundy's Low Countries, later Hapsburg territory and later part of the Southern Netherlands, the future Belgium. Not to say that Belgium also just exists from 1830 on.

Kind regards and with esteem,

Paul.

There is a tendency to dismiss the First World War as having solved nothing and to be seen only as a significant cause for and precursor to World War Two. This is true (there are good grounds to see them both as one long global upheaval with a quiet bit in the middle). However there is also the aspect to 1914-1918, in which the world that emerged from it was radically different to the one which entered it, that deserves very close scrutiny and some attempt to comprehend outside of academia. There is also the point that of all the cultures and countries transformed by this conflict it is Britain that probably was slowest to appreciate the fact - the notion of empire and status surviving the conflict unchanged, at least according to the "official" line peddled by successive governments.

While acknowledging media "over-kill" in its suggested approach to this centenary I would still regard it as ameliorating circumstances if in the process it encourages widespread introspection and analysis of what these changes actually were and what they represented to "real" people and their daily lives during its progress and in its aftermath. There are, as there always are in history, worthwhile parallels to be drawn with contemporary society which, if examined and perused by a sizeable cross-section of society, might actually shed some comprehensible and comprehensive light on matters a little closer to today's reality. Should this be encouraged by the exercise then let it roll on.

I had similar misgivings in the Irish commemoration of the Great Famine on its 150th anniversary but after four years of it had to concede that there was much good that came out of it with regard to historical analysis removed from the cliched analysis that had grown up in the meantime. Some of this analysis, especially that conducted through honest reassessment, led to some uncomfortable but salient conclusions about contemporary society too. Maybe this will be the same. I hope so.

Nordmann,

"There is a tendency to dismiss the First World War as having solved nothing and to be seen only as a significant cause for and precursor to World War Two. This is true (there are good grounds to see them both as one long global upheaval with a quiet bit in the middle). However there is also the aspect to 1914-1918, in which the world that emerged from it was radically different to the one which entered it, that deserves very close scrutiny and some attempt to comprehend outside of academia. There is also the point that of all the cultures and countries transformed by this conflict it is Britain that probably was slowest to appreciate the fact - the notion of empire and status surviving the conflict unchanged, at least according to the "official" line peddled by successive governments."

Yes the change after 14-18 deserves a very close scrutiny...also in my opinion...I suppose it was the last conflict that started "purely"
on territorial and old-fashioned "imperial" influences? From the emerging of the Communist base in Russia over the Fascist "Weltanschauung" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_view) till the clash of ideologies...
I took part in never ending threads of the causes of WWI, but I think that the cause of WWII is different from the first one, especially in that matter of ideologies...in WWI had the warring factions all still the same ideology?


"While acknowledging media "over-kill" in its suggested approach to this centenary I would still regard it as ameliorating circumstances if in the process it encourages widespread introspection and analysis of what these changes actually were and what they represented to "real" people and their daily lives during its progress and in its aftermath. There are, as there always are in history, worthwhile parallels to be drawn with contemporary society which, if examined and perused by a sizeable cross-section of society, might actually shed some comprehensible and comprehensive light on matters a little closer to today's reality. Should this be encouraged by the exercise then let it roll on.
I had similar misgivings in the Irish commemoration of the Great Famine on its 150th anniversary but after four years of it had to concede that there was much good that came out of it with regard to historical analysis removed from the cliched analysis that had grown up in the meantime. Some of this analysis, especially that conducted through honest reassessment, led to some uncomfortable but salient conclusions about contemporary society too. Maybe this will be the same. I hope so."


Yes I understand what you mean. Just saw yesterday on the Belgian news a document of a school class who visited Auschwitz.
Saw the eyes of the students...it is many times necessary to let people see the reality of abhorent past deeds...

Kind regards and with esteem,

Paul.

I am not quite sure what 'falsely' living off grandparents' memories means exactly, and don't see why you can't value these as well as identifying with your own life.  They don't seem mutually exclusive to me.  But at any rate I think there has been a big change in how WWI and WWII have been analysed in recent times from what was written in the past.  (I don't watch much serious or even trivial war analysis on television so can't comment on that.)  Much more emphasis on the individual soldiers' experiences and how they felt.  And more on the peripherals - the Home Guard, women's roles, how bombing affected communities on both sides, etc. 

Every Anzac Day new books come out in New Zealand, in the past mostly on the Gallipoli campaign, but now widening out more to include more aspects of both wars, and of Vietnam too.  There has since Gallipoli always been a warmth to relations between Turkey and NZ, so the contributions of Turkish people has always been fairly much to the fore in accounts of that part of the war, without too much of the 'them and us' dichotomy. 

NZ Anzac commemorations are generally serious and more or less religious observations, or at least with a Christian underlying basis to them.  I do sometimes wonder if they couldn't be a less heavy, as the young men in their day wouldn't have thought of themselves as people to be treated so reverentially.  No longer, I think though, so much as heroes as of young men setting out on an adventure that turned out very badly. 

We are selling in our museum at the moment a wonderful-looking book which deals with many aspects of the first world war, including aspects often not touched on.  It is beautifully presented with little pockets including things like a copy of the pardon mentioned in a thread earlier, and letters, and items of clothing.  It's described in the government's website thus: This is a general overview of New Zealand’s involvement in the First World War, aimed at the non-specialist reader and covering events on the battlefields and at home. An interactive or ‘engineered paper’ book, it is highly visual, full colour and include facsimiles of contemporary diaries, maps, posters and a range of other memorabilia inserted into the publication. And it includes an item from our museum, which has made our director very happy.  I think we got $50 for that - must have been a very expensive book to produce if they had to pay everyone for their contributions.  Other print and digital projects run or funded by the government are described here: http://www.mch.govt.nz/what-we-do/our-projects/current/first-world-war-centenary-projects

The government is also running some ballot for NZers to visit Gallipoli.  I haven't tried for this, since I didn't feel I had a strong enough connection.  My great-uncle who lived with us was injured in WWI but far from living on his memories, I curse frequently the fact that we never asked him anything at all about his time there.

The book I am reading at the moment called The Lost Pilot by Jeffrey Paparoa Holman was probably not specially planned to come out for World War One's centenery.  It is a memoir/biography thing, with the author tracing his father's life and influences (mostly bad).  He was in the navy during the war and a kamikaze pilot tried to sink their boat but was killed without killing those on board.  I haven't got to this part yet, but Jeffrey Holman eventually goes to Japan to meet the elderly brothers of the six men killed as kamikaze pilots that day and finds that a very moving experience where he is treated warmly.  There is a lot of Japanese history as well as his personal history, and that of his parents and other relatives.  It's a fascinating book and written by a man known as a poet, so it has a deft touch with language (without actually being 'poetic' or difficult in style).

Caro wrote:

I am not quite sure what 'falsely' living off grandparents' memories means exactly, and don't see why you can't value these as well as identifying with your own life.  They don't seem mutually exclusive to me .... My great-uncle who lived with us was injured in WWI but far from living on his memories, I curse frequently the fact that we never asked him anything at all about his time there.

That last sentence seems to answer the first. The false memories would seem to me to be reflected in some of the jingoistic and one-sided nature of war remembrance – particularly in the UK.

For example there was a phenomenon in the 1990s of England soccer fans, whenever playing against Germany, chanting (to the tune of Yankee Doodle Dandy) ‘2 world wars and 1 world cup, doo-dah, doo-dah’. I’m pretty sure that those of their grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ generations who actually served in the world wars would have been mortified by such a display of crassness.

Even today there was no senior UK state or government representative at the Armistice Day commemoration in Paris. By contrast I even spotted the Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar there, despite the fact that the president of Ireland, Michael D Higgins was at Glasnevin cemetery in Dublin for Ireland’s own commemoration ceremony. That latter event itself is a kind of reversal of the phenomenon. 50 years ago it would have been unthinkable for the Irish republic to honour those who fought ‘for Britain’. Even 10 years ago it would have seemed far fetched and yet over the last 4 years Ireland has done just that.

P.S. By the wonder of modern technology (cable television and the internet) I was able to follow all 3 events. Paris was grey and rainy, Whitehall was crisp and bright while sunny Dublin looked positively tropical.

Vizzer wrote:

Even today there was no senior UK state or government representative at the Armistice Day commemoration in Paris. By contrast I even spotted the Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar there, ...

.... as were the heads-of-state, or at least senior government officials, from Lithuania, Bulgaria, Austria, Hongarie, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, Spain, Portugal ... Canada, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, India, ... Russia, and even the US (once the fat oaf had realised it was a good photo-op!), plus many, many others.

The UK does sometimes need to be reminded that Armistice Day is not a uniquely British thing, and indeed that other countries committed far more, and in turn lost far more, than did Britain ... a Britain happily isolated on its island, free from invasion, and with a compliant, productive empire (in both men and materiel) to support it. Moreover, and sadly it does still need to be re-stated ...  Britain, even with its empire, did not single-handedly 'win' the war. And it certainly did not win the peace.

Vizzer wrote:

... the false memories would seem to me to be reflected in some of the jingoistic and one-sided nature of war remembrance – particularly in the UK ...

I do so agree, and you only have to visit today's 'Daily Mail' online site - and especially to read the comments btl - to see a prime display of jingoistic false memory.

But as an antidote to all the jingoism, and for a more thoughtful 'historical' take on it all, I thought this article was an intelligently written piece, published today (11/11) by The Guardian:

The Guardian -  Armistice Day: victory and beyond

I wonder if "false memories" were indeed the order of the day in England yesterday - or was it all actually something rather different from what you both suggest?

I can only speak from what I observed - in an English village and from what seemed to come across from the TV coverage.

I went to my own ancient church yesterday for the short service which was to be followed outside by the "Act of Remembrance" - the laying of a wreath on the village memorial at 11.00 am. There were a few more people than usual inside the Church, but not that many. At first I thought – “Oh, no! No one’s bothered to come – how sad!” But, when we all trooped out through the graveyard at about 10 45 am, to our astonishment we found about half the village had gathered outside their church - the road was blocked by about sixty or seventy people – of all ages. There was a short, but incredibly moving, mini-service during which the names of all the local lads who had died (one farming family lost all three sons) were read out. Nigel, a local musician, then played (superbly and movingly) the Last Post on his trumpet and I noticed one young girl – she was about thirteen – in tears during the silence at eleven. No triumphalism, no jingoism, nothing worthy of that foolish and unrepresentative rag, the Daily Mail, but, as elsewhere in England yesterday, an elegiac mood of remembrance, gratitude and respect – and immense sorrow.

The thirty portraits executed on the beaches of England (thirty from Scotland to Cornwall) – the images gradually washed away as the tide came in - plus the BBC2 programme of old film footage restored in colour, the  pace of the action quickened and the dialogue added, the whole made startlingly modern, stunned us all. It was history as if it had happened yesterday.

And the service in Westminster Abbey yesterday evening – where Her Majesty walked that place’s huge length side by side with the German President - was also moving, solemn, respectful in the extreme. Again, no jingoism, no foolish triumphalism, no angry bitterness. The mood was one of sadness for our human folly and respect for the suffering and courage - and innocence - of ordinary people of what ever race. The yearning for peace and understanding was everywhere here yesterday.

I'm sorry, but I could not help but contrast what happened in the Abbey - our Queen's meeting with that dignified German and his wfe - with the posings and posturings of the leaders in Paris - Trump and Putin and Macron. There were, incidentally, men and women from all over the world at the ceremony at the Cenotaph and in the Abbey.





This portrait is of Walter Tull, the black footballer who became an officer in the British Army. The attitude to him was disgraceful, as recounted in this Guardian article - thank God that so much has changed - and is still changing here. It is hoped he will be awarded the Military Cross posthumously.

Denied a Military Cross

I think "false memory" as used by Vizzer earlier might have conveyed a meaning not quite the same as what he intended. At least I for one understood it to be "vicarious memory" which, though essentially also being one of the root definitions of history itself, is also by definition prone to inexactitude (which is why we value historical research and open discussion so that such scope for inexactitude is at least limited). When such memories are inexact to the point of being invented fictions related more to contemporary sentiment than actual historical fact then, as we well know, Vizzer's point was spot on and some aspects to recent WWI memorial events, along with those properly and meaningfully observed such as you cite above in your own village, have more than demonstrated how prone we are as a society to falling into such traps of our own devising.

Thanks for the image of Walter Tull, an image that prompts much, much more than simple jingoistic sentiment indeed, and on so many levels a reminder that the sacrifice these people made was not prompted solely by mere political allegiance to any one ideological cause but by a fundamental belief that they were contributing to a cure for many ills, not just those manufactured by politicians. When people today ask "but what was the Great War, the War To End All Wars, actually for if it didn't end war?" I think the best summary by an historian was AJP Taylor's suggestion that it was, in pan-human terms, the equivalent of the last great blood-letting procedure mistakenly believed to be a "cure" for humanity's sickness. Like its medical equivalent it proved in hindsight to be anything but, in fact it led to further fatal complications, however this does not in any way detract from the earnest and sincerely held belief by almost everyone at the time that it was noble and just to engage in the practice, naively as the war started and initially unfolded, and with increasing desperation that it must succeed as it wore on. There was no "plan B" for these people, and failure to commit to its prosecution was akin to guaranteeing that its requirement would only come about again all the sooner. Some voices - such as the Quakers at the time - are interesting to listen to at this century's remove. Their (and others') commitment to pacifism did not preclude engagement in the conflict once it started - and in fact often led to even greater courage and sacrifice on their part too.

Incidentally - regarding poor Walter - I noticed on some football fan forums yesterday a smattering of Arsenal "fans" who couldn't resist having a go at the fact that a Spurs player's image was included in that particular beach tribute. One at least was delighted when it was finally washed away. Some people, it seems, are not even prone to "false memory" but in fact lack the imagination to even think beyond the image that triggers their narrow world view's prejudices. That is where the real danger lies in relation to history/remembrance etc. Not that it is misremembered but that it fails to register with some individuals as fact at all, let alone relevant historical fact. This is what lies at the root of most of humanity's ills in fact, which only makes that giant bloodbath in 1914-18 all the more pathetic in how it was naively assumed by participants that their deaths would end such chronic human malady for ever.

nordmann wrote:

Some people, it seems, are not even prone to "false memory" but in fact lack the imagination to even think beyond the image that triggers their narrow world view's prejudices. That is where the real danger lies in relation to history/remembrance etc. Not that it is misremembered but that it fails to register with some individuals as fact at all, let alone relevant historical fact. This is what lies at the root of most of humanity's ills in fact, which only makes that giant bloodbath in 1914-18 all the more pathetic in how it was naively assumed by participants that their deaths would end such chronic human malady for ever.

At first when I read the above post I was saddened that there seems - in a horribly ironic way - little communication between MM, nordmann and myself. It's more than the English Channel and the North Sea that divides us, I thought. But then I read the Guardian article linked by MM - thank you for posting that because I learnt a lot from it, and it made me think - and I pondered a little more on what nordmann had written. I have altered my own post slightly, by the way, adding "innocence" (Larkin's noun from MCMXIV - even those Roman numerals of his title harking back to days long gone - "Never such innocence again")  a word which is perhaps softer than nordmann's adverb  "naively".

Pathetic and naïve - or noble in their innocent human striving for some kind of ideal they - however mistakenly - believed in? I honestly don't know - but my own melancholy - is it grief for something lost? - will not be shaken off today.

Humanity's ills will not be cured overnight: there will always be the sort of unaware person like your Arsenal supporter who would have stood at the foot of the Cross and jeered and cheered at the bloodletting - but what will cure us of mankind's essential sickness? Anything? The best of religious thought and of philosophy, the spread of education all seem to have failed, or be failing -  or is that we humans take one step forward and three back -  a terrible and tragic human game of snakes and ladders that we insist on playing?

But we cannot give up, dare not "break the faith" (see verse from John McCrae's poem below), as we struggle now to remember what we had hoped to forget. You slide off the latest snake and, ever hopeful - or should that be naïve? - look around for the nearest ladder. A laboured image, but I hope you get my drift. I keep asking though what or who is the real and deadly "foe" -  the enemy that just doesn't go away: is it just ourselves and our denial of our ancient dark urges to prevail; to triumph over others; if necessary, to kill and destroy - and to glory in the carnage - of what is perceived as the "other"? Is all this the power of the workings of the dreaded "reptilian brain", that terrifying monster that lurks, resolutely unevolved, in us all; whose evil and violence we insist on projecting onto others, refusing to acknowledge it in ourselves?  The ancient Greek dramatists knew all about that.

But how do we deal with this human malady, this fatal flaw?

Or am I just spouting a lot of sentimental and very confused tosh?  Probably.



Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

There is a strain of philosophical conjecture that entertains the possibility that, in evolutionary terms, whatever honesty we possess stems from the so-called "reptilian brain" within us. So I wouldn't be too hard on the poor medulla oblangata, at least until all the evidence is in.

Walter Tull, for all that he wasn't probably even aware of it at the time but simply "doing his bit" like everyone else in Haringey, serves (nobly) as "proof" that naivete, for all its limitations, when possessed by someone with a sense of what is right and just, can be more powerful than mere knowledge could ever be alone. If we receive "instruction" from history it is as much because we make emotional connection with the decency of our species (dare I call it our innate "humanitarianism"?) as exemplified by individuals who, often without realising it, not only contributed to its pages but did so in a way that was guaranteed to echo down generations. I do not know enough about Walter Tull (except that he must be the only footballer ever who, in a contemporary newspaper report covering an away match at Bristol City, was described primarily as "brainy") to contemplate how much he might have welcomed or even envisaged this generation's belated recognition of his sacrifice, and just how many fronts the lad had been fighting on due to his "race" before he was even sent by his country to fight on his final one.

In answer to your question concerning how we deal with "this human malady", I would suggest history demonstrates that mass blood-letting probably isn't the way. Knowledge and its pursuit seems to be the key, I reckon, though never to the extent that it leaves principle behind. Which means the real key might simply be to establish just which principle seems to have "worked" in the past with regard to keeping society peaceful and allowing it to advance in a way that benefits its members with as much security and welfare assurance as natural happenstance allows, and I would therefore even more humbly suggest that principles emanating from and recognising our own basic humanitarian urges seem always to have been the most enduring and effective.

The "malady" seems to occur when we allow ourselves in sufficient numbers to lose sight of such basic principle, and a basic knowledge of history seems the best way to ensure that most of us don't, entailing as it does recorded instances of humanitarian success as well as horrific instances of what the alternative holds. Which is why I'm all for "remembrance" in principle, and only wish the idea wasn't confined to just one day a year either. There's an awful lot of stuff out there worth remembering, and once a year ceremonies tailored to commemorate just one of them is a fine start, but as the Arsenal supporter indicated, only a very small start indeed.

EDIT: Have just read Walter's wikipedia entry and see that he had transferred to Northampton Town at the time he enlisted, and did so from there, not in Haringey.

Temperance wrote:

plus the BBC2 programme of old film footage restored in colour, the  pace of the action quickened and the dialogue added, the whole made startlingly modern, stunned us all. It was history as if it had happened yesterday.

in the end, I never saw it. Came down with flu and was in bed by 8pm.

......................................................................................................................................................................
"Lest we get wet"

Trump misses ceremony

It was marvellous from a technical point of view. If I had a criticism of it though, it would be that some of the applied sound effects and speech weren't dubbed with the same expertise as applied to the colourising and cleaning up of the old newsreel footage.

Worth a watch though - I'm sure it will be available on the BBC player for a while yet.

6 days remaining on I-player.
I'll wait for the dvd.

.................................................................................................

There was still fighting in Russia. The Intervention War against the Bolsheviks carried on.

nordmann wrote:

There is a strain of philosophical conjecture that entertains the possibility that, in evolutionary terms, whatever honesty we possess stems from the so-called "reptilian brain" within us. So I wouldn't be too hard on the poor medulla oblangata, at least until all the evidence is in.

Is that what Nietzsche and Jung understood - and where they suggest the "sweetness and light" approach of modern Christianity fails? I'm reading about all this at the moment, and floundering badly, if I am honest. According to Nietzsche, honesty, and oddly, according to Jung, creative energy, are to be found in all the shit of our darkness (our "shadow"): "This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine" (as clever old WW had Prospero say), but the darkness of our hearts (sorry our medullae oblangatae) must not be simply indulged. That way madness lies. We must not lose what Jung calls the "gold" and just revel in the shit - such incitement to shit-revelling being how Nietzsche has been misinterpreted and misunderstood? Or have I got that all wrong? Surely letting the medulla thingy run riot and then calling it honesty is as unwise as denying its existence? Acknowledge Caliban indeed, but keep the rational and humanitarian - Prospero - in charge always: that's the healthy way that leads to wholeness, to the balanced personality which is sane because it "knows" itself. Those Greeks got it right - again - with that little piece of wisdom.

But what's this Nietzschean/Jungian shadow stuff (if that's what nordmann meant, anyway) got to do with WW1 or WWII, or, God help us, WWIII: anything at all, or perhaps everything?

It's another topic altogether - although perhaps not. Nietzsche is dangerous when read by the more cunning of the lower type of Arsenal supporter - or by failed artists.


PS Have you got the cough yet, Trike? It will drive you mad, believe me. Nothing works to subdue it. Although recovered from the fluey bug, I'm still coughing as if I smoke 40 a day.

Temperance wrote:

nordmann wrote:

PS Have you got the cough yet, Trike? It will drive you mad, believe me. Nothing works to subdue it. Although recovered from the fluey bug, I'm still coughing as if I smoke 40 a day.

Yes, I do Temp. It's the worst part, takes an eternity to fall asleep with a persistent cough.

Re Remembrance Day, Politicians laying wreaths while this is going on;

Nietzsche smoked 40 a day - which probably explains a lot about his gloomy opinion of his little oblong medulla (sounds like something one would see on the road to Katmandu). Don't know about Jung - he was the kind of guy who'd smoke cigarettes backwards and then go on about the virtues of never having inhaled. All very esoterically wonderful, but pretty useless.

Actually the more modern philosophical approach to its role rather reverses the traditional assumption that therein lies all darkness (and so on, and so on, cough, cough, wheeze, splutter). And in fact it was the sheer barbarity and inhumanity of two world wars that in many ways forced a re-examination of those old assumptions. When so-called "higher brain function" produces atomic bombs and gas-chambers capable of killing millions and being called a "solution", then it's time to go back to our little reptile bits and apologise.

nordmann wrote:

 Don't know about Jung - he was the kind of guy who'd smoke cigarettes backwards and then go on about the virtues of never having inhaled. All very esoterically wonderful, but pretty useless.

What? You dismiss the ideas of that great mind as "useless", nordmann? I suppose because his theories were not "evidence-based"? Sigh.

nordmann wrote:

Actually the more modern philosophical approach to its role rather reverses the traditional assumption that therein lies all darkness (and so on, and so on, cough, cough, wheeze, splutter). And in fact it was the sheer barbarity and inhumanity of two world wars that in many ways forced a re-examination of those old assumptions. When so-called "higher brain function" produces atomic bombs and gas-chambers capable of killing millions and being called a "solution", then it's time to go back to our little reptile bits and apologise.

"Higher brain" function certainly came up with the science, but it was the shadows - collective and individual - that applied the scientific theory for utterly hellish ends. Creative and energetic little sod, that Satan (I speak metaphorically) - read Milton. And weren't those myth-makers - the great Jewish poets - perceptive when they personified the perverted energy and wisdom of the shadow as a snake?

But obviously my reading list is not up-to-date. May I have some suggestions? I mean that - I don't like thinking I am woefully out-of-date with all this.

Deleted - off topic and disruptive to the "flow" of the thread.

True - the interventions in Russia were far from over on 11/11 (and incidentally the 11 AM was 10 AM GMT so perhaps the UK's silence should be an hour earlier).
Fighting also continued for a fortnight or so in Africa.

Temperance wrote:

What? You dismiss the ideas of that great mind as "useless", nordmann? I suppose because his theories were not "evidence-based"? Sigh.

"Higher brain" function certainly came up with the science, but it was the shadows - collective and individual - that applied the scientific theory for utterly hellish ends. Creative and energetic little sod, that Satan (I speak metaphorically) - read Milton. And weren't those myth-makers - the great Jewish poets - perceptive when they personified the perverted energy and wisdom of the shadow as a snake?

But obviously my reading list is not up-to-date. May I have some suggestions? I mean that - I don't like thinking I am woefully out-of-date with all this.

There are no "shadows" as such, just different chemosensory perception differences at play, depending on which piece of the brain's general gunk is being used. However we can indeed perceive things as dark that lead to "hellish ends". It's a handy way of distancing ourselves from responsibility for what after all are still our own actions (the "satan" lad you referred to earlier does a great job in that role too).

But don't take my word for it ... (or Jung's for that matter, who was indeed a brilliant thinker and very adept at getting square cognitive pegs into round perceptional holes - didn't even need Nietzsche's metaphorical hammer either). Recommended reading for all matters of perception and saying sorry to lizards is probably The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Perception. As primers go, it's a brilliant read.

nordmann wrote:

It was marvellous from a technical point of view. If I had a criticism of it though, it would be that some of the applied sound effects and speech weren't dubbed with the same expertise as applied to the colourising and cleaning up of the old newsreel footage.

Agreed. To be fair to Peter Jackson though, whoever he got in to do the lip-reading of the magpie did an excellent job in lectio labrum (or should that be beak-reading 'beccus legitur'?). He even got the Burgundian accent of that particular corvid absolutely right and didn’t just lazily go for the Flanders accent as might popularly be expected.

Meles meles wrote:

Vizzer wrote:

Even today there was no senior UK state or government representative at the Armistice Day commemoration in Paris. By contrast I even spotted the Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar there, ...

.... as were the heads-of-state, or at least senior government officials, from Lithuania, Bulgaria, Austria, Hongarie, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, Spain, Portugal ... Canada, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, India, ... Russia, and even the US (once the fat oaf had realised it was a good photo-op!), plus many, many others.

The UK does sometimes need to be reminded that Armistice Day is not a uniquely British thing, and indeed that other countries committed far more, and in turn lost far more, than did Britain ... a Britain happily isolated on its island, free from invasion, and with a compliant, productive empire (in both men and materiel) to support it. Moreover, and sadly it does still need to be re-stated ...  Britain, even with its empire, did not single-handedly 'win' the war. And it certainly did not win the peace.

Vizzer wrote:

... the false memories would seem to me to be reflected in some of the jingoistic and one-sided nature of war remembrance – particularly in the UK ...

I do so agree, and you only have to visit today's 'Daily Mail' online site - and especially to read the comments btl - to see a prime display of jingoistic false memory.

But as an antidote to all the jingoism, and for a more thoughtful 'historical' take on it all, I thought this article was an intelligently written piece, published today (11/11) by The Guardian:

The Guardian -  Armistice Day: victory and beyond

Meles meles,

"But as an antidote to all the jingoism, and for a more thoughtful 'historical' take on it all, I thought this article was an intelligently written piece, published today (11/11) by The Guardian:
The Guardian -  Armistice Day: victory and beyond"

I thank you very much for this Guardian article, as it hints to the British interwar period, still a lack in my history learning up to now. I have a vague memory about a state of revolt from the Socialist mass in 18 or was it 20...or was it 14? Here it is out of subject, but I will try to make a thread about it for my own education....

Kind regards from Paul.

Temperance,

I learned again a new word from you in English:
But how do we deal with this human malady, this fatal flaw?
I thought "malady" came from the French "maladie". And in my French dictionary "maladie" is translated by "ziekte" (illness), "kwaal" and in my English dictionary Dutch to English, kwaal is translated as "disease", but also when social as "malady", we would said then a "maatschappelijke kwaal" (a social malady). also translated in that French dictionary in Dutch with words as: anger, passion, mania.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/malady
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/malady


Kind regards from Paul.

nordmann wrote:

There is a strain of philosophical conjecture that entertains the possibility that, in evolutionary terms, whatever honesty we possess stems from the so-called "reptilian brain" within us. So I wouldn't be too hard on the poor medulla oblangata, at least until all the evidence is in.

Walter Tull, for all that he wasn't probably even aware of it at the time but simply "doing his bit" like everyone else in Haringey, serves (nobly) as "proof" that naivete, for all its limitations, when possessed by someone with a sense of what is right and just, can be more powerful than mere knowledge could ever be alone. If we receive "instruction" from history it is as much because we make emotional connection with the decency of our species (dare I call it our innate "humanitarianism"?) as exemplified by individuals who, often without realising it, not only contributed to its pages but did so in a way that was guaranteed to echo down generations. I do not know enough about Walter Tull (except that he must be the only footballer ever who, in a contemporary newspaper report covering an away match at Bristol City, was described primarily as "brainy") to contemplate how much he might have welcomed or even envisaged this generation's belated recognition of his sacrifice, and just how many fronts the lad had been fighting on due to his "race" before he was even sent by his country to fight on his final one.

In answer to your question concerning how we deal with "this human malady", I would suggest history demonstrates that mass blood-letting probably isn't the way. Knowledge and its pursuit seems to be the key, I reckon, though never to the extent that it leaves principle behind. Which means the real key might simply be to establish just which principle seems to have "worked" in the past with regard to keeping society peaceful and allowing it to advance in a way that benefits its members with as much security and welfare assurance as natural happenstance allows, and I would therefore even more humbly suggest that principles emanating from and recognising our own basic humanitarian urges seem always to have been the most enduring and effective.

The "malady" seems to occur when we allow ourselves in sufficient numbers to lose sight of such basic principle, and a basic knowledge of history seems the best way to ensure that most of us don't, entailing as it does recorded instances of humanitarian success as well as horrific instances of what the alternative holds. Which is why I'm all for "remembrance" in principle, and only wish the idea wasn't confined to just one day a year either. There's an awful lot of stuff out there worth remembering, and once a year ceremonies tailored to commemorate just one of them is a fine start, but as the Arsenal supporter indicated, only a very small start indeed.

EDIT: Have just read Walter's wikipedia entry and see that he had transferred to Northampton Town at the time he enlisted, and did so from there, not in Haringey.

nordmann,

"The "malady" seems to occur when we allow ourselves in sufficient numbers to lose sight of such basic principle, and a basic knowledge of history seems the best way to ensure that most of us don't, entailing as it does recorded instances of humanitarian success as well as horrific instances of what the alternative holds. Which is why I'm all for "remembrance" in principle, and only wish the idea wasn't confined to just one day a year either. There's an awful lot of stuff out there worth remembering, and once a year ceremonies tailored to commemorate just one of them is a fine start, but as the Arsenal supporter indicated, only a very small start indeed"

It is very noble to say this nordmann, but as I see it nowadays again, we are back to the extremes as in the Thirties, far right and indeed also far left (we have a Mao communist municipality now (but they are recounting the votes) in Zelzate, town were there is a big steelwork (now in Indian hands). And the humanist moderate middle is again shrinking, even in Belgium. yes they should have to learn history to make a deliberated vote. But as I see most of my wide circle of acquaintances are only concerned with and live in the immediate "now". They would all to be obliged to read our utterings of this board ...or am I then no better than all those other dictators... . But nevertheless I go further with my crusade, to show to people that I know, as political interested, to what a desinterest in politics can lead, with lessons from history. The non political interested ones, who live in the immediate now are nearly hopeless to convince...even today said someone to me: What can we do? We are nothing in the big machinery, better to undergo it all.

Kind regards from Paul.

PaulRyckier wrote:

It is very noble to say this nordmann, but as I see it nowadays again, we are back to the extremes as in the Thirties, far right and indeed also far left

Yes and no. For one thing we do not define left and right in quite the same way as was standard in the 30s, and for another thing we have very different expectations of those who define themselves by those terms too.

For example, the simplistic assumption that we are "returning" to 30s values and consequent political trends etc, pre-supposes that we had most definitely "departed" from that value-set in the meantime. This is where a basic knowledge of history helps too, I reckon. For example (and I cite it only because it is one with which I am familiar - though I am sure many other and better examples could also be found), if one pre-supposes on that basis that British political and social values of the 1950s and 1960s had progressed significantly beyond the 1930s in terms of liberalism and social equality etc (a simplistic assumption but one often used by British people as if it is true), then I can be reasonably confident that one wasn't an Irish person (today we might call them an "economic migrant") who during those decades was looking for board and lodging in most British cities of the period, or enduring outright discrimination, cruel treatment, vindictiveness, and the various degrees of ostracisation and sometimes outright injustice that also characterised "normal" British social behaviour and mores of the time. What lies behind such xenophobia when it finds free expression in any society is - amongst other things - as extremely conservative a set of values as can be found that render them indistinguishable in fact from at least one very common definition of "right wing", especially when defined by the economic losers, those politically disenfranchised, and those socially disadvantaged in any such regime.

Without getting side-tracked into a history of racism in British society (a whole other thread) I wish simply to highlight that society in the 70 or 80 years since fascism was a popular political expression of extremely right-wing social values may not in fact have ever really abandoned promotion of such values, and may even have dressed them up (especially when engaging in national self-definition) as evidence of something else, even "left-wing" ideals at times. What changed was the language used to describe them which, to varying degrees, encouraged denial that they even existed but which also essentially masked and facilitated their continuation by other means.

As I see it, what we notice as a trend in recent years is very much a return to the language and the rhetoric of the 1930s in many quarters. That much is true in so far as it goes as an observation. But there is a good argument to the claim that this is probably a more cosmetic change than it may at first appear, that it simply lends expression to values that society never really abandoned (though successfully pretended it had in many cases), and that when looked at more closely reveals also that there are quite fundamental differences between society now and in the 1930s which this rhetoric now - as then - fails to express but which are probably the most important features of modern society - in fact those that are really driving society in whatever direction it appears to be going. History tells us that it is these features that merit examination most, that we should always be cognizant of where and when they perpetuate themselves and in what guise, and we should therefore never fall into the trap of simplistically claiming that "history is repeating itself". Well, at least not until we can actually say we have a good grasp of what that history actually is.

Sorry nordmann, I read your insightful reply, but I was busy late in the evening on Historum with Pétain and Jingoism...will try to give an elaborated answer to you tomorrow...
https://historum.com/threads/marshall-petain-and-11-november-2018.173982/page-8


Kind regards from Paul.

nordmann wrote:

This is where a basic knowledge of history helps too, I reckon. For example (and I cite it only because it is one with which I am familiar - though I am sure many other and better examples could also be found), if one pre-supposes on that basis that British political and social values of the 1950s and 1960s had progressed significantly beyond the 1930s in terms of liberalism and social equality etc (a simplistic assumption but one often used by British people as if it is true), then I can be reasonably confident that one wasn't an Irish person (today we might call them an "economic migrant") who during those decades was looking for board and lodging in most British cities of the period, or enduring outright discrimination, cruel treatment, vindictiveness, and the various degrees of ostracisation and sometimes outright injustice that also characterised "normal" British social behaviour and mores of the time.

So relieved that it isn't only the British who have, at times, displayed an unfortunately cruel-  fascist? - proclivity,

This has all got me wondering what does make for a fascist mentality? Where is this tendency alive and well and living today (apart from Basingstoke and Weston-super-Mare) - and where has it flourished, unchecked, in the past?


According to Umberto Eco, who was, IMHO, no duck egg, the following criteria may apply when one is agonising over the fascist status of one's country or county:



1.The cult of tradition. “One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements.”
2.The rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”
3.The cult of action for action’s sake. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”
4.Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”
5.Fear of difference. “The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.”
6.Appeal to social frustration. “One of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.”
7.The obsession with a plot. “The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia.”
8.The enemy is both strong and weak. “By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”
9.Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.”
10.Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”
11.Everybody is educated to become a hero. “In Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.”
12.Machismo and weaponry. “Machismo implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality.”
13.Selective populism. “There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.”
14.Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.”



This abridged list (available in full at The New York Review of Books) comes to us from Kottke, by way of blogger Paul Bausch - thank you, Paul.

Temperance wrote:

nordmann wrote:

This is where a basic knowledge of history helps too, I reckon. For example (and I cite it only because it is one with which I am familiar - though I am sure many other and better examples could also be found), if one pre-supposes on that basis that British political and social values of the 1950s and 1960s had progressed significantly beyond the 1930s in terms of liberalism and social equality etc (a simplistic assumption but one often used by British people as if it is true), then I can be reasonably confident that one wasn't an Irish person (today we might call them an "economic migrant") who during those decades was looking for board and lodging in most British cities of the period, or enduring outright discrimination, cruel treatment, vindictiveness, and the various degrees of ostracisation and sometimes outright injustice that also characterised "normal" British social behaviour and mores of the time.

So relieved that it isn't only the British who have, at times, displayed an unfortunately cruel-  fascist? - proclivity,

This has all got me wondering what does make for a fascist mentality? Where is this tendency alive and well and living today (apart from Basingstoke and Weston-super-Mare) - and where has it flourished, unchecked, in the past?


According to Umberto Eco, who was, IMHO, no duck egg, the following criteria may apply when one is agonising over the fascist status of one's country or county:



1.The cult of tradition. “One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements.”
2.The rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”
3.The cult of action for action’s sake. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”
4.Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”
5.Fear of difference. “The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.”
6.Appeal to social frustration. “One of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.”
7.The obsession with a plot. “The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia.”
8.The enemy is both strong and weak. “By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”
9.Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.”
10.Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”
11.Everybody is educated to become a hero. “In Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.”
12.Machismo and weaponry. “Machismo implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality.”
13.Selective populism. “There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.”
14.Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.”



This abridged list (available in full at The New York Review of Books) comes to us from Kottke, by way of blogger Paul Bausch - thank you, Paul.

Temperance,

I tried to make a comparison of Fascisms in Europe dirng the interwar period on the French forum Passion Histoire and I think I tried it overhere too and asking about Mosley and all and i think you too replied.
As  a backbone of my research I used the book of Stanley Payne:
https://www.amazon.com/History-Fascism-1914-1945-Stanley-Payne/dp/0299148742
You can read the book here and about the attempt of a definition of this historian read on page 7.
https://archive.org/details/StanleyG.PayneAHistoryOfFascism19141945/page/n21

And I see that it is also repeated in this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Fascism-Comparison-Definition-Stanley-Payne-ebook/dp/B009NZH6VO#reader_B009NZH6VO

Table 1. TYPOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION OF FASCISM

---

A. The Fascist Negations:
Antiliberalism
Anticommunism
Anticonservatism (though with the understanding that fascist groups were willing to undertake temporary alliances with groups from any other sector, most commonly with the right)
B. Ideology and Goals:
Creation of a new nationalist authoritarian state based not merely on traditional principles or models
Organization of some new kind of regulated, multiclass, integrated national economic structure, whether called national corporatist, national socialist, or national syndicalist
The goal of empire or a radical change in the nation’s relationship with other powers
Specific espousal of an idealist, voluntarist creed, normally involving the attempt to realize a new form of modem, self-determined, secular culture
C. Style and Organization:
Emphasis on esthetic structure of meetings, symbols, and political choreography, stressing romantic and mystical aspects
Attempted mass mobilization with militarization of political relationships and style and with the goal of a mass party militia
Positive evaluation and use of, or willingness to use, violence
Extreme stress on the masculine principle and male dominance, while espousing the organic view of society
Exaltation of youth above other phases of life, emphasizing the conflict of generations, at least in effecting the initial political transformation
Specific tendency toward an authoritarian, charismatic, personal style of command, whether or not the command is to some degree initially elective

Kind regards from Paul.

Caro wrote:

This post is mostly in response to MM's earlier post yesterday and the ones above it. NZ has generally not been particularly jingoistic in its responses to its war participation. Our ceremonies are generally still reverent (overly so in my opinion, as I think I said earlier). Probably mostly because our contributions have been in conjunction with other nations. And the focus at least in recent years has been the sacrifices of these men and women and their families, and the stories behind them. And their lives when the soldiers returned, which is an ongoing concern as soldiers from other wars return.  The armed forces don't necessarily provide the needed support still.

That said, there has still been great coverage here and in the last four years about the first world war. And we have become very proud in recent years about our soldiers' efforts to free Le Quesnoy in the week before Armistice Day when mainly NZ soldiers freed the town without any loss of French lives (though over 120 NZ soldiers were killed climbing the barricades into the town. They inhabitants have been grateful and still welcome any Kiwis who arrive there, and have streets named after NZ places and people.

In our small town a couple involved with the historical society of which I am secretary has put out a book detailing as many of the soldiers from our small area who took part or were killed by the influenza epidemic afterwards. Although there are 45 soldiers on our memorial they found more than 400 men and women involved. It was a monumental effort on their part to gather these facts and the stories behind the people, visiting families and accessing photos and researching war records.

Caro,

and there is also a link with Zonnebeke and Belgium that we commented together last year on this board. I give this link although it is strictly from last year, but it is a summary of what happened in Belgium and the North of France:
https://www.visitflanders.com/en/binaries/NewZealand_Trail_Brochure_Passchedaele_tcm13-87758.pdf

Kind regards from Paul.

nordmann wrote:

PaulRyckier wrote:

It is very noble to say this nordmann, but as I see it nowadays again, we are back to the extremes as in the Thirties, far right and indeed also far left

Yes and no. For one thing we do not define left and right in quite the same way as was standard in the 30s, and for another thing we have very different expectations of those who define themselves by those terms too.

For example, the simplistic assumption that we are "returning" to 30s values and consequent political trends etc, pre-supposes that we had most definitely "departed" from that value-set in the meantime. This is where a basic knowledge of history helps too, I reckon. For example (and I cite it only because it is one with which I am familiar - though I am sure many other and better examples could also be found), if one pre-supposes on that basis that British political and social values of the 1950s and 1960s had progressed significantly beyond the 1930s in terms of liberalism and social equality etc (a simplistic assumption but one often used by British people as if it is true), then I can be reasonably confident that one wasn't an Irish person (today we might call them an "economic migrant") who during those decades was looking for board and lodging in most British cities of the period, or enduring outright discrimination, cruel treatment, vindictiveness, and the various degrees of ostracisation and sometimes outright injustice that also characterised "normal" British social behaviour and mores of the time. What lies behind such xenophobia when it finds free expression in any society is - amongst other things - as extremely conservative a set of values as can be found that render them indistinguishable in fact from at least one very common definition of "right wing", especially when defined by the economic losers, those politically disenfranchised, and those socially disadvantaged in any such regime.

Without getting side-tracked into a history of racism in British society (a whole other thread) I wish simply to highlight that society in the 70 or 80 years since fascism was a popular political expression of extremely right-wing social values may not in fact have ever really abandoned promotion of such values, and may even have dressed them up (especially when engaging in national self-definition) as evidence of something else, even "left-wing" ideals at times. What changed was the language used to describe them which, to varying degrees, encouraged denial that they even existed but which also essentially masked and facilitated their continuation by other means.

As I see it, what we notice as a trend in recent years is very much a return to the language and the rhetoric of the 1930s in many quarters. That much is true in so far as it goes as an observation. But there is a good argument to the claim that this is probably a more cosmetic change than it may at first appear, that it simply lends expression to values that society never really abandoned (though successfully pretended it had in many cases), and that when looked at more closely reveals also that there are quite fundamental differences between society now and in the 1930s which this rhetoric now - as then - fails to express but which are probably the most important features of modern society - in fact those that are really driving society in whatever direction it appears to be going. History tells us that it is these features that merit examination most, that we should always be cognizant of where and when they perpetuate themselves and in what guise, and we should therefore never fall into the trap of simplistically claiming that "history is repeating itself". Well, at least not until we can actually say we have a good grasp of what that history actually is.

nordmann,

when reading your message I have the feeling that you are right, when you said (if I understood you well) that the clivage between right and left was never fully away despite the Beveridge welfare state, which was adopted a bit everywhere in Europe. And the tensions from that model, someone has to pay for it through solidarity, were smoothed out by for instance the Dutch "poldermodel": employers-state-unions consultation. But this model comes under stress because the world economy is so interconnected that when one country goes too far in the redistribution of wealth (and I agree somewhere with the employers that it can't go too far too, while there have to be still an incentive to work to live from the community), this particular country becomes penalized by the international money markets. And it is that what the EU does for the moment: to equalize that model among its memberstates on the long term. And perhaps to be an example for other communities of countries.

But when I have a feeling about the Thirties it is not only about the antagonism again (to translate it to Britain between Labour and Conservatives) as in the interwar France between Socialists/Communists and the right wing opposition or as in the Spanish Civil war, but more about the nationalist-jingoist tendencies, which start again as between the Catalunian independence movement and the Spanish central state: we will do it on ourselves our way (of course the way of the populist leaders). You see it in Hungary with Orban, also in Poland again the nationalist rethoric and that exactly on 11 november 100 years after their new Jingoist start. (Again after their Lithuanian-Polish commonwealth). A national pride of "we and the others". And I agree with Macron's "old demons" on the remembrance day of 11 November 2018 that has to be a day about brotherhood and solidarity.

I first thought (again if I understood it well) that you were referring with you Irish economic immigrant to that superiority feeling of the little Englander. But it is perhaps also a social kind of "caste" behaviour, that we also knew in the Belgium of the end of the 19th century/beginning 20th between a French speaking Flemish elite in the Flemish/Dutch speaking North of Belgium against the rest of the population.

But you are right too, we have still to wait how this "history in statu nascendi" will evolve, because as you said history don't never fully repeat itself. Too many intangibles and new circumstances (in my opinion).

That is my preliminary approach to your message nordmann...

Kind regards from Paul.

nordmann,

"I first thought (again if I understood it well) that you were referring with you Irish economic immigrant to that superiority feeling of the little Englander. But it is perhaps also a social kind of "caste" behaviour, that we also knew in the Belgium of the end of the 19th century/beginning 20th between a French speaking Flemish elite in the Flemish/Dutch speaking North of Belgium against the rest of the population.

I think I didn't understood you well, when I compared with the Belgian caste behaviour of the French speaking Flemish elite, because that caste behaviour was more of a benevolent attitude towards the Flemish speaking common man, only that they were aware of the supériority of their French language and that is quite another thing than what you described as behaviour against the Irish economic immigrant I suppose...

Kind regards from Paul.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-46169669/armistice-day-silence-at-the-cenotaph-and-tributes-on-beaches
"And I agree with Macron's "old demons" on the remembrance day of 11 November 2018 that has to be a day about brotherhood and solidarity."
But Macron goes on:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46254393
But is Macron now following de Gaulle with his European Army? As always I think it will only a proposal, while the Western coalition, the Nato, is still the backbone of our safety. Are they already viewing a continental Europe without Britain?
The Dutch Rutte as I read today seems it not to see this Macron way...
https://www.rte.ie/news/europe/2018/1116/1011481-eu-army/

Kind regards from Paul.

Is the "European Army" idea being resurrected in response, at least in part, to a realisation that the great guarantor of OTAN could fall (even possibly has fallen) into the hands of a president no sane statesman would dare rely on for his country's safety?

When I was looking (very cursorily) at Romance and German languages I did take a peek at Wallon.  Would Wallon have been still spoken by some of the "Elite" Belgians in Flemish Belgium with their benevolent yet smug (well it seems smug from the way Paul describes it) attitude towards those who spoke Flemish Dutch?

LadyinRetirement wrote:

When I was looking (very cursorily) at Romance and German languages I did take a peek at Wallon.  Would Wallon have been still spoken by some of the "Elite" Belgians in Flemish Belgium with their benevolent yet smug (well it seems smug from the way Paul describes it) attitude towards those who spoke Flemish Dutch?

Lady,

"Would Wallon have been still spoken by some of the "Elite" Belgians in Flemish Belgium with their benevolent yet smug (well it seems smug from the way Paul describes it) attitude towards those who spoke Flemish Dutch?"

Walloon was also seen by the elite of Belgium both in the North as in the South as a dialect. No the language of the elite was the "impeccable" French (I thought "impeccable" was French, but I see now in my paperback Collins that it is also English ). We had even a Nobel price winner of literature from the North writing in French. And he learned it seems his impeccable French at the Jesuit college of Ghent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Maeterlinck


And about dialects in the South of Belgium you have Picard, Lorrain, Champenois and the German dialect: Lëtzebuerguesh
http://users.skynet.be/lorint/wallang/


Kind regards from Paul.

Triceratops wrote:

There was still fighting in Russia. The Intervention War against the Bolsheviks carried on.

France's role in particular makes for a noteworthy case study in this. The period of ‘interwar France’ (as mentioned by Paul) began immediately in 1918 and there is evidence to suggest that, after the defeat of Germany, France actually felt significantly less secure than she had done before the war in 1914.

In strategic terms France suddenly found that she had lost her most important military ally which had been Russia. Before the war it had been the Tsar’s huge armies which had been Paris’ secondary insurance against Germany. Following the Russian revolutions of 1917 and the German revolution of 1918, however, Russia and Germany no longer shared a common frontier. Newly independent states (the largest of which was Poland) now lay between them. In 1918 France still hoped that Tsarist Russia could be restored. The French financial sector had invested huge amounts of money in Russia before 1914 and also during the war including loans which the new Bolshevik regime had no intention of honouring. A strong, restored, pro-French Russia would also provide a more obvious counterweight to Germany than an unproven Poland many of whose officer class were indeed German-orientated or Austrian-orientated by training.

In November 1918 (i.e. more than a year after the October Coup) huge swathes of Russian territory were still not controlled by the Bolsheviks in Moscow. In the ongoing Russian civil war, French intervention was notable in Odessa in support of the White forces of General Anton Denikin on the southern front.



(French troops in Odessa in 1919)

However, the interventions in the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea, the White Sea and Siberia, in alliance with the British, the Americans and the Japanese etc only served to gift the Reds propaganda gold in terms of enabling them (with no small amount of justification) to portray the Whites as being just so many stooges of foreign imperialist and capitalist powers. It was only after the failure of intervention and after the Poles themselves had defeated the Red Army at Warsaw that Paris began reluctantly to look in that direction and concluded a defensive military alliance with Poland. That would be in 1921 a full 3 years after the defeat of Germany.

Russia’s withdrawal from the First World War in 1917 had fortuitously been made up for by America’s entry into the war. With the war over, however, France now also found herself losing America as a diplomatic ally. The trauma of the spring of 1918 and the subsequent relief had shown prime minister Georges Clemenceau just how important the new American alliance was. Clemenceau had wanted the proposed League of Nations to be merely a continuation of the wartime alliance which would guarantee France’s security concerns vis-a-vis Germany. This rather myopic view received short-shrift in London (as had the Holy Alliance a hundred years earlier) and also in Washington where president Woodrow Wilson had a much more expansive and global plan for the role of the League. His proposal, however, was seen at home as potentially subjecting the United States to vague and open-ended commitments and in 1920 the United States’ Congress rejected ratification of the Treaty of Versailles and American membership of the League of Nations. This came as a shattering blow to French hopes in terms of diplomatic security.

In terms of internal politics France also felt threatened by the revolutions which were then sweeping Europe. Many people in France, and around the world, assumed that it would only be a matter of time before Paris would experience the same. The strong communist element expressed among the revolutionaries in Berlin and Budapest was of particular concern. France had, after all, gained a reputation as being the world champion when it came to revolutions. And there was indeed serious violence in Paris on 1 May 1919 when the May Day holiday erupted into rioting. The demobilisation of hundreds of thousands of soldiers also potentially posed a quite literal militant threat to the social order. Such was the mindset at the time that the French government bizarrely perceived this trouble as having been fermented not so much by the Bolsheviks in Moscow but rather by the Germans.

Whatever the origin, and in order to take the heat out of domestic politics, the French Parliament opted for electoral reform. Proportional representation was introduced in July 1919 and the Bloc National (a broad coalition of centrist and conservative parties) won the November election. With the socialists, radicals and communists defeated at the polls the revolutionary element lost its credibility and the violent events of 1919 died down. Far from being the world champion of revolutions, France was becoming the world champion at avoiding revolutions and this would be shown again in 1968.

In economic terms France was in a bad way after the First World War. Apart from the terrible human losses incurred by the war there was also major financial debt. There had been great physical devastation in the north-east (where the war had been fought) but also general exhaustion of the infrastructure in the rest of France. Re-investment, however, was not going to be easy. France had lost much of her financial reserves in order to pay for the war and, somewhat perversely, in order to service the debt, the French treasury was actually borrowing more money in the years after the war than it had done during the war years. Being a victor, of course, made securing those loans easier but the immediate outlook was not very promising.

The simple belief held by many in France was that Germany would pay. In other words German reparations would pay off the whole of France’s wartime bill. But reality spoke otherwise. Germany was also bankrupt and Germany did not only owe reparations to France but also to America, Britain, Belgium, Luxembourg and others. The British and American governments opposed some of the French demands for reparations from Germany as being excessive while at the same time calling in debts which France owed to them.



(The Big Four of 1919 - British prime minister David Lloyd George, Italian prime minister Vittorio Orlando, French prime minister Georges Clemenceau and American president Woodrow Wilson)  

In March 1919 the Franc plummeted in value causing inflation and this was exacerbated by the exchange markets in London and New York refusing to support the Franc as they had done hitherto. The Franc would stabilise on the currency markets by 1921 and the French economy would begin to enjoy solid growth but the view in Paris was that the wartime alliance was also now definitely over in the financial sphere.

The various psychological shocks (military security, diplomacy, political instability and financial exposure) which France experienced in the months immediately after the Armistice (perhaps more so than the experience of the war years themselves) would go a long way to explaining much of the re-alignment of thinking and world views which occurred in that country during the interwar years.

Vizzer,

thank you very much for this excellent survey of the post WWI France. As I studied it a bit in the time first for the BBC and later for a French forum I agree with all what you mentioned. I wanted to speak this evening about the Belgians with their auto-canons, who made the whole trip with the Whites up to Vladivostok and then returned via the US to Belgium again. Wanted also to point to Poncaré and his occupation of the Ruhr together with the Belgians, also the Poincaré French Franc.
But for the umpteenth time on Historum on the Romance/Germanic language border in Europe with someone from Slovenia and my old companions of both sides of the French/German Lorraine border Isleifson and Carolus.
Read this evening a new endless discussion about the 100th anniversary of WWI on Historum, but find our discussion better
And have still a lot to answer to Tim...my evenings are really too short...
See you tomorrow...

Kidn regards from Paul.

Vizzer,

I agree with you, but I have the impression that the Communists in France were never the extremists of the German ones. In France there was not that struggle as in Germany between the Socialists and Communists, it seems (i made a lot of research about it) on orders of Stalin, and one had the odd situation that Nazis and Communists got in the streets against the Socialists. (will seek my notes again about this events) Stalin had never a full grip on the Communists in France and with the Ribbentrop accord in 1939 Stalin lost even more grip. But it was from the Bloc National that later the several Rightists parties emerged, especially in the army, which later led in my opinion to the Vichy regime (the Massilia story).
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bloc-National
But nevertheless you had good politicians in the interwar period in my opinion as a Poincaré, who saved France again in 1926 from bankruptcy...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Poincar%C3%A9

And Arisitide Briand together with his German counterpart Stresemann.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristide_Briand

Kind regards from Paul.

Green George wrote:

Is the "European Army" idea being resurrected in response, at least in part, to a realisation that the great guarantor of OTAN could fall (even possibly has fallen) into the hands of a president no sane statesman would dare rely on for his country's safety?

You can be right Gil, but it is already from the Iraq invasion, Tony Blair and the suicide of the scientist, (we were there in the middle of the turmoil on our BBC message board in the time), that there were other views as from France and Germany and I see now, even from New Zealand. And Bush was also a Republican. The two countries wanted even a rapid intervention force to intervene wherever in the world and I think together with Britain, if I recall it well, and in the frame of the NATO (have to verify)

But there can be also another reason. He has to defend his politics for the homefront too, with a strong far right opposition (even Russia supported her, while Russia has benefits from a divided Europe in its struggle with the US), he has to show the strength of France against big brother US. If he speaks about "nationalism" versus "patriotism" (I prefer the term "jingoism" instead of Macron's "nationalism", but does that word exists in French?), it is also for inland use. I saw in the time documentaries about father LePen, and you don't believe it, the Jeanne d'Arc statues near him and the rethoric of the embattled France for hundreds of years before, yes the rethoric of Arminius (the German Hermann) came to mind again, yes true Jingoism and yes that Germany from the Nazi tragedy has again a far right party in the parliament...

Kind regards from Paul.