My Opinion; WWII is just history

[TuskCracker]

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I am American (born in florida actually, in 1955), but I consider WWII just history.
Important to know, and understand but history is all it is.

How many feel this way ?

How man do not feel this way ?

 

[sabro]

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "just history."

History is just how we see ourselves and our world. It is how we interpret our actions and intentions and our roles and relationships. It is how yesterday affects today and today affects tomorrow. It is the spin on the event, the story, hype, the reasoning, the rationale that affects all the decisions that shape our reality. It is the basis of our policies on trade and commerce and even tourism. It shapes our foreign and domestic policy and how we react to all those around us. History is nothing more than the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves- I shows and shapes our collective self esteem and defines our best and worst intentions.

You asked if WWII is just history. I guess depending on what you mean, my answer is just yes.

 

[lexico]

Excellent discussion !
A physicist Feynman once asked his class, "If all but one of all human learnings would stop and we must enter a long, dark period, what should be left for posterity ?"
He suggested arithmetic, the decimal numbers, to count, to add, to do the four arithmetic operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. From that alone, and some stuggling, all of science can be recovered from scratch. Of course, the recovery would be closer to rediscovery rather than reconstruction.

Playing on a similar note, if I could choose two, I'd leave literacy; one good alphabet (IPA ?), and some songs to go with it. From that all liberal arts can be recovered with some effort not taking more than 5,000 years.

If I could choose three, I'd definitely choose historical doc's on a DVD. (Is that big enough to store all the world's historical texts ?) To me history is what make the particulars, gives the local, ethnic, traditional flavors to each group of people. Geography and language should be a part of the historical info.

As for WWII, so much has happened since the late 1800's that shaped my country to be what it is now, and is setting the limits and possibilities for the future. So I think recent history of say 150 years is very much alive. History can be so illuminating that the difference between knowing and not knowing would make a qualitative difference for me. Moving from ignorance to enlightenment involves reading and thinking in historical terms, and should keep me busy and happy for a long while.

 

[TuskCracker]

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I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "just history."

From a simple point-of-view. I am not filled with hate or anger
bring the issue up, from any perspective.

 

[Mycernius]

I think what he means by 'Just History' is the fact that he never lived through it. To my grandfather it was part of his life, he was a POW at one point in North Africa, and people discussing the war in a non-biased way was something he couldn't do. As for myself it is just part of the past and is 'just history'. To me the Vietnam war is 'just history', as it never really affected the UK and I was born in 1970, yet the Falklands war is 'just'history'to me because it happened in my lifetime and I was old enough to comprehend the matter, the same for the first Gulf War. Yet for some people it will never be 'just history' because it affected the family or people they belong to. The best example of this is the Jews in WW2. They will never really view it as an event without having any emotional reactions to it. In 20/30 years time how would people, especially Americans view 9/11? To the futrue generation it would be 'just history'. It never happened to them, they can't remember it and for the most part it never affected their family. The people who lived through 9/11 will never see it as 'just history' especially if it affected their families. I think to be a serious historian you must be able to rise above the emotional baggage (probably not a good enough word) and see it with a cold critical eye. Hitler can still cause severe arguments because of what he stood for in WW2. It will be a while before he can be viewed in a more non-biased view. What doesn't help is the history books written about him, and other infamous persons, by people who couldn't remove themselves from the emotions left by the legacy of these historical figures. It will take hundreds of years in some cases, but they will eventually become 'just history'.
Hope I have made sense?

 

[Void]

History. We can consider it as a past. This past can be closely related to us on a timescale,or be quite far from the present.
But present is also history. By the means of the impact it can affect us directly, indirectly or seemingly not to touch at all.

As for WWII I am too young to be affected by it, but my relatives who lived back then, fought in the battle fields or worked in the back land, they have a lot of memories and feelings, it`s part of their lives. This is not "just the history" for them. There is a saying: "History repeats itself because nobody listens" I don`t know what these people went through and what reminiscence they have. But i am not emotionaly free when i think about WWII (as well as about other wars). Some things are just beyond my comprehension, not in the list of values i was taught humanity should aspire

We also can think about history as a science, written and video sources, preserving our deeds to the future. Studing these we are supposed to analise, to interpret, to conclude, to shape our reality and so on

"Historians exercise a great powr and some of them know it. They recreate the past, changing it to fit their own interpretations. Thus, they change future as well" (F.Herbert i think)
From my recent experience. I read some japanese article regarding anniversary of Tsushima`s battle and Russian-Japanese war of 1905. This analysis was almost reversed to those that i`ve read in russian sources. And even more in russian books various points of view can be found (from extremly nationalistic to quite cool-minded attempts to examine the subject
from different angles). Therefore understanding of the history also depends on the sourse you`ll keep with, and thus, your emotional attitude toward past be influenced by it as well (on the other hand, one can choose the source he is emotionaly comfortable with)

and one question, maybe, retorical. We can define when the war starts, but can we say that war ends with the signing of a peace treaty?

 

[shiroma]

Historical Issues