Wars and ConflictsΒ permalink
Just History?
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Message 1.Β
Posted by sunshineandshowers (U13926964) on Thursday, 20th January 2011
I have come to the conclusion that everything that present life touches to a greater or lesser degree, one way or another invloves a war of the past, present or the future!
Why do so many people find it so difficult to view wars and conflicts only in the past of history without recognising the cords that bind it so tightly with the here , now and the future?
One would suppose that lessons are to be learned from every war ever fought, so that wars become increasingly rare, rather than increasingly familiar for one reason or another
.
It would be too simple to blame it entirely on politics or on politicians, because although they might lead a people into wars, there is no law that says they should be followed blindly and without direction or thought for future generations. -
Message 2
Posted by TimTrack (U1730472) on Thursday, 20th January 2011
One would suppose that lessons are to be learned from every war ever fought, so that wars become increasingly rare, rather than increasingly familiar for one reason or anotherΒ
A re-wording of the lonely cry of the serious historian throughout history !
Unfortunately, some politicians view history as a dead subject. They think it has no relevancy to their worldview, where everything must be modern, if not post-modern.
Throw in a bit of dumb self intrerest, and hey presto, another war. -
Message 3
Posted by sunshineandshowers (U13926964) on Thursday, 20th January 2011
<,>>>
A lonlier cry from the millions dead. They do not have the chance to consider history; being no part of the future.
<>
Well, it is a dead subject to those who fight it for them isn't it?
The people directed to fight war obviously do believe the reasons given, even though history proves otherwise ad nauseum.
<<>
'Dumb interest' largely being unenployment and some hoplesness as to the future that has been built for the young on past and present wars.
You confirm my point that is why war is always seen more 'comfortably' from the point of history than of the very real here and now, these wars are usually kept at a PC distance until of course they become past history.
And still nothing is learned.. take away politics... men ( and women too)would still find an excuse for a face to face; war, take high streets on any UK town on a Friday through Sunday night.
We are at war with ourselves, as well as with history. -
Message 4
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Thursday, 20th January 2011
sunshineandshowers
Your basic premis looks sound through the experience of the Second Europe of the State, which emerged at the Reformation.. As the over-arching unity of the First Europe of Christendom cracked and crumbled, people sought a material security through the military potential of emerging states.
As C. Delisle Burns wrote in "The First Europe" published in 1947- in the hope that there might yet be a Third Europe more like that of Christendom with a unity principles under a regime that only had moral authority, not power or force- the only thing that stopped the Europe of the State from tearing itself apart before the World Wars, was the fact that the drive and aggression that was their main attribute was directed into the expansion of European power around the World.. Until the space was all used up. and Europe had carved up the world.
By 1918 it was understood that this whole Imperial state basis for the future of Humankind had no effective future, and, for example, the Labour manifesto for the general election of 1918 spoke of the need to create a New Civilization. There was a widespread, but not universal desire that the First World War should be the war to end all wars.. But there were those who wanted revenge, repression and reparations, not a new start
In any case creating anything totally new, especially a new and universal working Civilization is not easy; and many who wanted change prefered not to embrace the necessity to phase out or scale down the monstrous power of the State- which is essentially a mechanism for coercion and imposition by force if necessary. Camels and eyes of needles. For the seduction of power , the quick fix and the short cut is very real.
Thus the Labour movement by 1914 had made a great switch over from the successful self-help and self-reliant movement of the Mid-Victorian era that, like many iinovations in English history at most required enabling legislation, to one focussed particularly on what Labour could do to create a fairer society once entrusted with the reigns of power.
By 1949 the Cambridge Historian C.R.Fay writing an update of his 1928 study "Great Britain from Adam Smith to the Present Day", noted the steps towards the Welfare State and obserrved that it was now accepted as fair that the young fit and active should support those who were not. In many ways it was an old principle in the old English Commonweal that emerged in about the ninth century, when the English became Christians and decided that they should try to maintain a King's Peace with their neighbours.
But Fay asked "How long and how far will the young and fit be willing to work for the old and unfit? Perhaps only so long as the young and fit believe that they can do it intermediately by squeezing the erstwhile rich"-- which is of course possible once you can use the compelling power of the State to redistribute wealth away from wealth creating parts of the economy to those that can only survive on subsidies.
But perhaps we are seeing the emergence of new dynamics in in the world of globalisation that has been created from the Imperialist legacy of Europe of the State.
That Europe was based upon an alliance of financial and state sectors, which have worked hand in hand since the days of the Fuggers and the Medici. But with New Labour) what global finance wanted was a British State that provided a solid and secure foundation base for global Capitalism to hone in on all the lucrative places in the world. So it was prepared to lend Britain and other European States- and ,perhaps more importantly the citizenry of these places,- as much money as it took to support a culture of leisure, affluence and contentment- a new opium of the masses.
Cass -
Message 5
Posted by Mutatis_Mutandis (U8620894) on Thursday, 20th January 2011
One would suppose that lessons are to be learned from every war ever fought, so that wars become increasingly rare, rather than increasingly familiar for one reason or another.Β
I don't have statistics at hand, but the fact of the matter seems to be that wars are becoming increasingly rare, so your pessimism may be unwarranted. The (apparent as well as real) negative is that due to modern media and travel, we can be affected even by the most distant wars. The Romans did not have to worry about armed conflict in South America. A good thing for them, too, as they had plenty of conflicts to fight already. The doors of the temple of Janus, the two-faced god who kept a 360-degrees watchful eye, were rarely closed.
A generation now ages in Europe that has not participated in a major war in their lifetime. I wonder whether that is an unique situation. During much of the history of this continent, people probably more often lived and died without ever having known peace. The 80-years and the 100-years war spanned several generations. Admittedly these conflicts tended to be seasonal, with limited summer campaigns. -
Message 6
Posted by sunshineandshowers (U13926964) on Friday, 21st January 2011
Cass
Where to start...? your most erudite answer says much regarding history and wars, but the problem as far as l see it, is more to found in the 'human condition'.
I was interested to read your view regarding the latest 'opium of the masses.'........ There have always been an opium for the masses to various degree's depending what our circumstances might be and where we are domiciled.
Everything under heaven changes, except the human condition that some men desire to lead with destruction and little thought to the wider consequences and others to follow to make it all possible, with little thought at all to the conseqences of their actions.
Time is a natural progression, man has little control over what time he has, except to make the world around him a better place when and how he possible can, despite his wealth or position, or lack of.
Your answer reads as though mans fate is all in the hands of political moves and movers and where they choose to lead us. But we are not animals to be led by the nose and with promises of a carrot.
The human condition holds within an intrinsic knowledge of that which is right, and that which is wrong, whatever opinions or political ideals we may hold, neither of which is worth the taking of a life of another person for whatever reason.
There is a poem on some menorials of war that says 'age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn, or in churches in memorial windows is to be found ' greater love have no man that he lays down his life for his friend.'
Once again the political/religious opium of the masses of any war that has a need to be sanitised for public consumption to mask the horror of the unbearable brought on by indifference
towards the generations to come.
<<<,when the English became Christians and decided that they should try to maintain a King's Peace with their neighbours.>>>
Whilst individuals can become a person of faith ( Christian )
A country might state that it is, but this is impossible.
Germany stood by whilst millions were murdered in death camps,because they were not of the Christian faith, but were murdered by a people and a country who professed to be of the Christian faith.
We know everything, and have been taught much regarding the need for wars. and the reasons given for them,, however, we know or aspire to, much less to recognise the power of peace that is possible if men seek it as diligently as they do war. -
Message 7
Posted by sunshineandshowers (U13926964) on Friday, 21st January 2011
Mutatis_Mutandis
<>
Progress of time one would presume would makes wars a thing of ther past designated to history books alone, sadly this is not so.
War comes in many disguises..... slavery is at an all time high around the world, and if we do not choose wisely where we can we are part of it, wherever it is going on....we are all part of it, knowingly or not.
<<>>
I am of the generation you speak of, l have been through the last years of a war , my husband also. We are sadly not in a unique situation. War should never be sanitised or glossed over it is a man-made horror of destruction and loss.
<>>
Is is apparant the world is far more interested in considering and acting out wars than in considering and acting out peace . Wars can be penned into history books that always make them look a 'necessary evil' rather than seeking a 'necessary good'. -
Message 8
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Friday, 21st January 2011
sunshineandshowers
The idea of "the human condition" was really a product of the nineteenth century craze for Scientific History-largely German- that argued that If we knew and understood all the facts about people- as we can about physical science- then we could establish laws of human nature. This of course was in contravention of the Biblical idea that Human beings were created in the image of a Creator and therefore were capable of both free-will and autonous change.
This kind of rationalist thinking came about when an emerging middle class began to find how advantageous it was to withdraw from existing society and cultivate the acquisition of either intellectual or material Capital.
Of course from their position as observers some were able to look objectively at the role of the State and Government and come to conclusions about what they could observe- in a them and us situation.. Those who dedicated themselves to intellectual Capital and lived by their ideas, also saw the materialists as THE Middle Class and another alien category.
It was in the resultant Age of Revolution, essentially engineered by the two-fold Middle Class, that it bercame normal for "ideas people" to feel able to make general statements both about the "Ancien Regime" of the Governing classes, and the "masses" below them- "of whom we know nothing"- as the Prime Minister scion of one of those Middle Class families famously said.
William Cobbett observed in the 1820's, with regret over an England that was passing away, that the term "the Common People" , that reflected an English tradition of a country of known individuals living in one Commonweal, was giving way to the term "the lower orders"..
In an emerging age of maths and science [e,g Malthusianism] managing the masses became a new problem.
Now in mundane life people live really for convenience in a "flat Earth". We use two-dimensional maps to get around, and each age tends to project itself , its frameworks, ideas and vocabulary back into the Past in order to portray the Past as an emerging version of the Present. Today is a Friday and many people will have asked themselves "What do we do on Fridays?" fixing the Past onto the limitless possibilities of the Present. But it works the other way. "Feudalism" did not exist until the Nineteenth Century, and neither did the Renaissance.
So your statement about war reflects the way that historians in the Age of the State projected their ideas back into history. There have been conflicts- according to the Bible since Cain and Abel. And Civilizations emerged when there were people powerful enough to settle conflcts- domestic and foreign- by trial, including trial by champions (David and Goliath) or trial by battle/war.
But one of the reasons why Tony Blair was being interviewed today was that really- as I believe by 1066- the English people believed that war was not their business - except for the essential struggle to preserve the right of English people to live in their own peace.
Others disagree with me, but my reading of 1066 is that the people most willing to fight for King Harold were only the military elite that the common people "employed" to keep them safe, and to lead them when the whole country was in danger. This was not the case in 1066. The point at issue was who would be on the throne, and as long as they were prepared to rule the people in accordance with the Coronation Oath of Edward the Confessor- which William of Normandy was going to do- it did not matter to the people who sat there, apart from two criteria (a) who was trustworthy- and Harold admitted to betraying an oath, and (b) who would be the best military leader.
That is contentious- but important in the spirit of your post- because it shows the real roots of how England came to believe in the Sovereignty of the People, and that all power ultimately came from the ability of the people to generate power.
What no-one can contend with is that during the Angevin period even the barons with lands only in England took up that idea that the duty to fight wars in this country is limited to the duty to defend England and not to fight for any personal adventures the King might like to entertain. Hence the English barons refused to fight for John's rights in France. Hence too the English people appreciated having the greatest Knight in Europe, Richard the LionHeart, fighting the greatest cause- the Holy Crusade- while taking most of the warlike people with him and leaving his realm in peace. For who would dare to make war on Richard's Kingdom while he was on such Holy business?
In fact right up to William Cobbett's childhood in the 1760's foreign wars had very little impact on the life of the common people: and it is easy to forget that the novels of Jane Austen, peopled by a multi-layered kind of society that still functioned in her England, can be read (or re-enacted) without any reference to what was almost a first world war going on most of the period when she was writing .
At the age of 15 Cobbett walked from Farnham to Portsmouth, saw the sea and English men-of-war at anchor, and thought of those heroic defenders of England throughout history. Those who manned the wooden wall.
He tried to join up. But the officer thought that he was running away having got a girl pregnant and sent him home. Some years later he did serve in the army. But that was his choice, and the British Armies up to then were not in any serious way "national".. War was a profession and many small German states specialised in producing armies that they hired out to those who needed to fight wars.
Thie idea of a National Guard and a National War really came when the would-be leaders of the French Revolution- not wishing to be raised up by the Paris mob only to be dashed to the Guillotine- created the idea of not only defending the Revolution against the threat of the forces of the Ancien Regime but of helping to liberate all the masses of Europe.. After all Rousseau had written "All men our born free. But everywhere they are in chains" [ But not his own children.. At least one could say that he practised what he preached. All of his children (nine?) were abandonned at birth at the doors of an orphanage.. He had his writing to do]
It was this threat posed by England's most important enemy over the last hundred years that brought about a monstrous new and larger Great Britain, bringing about Union with Ireland, and creating not just a much more powerful economy, but also a much stronger political, financial and judicial system. This was a Britain that could defend itself against threats from within and without.
And, after Britain had emerged as arguably the most powerful country in the World, there was half a century in Europe with no major wars. Moreover really the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1 was so quickly over that it could be argued that down to 1914 the predominant British foreign policy that sought to minimise conflict and persuade all parties that Liberalism and Progress were the real alternatives to war was successful..
The English experience was that people will not kill and be killed if there is a real and positive prospect of a better future.
But all of this was happening because of the dominant position of the Middle Class and their ability to blend together the Intellectual and Material Capital.
As Britain developed its institutions of representative democracy and persuaded other countries[ mostly by Britain's success] to do likewise, there was also a development of models of History that encouraged a belief that the people really were parts of various masses with generic characters.
Thus lthe ate nineteenth century developed the group mentality and the idea that politicians could offer their own championing of group- rights to nations, churches races and classes. This was a period when Darwinian evolution and the increasing awareness of extinct species and Civilizations encouraged "them" and "us" ideas about the "struggle for the survival of the fittest".
It was to lead tragically to the re-emergence of the great purification idea that Robespierre had promulgated in Revolutionary France .The Reign of Terror, the citizens courts, street massacres, and the guillotine would rid France of the rotten elements.
In another period of Twentieth Century Revolution the Jews became widely identified as an element that did not fit into any of the regular majority groups, and therefore a "problem" to be externalised/ and or exterminated.
But within Britain, as the war cabinet considered the state of "the masses" in 1940, particularly how on Earth they could persuade them to stay in the war, once Britain was standing alone, and they were being bombed in their homes, it was decided that the war aims should include a meaningful commitment to new domestic wars once the struggle against Nazi Germany would be over. T
Thus eventually Sir William Beveridge produced his plan for Britain to systematically make war against the five giants that plagued the life of ordinary people.
But one of the reasons why England and then Britain had been able to preserve its freedom from at least the time of the wars of William III was because of the ability of the Bank of England to raise subscriptions to a National Debt, so that the cost of the war could be spread out over the years of peace. So when the British people decided in 1945 that Britain would "win the peace the way that they won the war", they were voting for a State system that would rob and impoverish the Future for the sake of the Present.
As a Labour Minister told an American reporter "We have had our revolution. We did not cut off their heads; we cut off their wealth". And AneirinBevan described the rich as vermin. But this would be OK , because now Scientific History and other Human Sciences meant that the Middle Class owners of intellectual property placed in positions of power in the State and its Civil Service bureaucracies was going to run Nationalised Industries, Services, Banks etc in a way that was going to create wealth much more effectively than had been done in the Past.. We know knew how to build vast machines to run the life of the masses, and achieve control over the Earth and the Human Habitat.. But it would still be a war with peace time generals given the power to run the life of the people with almost military, or at least thoroughly scentific precision dealing with the masses as generic entities like "Citizens" patients, pupils, Mothers, Housewifes- each one with its generic template and all fitted into a world of little boxes.
As you may guess it has been my life's work to try to see how we can work our way out of the Frankensteinian Monstrosity and get to a new age -"The Age of the Common Man".
Most recently this effort has gone into writing what is in fact a book of something like 400 pages (I am not sure whether A4 or smaller) that I am calling as "Towards a View of History For Our Own Time". Three quarters of it is now posted on my h2g2 space.
Cass -
Message 9
Posted by sunshineandshowers (U13926964) on Sunday, 23rd January 2011
Cass
Extremely insteresting and very obviously deeply considered over time....Is it possible to speak purely from an academic point of view? (l am not saying that your work has not the human element or concern and care for the future).
You speak of the English, history, and wars, but do you really believe that at any time in history you mention past and present could not be superimposed (l believe that is the correct term?)
That whilst times change.... people do not not.We see
Tony Blairs throughout history and also the Davids and Goliaths and all people in between.
For example I am a person of faith, would you expect me to find anything meaningful to my faith when l look at churches or Cathedrals? quite often l do not. And yet history tells me these places were built to the glory of God. Similar, in my view to how war is viewed by man through the centuries.
We see and experience much of the time that which we are expected to see without thinking too deeply about it for ourselves. Isnt that rather how wars begin? between indivduals and nations.
Because it is such an unjust world, can we believe that any injustice (to history or individuals) is a natural phenomenum?
Of course it can not be. It is purely man-made and man directed to his own ends.
Who benefited from building huge Cathedrals and churches fighting 'wars' for God or for countries? not ordinary people... not God. God does not require that we seek one another to harm and destroy but treat them as we would ourselves.
Of course, both of which can also be superimposed from history to the present day. Like a huge eternal jig-saw puzzle.
War is such an abomination to life and an appalling way of settling any dispute that we have lost before we begin to start one.
You talk of the 'masses' in 1940' and yet it is not the masses that hunger or wish to fight war, it is men who can direct the 'masses' by propaganda into anything they want to propagate, with least harm to themselves (rather like Tony Blair & G.Bush) and the extremes of any religions.
History does not pay the price either, that can be altered at will, whoever will is the most powerful at the time.
Political correctness rules from the times of Jesus Christ to this very minute and beyond.
Poverty is a very real enemy accross the world, more easily solved and won than any war with guns and lies attached.
So why do we not solve poverty? why do we not solve injustice? we have laws after all"
We are both questioning the biggest question known to man,
What is it all about.... from the academic through to the emotional.
As a young nurse when l had a first patient die, l became acutely aware that for this (young) person there was never going to be a tommorrow, no more questions would ever be asked or answers. Their life had ended as quickly as it had began.All hopes and dreams gone too. The Patients mother said to me ' but this isn't how it should be...I should go first'
Life has a plan for all of us that we are not party to in the here and now, politicians, historians and war mongerers would do well to remember, as we all should when using such power, all actions and words have consequences, and if you do not desire the bitterest of pills give thought to the conseqences those actions bring into the world we all have to share.
<>
But the common man will always be with us, because we are each individual the common man as we have been down the centuries.
We have power that we rarely believe exists, why?
because we rely to much on what the world would have us believe, and encourages us against our own interest to believe in what we know deep within ourselves of the negative and positive, or the good and the bad that is within all men.
Time has created a Frankensteinian existence, but nobody but ourselves as individuals is going to realise us from it's hold/power.
If we beleive all we are told without due thought, consideration and care to the larger picture and seek some sort of future when justice is seen to be done towards all men
then Frankenstein will appear a child's cuddly bear compared to where we are being led.
I will look up h2h2 space, l find what you write easily digestible, why confine yourself to these sites, could you not have it printed for publication? so much dross to be had everywhere to eat away at peoples minds to leave them hungry and unfullfilled. -
Message 10
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Sunday, 23rd January 2011
sunshineandshowers
It makes a nice change for someone to find what I write eassily digestible- and I certainly have not given up hope that eventually someone will decide that my work is worth publishing..
Part of the difficulty that from reactions that I have had in the past comes from the fact that my ideas are not conventionally academic.. As a working class child confronting the realities of 11+ and what it meant in 1955, I reflected upon my native Oxford and realised that what it stood for was an very old bank of knowledge and understanding about "the human condition" deeply rooted in the Past.. I decided at that point that my quest for understanding in a bewildering world -only underlined by the front page photos of the Bikini Bomb, showing yet again how our present and future was being potentially dictated by dynamics from the Past- would take me to university to study history.
But by the time I had the chance to go to Oxford I felt that , while Oxford- or Cambridge might be fine for those who have experienced a "modern" environment, a native of Oxford needed to leave.. Bristol a great Victorian town at least moved me forward, and post-grad teacher training at Cardiff perhaps even more red-brick..
But, rather like the great English Historian J.R. Green I believed that my historical understanding- rooted in "dreaming spires" needed to be tested and proven in the Crucible of the modern world- London's inner city, already the locus of the great Christian inner-city missions by the 1870's when Green published his seminal "History of the English People"- the first history book to try to show how the people made the History of this country.
If my understanding of History had any validity it had to work in such an environment of disadvantage, where it could really make a difference; and I gained immensely from more than 37 years of classroom teaching and dialogue with boys and girls of all abilities and ages from 11 to 19 from all over the world, and all manner of human experience..
As you have written there is a continuity in the essence of the human experience and when addressing such pupils,and being aware of the stark reality of their life-experience, I was constantly aware, and frequently reminded of whether or not the historical people, events and forces that I was describing to children of a wide-world experience were actually consistent with what they knew to be true..
A regular part of this dialogue also involved comparing historical events with current affairs, and advising the pupils to watch the news that evening for, according to my historical knowledge and the particulars of what was known by the time of the Radio 4 Today Programme that morning this was what was most likely to be happening to them that day..
My most brilliant pupil and best class in those 37 years was/were only in their first few weeks of History, when I came to teach them last class of the afternoon. We were due to cover the Battle of Hastings 1066, and I warned them that they needed to be prepared for grim news that evening. I had just spent a period watching the Twin Towers collapsing in fire and dust etc.. It did not take much historical awareness to compare 9/11 with 1066 as one of those dates that change the whole shape of history.
As for times being superimposed, what I have suggested in my Towards Project has adapted received models of the shape of History that evolved along Natural History lines- that Empires grow, flourish, reach and autumnal splendour of fruit and flowering and then decay- to the model of reality as outlined by Stephen Hawkins "Brief History of Time".. He saw the whole of our universe as created by a Big Bang an spreading outwards under that impetus, until the explosive impulse fails to counter-act the implosive counter-forces of gravity and attraction. So the centrifugal expanding phase will eventually stall and the uinverse will start to shrink, in an accelerating way so that all of everything will eventually be dragged into a Black Hole, where the compressive dynamics will eventually become of powerful that there will be a new Big Bang and a new something.
But this is just a more generalised version of the truth about growth decay and natural cycles known to the Ancients.. It is also basic to economic modelling which identifies many complex and interlocking cycles.. And each one of us is on a personal cycle if we manage to get around to a "full-term" death, and are part of generational cycles.
The History of Europe can be treated -as it has traditionally been treated-as being comprised of two ages- The Middle Ages and The Modern Age.. In a couple of books wriiten in 1938 and 1941, that came to me as if "intended" somehow- The First Europe of the Middle Ages is described as the Europe of the Church, and- to answer your question- it was by building churches as Building and a church as an all-embracing "Communion of Souls" invested with the moral authority to impose peace on what had been a barbaric and dark age Europe that the common people were able to escape from the Dark Age and live lives that permitted population growth.
The expansion of population and contact produced a moment when this particular "world" became unstable and collapsed through the Black Death. From that moment Europe was struggling hard to control the process of collapse and decay, not least in the acceptance of the moral authority of the Church, and the ability of the Church itself to trust in its moral authority-- the inquisition, burning of heretics, new right and powers vested in the Pope, and a huge focus on raising money to make manifest the physical greatness of the Church nb the new glory of Renaissance Rome.
G.G. Coulton a great Medievalist said that the Middle Ages had been built upon a belief in the Omnicompetence of the Church.. After the Black Death it was struggling to restore the damage of the impotence of Christianity before the pestilence.. But the secularism of the age produced a new belief in the Omnicompetence of the State for the European States could use wealth and power in order to produce security on Earth in a world in which it became understood that what is "real" is that which is apparent to our sense, or can be made so by means of scientific instruments.
States forged a new reality and a new credibility not least by wars. And populations increased once more, until the size of populations presented new problems. The increase in the scale of life and therefore of the powers and demands of the State upon the people reached a point in which the weight of the monarchical governments around which the States had been formed became intolerable.. This was the Age of Revolutions- the mid-life crisis of the Age of the State, as the Black Death was such a crisis for the Church.. After both there was a tendency of the common people to question and/or refuse to support continued growth.
After the Black Death preachers like John Ball and divines like John Wyclif put out the idea that there should be more "in it " for the common people than for the elites. The same thing happened with the Age of Revolution. But perforce this meant a much more complex set of dynamics than in the early gowth period. And States that were supposed to stand up for Nations led quite naturally to the idea of whole Nations standing up shoulder to shoulder for the sake of their State- hence the most terrible wars in European History.
C. Delisle Burns book "The First Europe" written in 1941 and published posthumously in 1947 foresaw that there might yet be a Third Europe not based upon States like the Europe of the State but based upon overarching principles like Medieval Christendom when certain comon principle and beliefs joined people together in what Thomas More referred to as a great communion of souls of the living and the dead, and the accepted moral authority of the great councils of the Church that tried to apply the "common wisdom" within this true Church, the house of God who dwells in the hearts and souls of men.
All of this is to answer your suggestion that people might be superimposed on different ages.. This is the kind of myth that our current belief in science and its universality has engendered, and it has meant almost the death of History.
At a moment when England was beginning to stretch its wings and "go places" so that A.L,.Rowse (I think it was) entiled his study "Queen Elizabeth and the Expansion of England" Shakespeare expressed what was commonly understood by his audience "There is a tide in the affairs of man which if taken at full flood.." etc
As my wife, who is French, reminded me this afternoon, it was a full moon last Friday, and that means we have ten days to do the major surgery we have agreed upon on the trees in our garden.. She is a great one for moon planting..
But in early 2008 when we met our neighbour/friend in our house in France she said "Be careful. 2008 is a year of 13 moons. Old peasant wisdom says that really weird and strange things happen in years with 13 moons".. In the Autumn we had the worst financial crash and risk of World Chaos since the terrible times of 1932-3 that created favourable conditions for the rise of Hitler..
But part of the problem at that time was that, though history has cast this into oblivion, humankind had solved the problem of feeding itself by the late Twenties when many peope had wanted to get back to the land.. But the raw materials and food produce was so abundant that its market price went down so much that the producers could not pay their bills, notably rents and mortgages.. The Nazi break through from its base in urban Munich and Roman Catholic Bavaria to the Protestant and rural fringes of Denmark came because they found peasants and smallholders who were being dispossessed allegedly by Jewish bankers.
Money can be very useful but it does have a life-dynamic of its own and can not just be made subect to human will.. That has been a recurrent theme of Labour Party devaluations- 50% under Attlee and Wilson combined and then the 30% devaluation of the pound against the Euro in the crisis of 2008. Good for our export industry it seems.
Cass -
Message 11
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 24th January 2011
sunshineand showers
Just a quickie -
As I gather that the "war" that you engaged in professionally was against sickness, disease etc and for healthy living, fitness etc..
In view of the historical evolution of Nursing in the UK with the crucial role of Florence Nightingale and the challenge of nursing in a war zone, it is perhaps particularly relevant to think of the uniformed ranks and degrees within the nursing force as a peace-time army.
But people of my generation (1944) I think have grown up with a sense of disquiet about some of things being done in our name when we were too young to understand the "cruel necessity"- things like Dresden and Hiroshima. Was this the only or best way?
In terms of our present "struggles" I was and am left with something of that same ambivalence after a conversation a few years ago with a bus driver/ ex-nurse who I chanced to talk to. She had quit NHS nursing for a variety of reasons, but among them she found that she was permanently allocated to an NHS team here in South London that worked full-time on the task of constructing penises for women who wanted a sex change.
From what you have written I suspect that like me you may question the ability of any kind of cosmetic or other surgery- apart from that which tackles real disability, injury or deformity- to really tackle the root problems of people's lack of self-esteem , sense of value and ability to live at peace with who they are.
What this ex-nurse described to me looked very much like carpet bombing or dropping an A Bomb- because it was now technically possible- and as the "latest thing" obviously had to be the best..
Am I just a hopefully out of date grumpyold man in believing that love is the answer, and possibly even a search for a loving God- that is one theme of English history?
Cass -
Message 12
Posted by sunshineandshowers (U13926964) on Monday, 24th January 2011
Cass
Phew............ such a lot to take in...... and l appreciate anyone's view who 'thinks out of the box' of whatever 'normal' thinking of the day is.
I can't possibly do your post any justice by my reply but will do my best to.
Perhaps the crux of the matter regarding the human condition and what history involves, its consequences for all of us is that in the main every man is an island with regards to his own interests and position, so is never fully concerned with the consideration due to their fellow man.
We are apt to judge ourselves far more favourably than judge others with the same regard we give ourselves.
The Big-Bang theory is as far removed from everything l could possibly understand, that is because l believe we have a creator, This planet is far too beautiful, and nature far too wonderful to have been an accident.
Your moon planting l agree with and when we grew our own organic vegetables we did plant sometimes by the moon.
Whilst l beleive in folk-laws and ancient sayings, none of them are very far removed from the very basics of common sense and a serious consideration of looking at nature and people and appreciating their differences, and their value to one another. And that takes being often seen as different and often of a lesser value.
Your academic background is obvious... We all know how vitally important teachers are, and it says in Scriptures somewhere along the lines of no one knows what slumbers in a young persons heart to come to full fruition years after being taught something.
My husband had a wonderful teacher, he did not realise this mans worth until much later, and has always regreted not having the maturity to recognise this person as a very special individual and thank him for the impact his teaching had on his love of english literature.
I take on board the growth and decay thought, again l differ here......... because l see new life.... in the summer when flowers are so magnificent with their perfumes, the cold weather and frost destroy them to decay... but so many drop their seeds to bloom again another year, so l do not see the decay or the death, but the promise of when a seed falls to the ground and looks as though dead, it is just sleeping to show us later how wonderful and possible renewal is.
I too remember that day the twin towers were hit and thousands of lives were lost.. I also knew the world had entered a further darker period as my faith witnesses to me.
However, this is the war-fare that the younger generation might expect to be used to in their use of the latest technology 'war-games' in fact war had become a game as seen on their latest piece of technology and nothing more.
The young of today have become innured to some extent about violence of war as in the streets on a week-end evening.
I do wish l could give all your information better justice by answer on this forum. I can see we are both passionate about the welfare of the younger generation in that they should be taught well and honestly as a right, rather than badly as a need for something only known to governments.
I do believe that apart from the material growth that so many children have today copared to pre and post war era's, they have such a void in their lives that our generations never experienced whatever poverty or affluence was our lot.
War will always be a loss to the world and never a gain for any merit to anyone.
Tried to find you on h2g2 but could not find the piece you spoke of. what exactly do l type in h2g2 search engine? -
Message 13
Posted by sunshineandshowers (U13926964) on Monday, 24th January 2011
Cass
One can never look on death as a necessary of life when one is involved closely with it.
Life is far too important however short or long it is going to be.
I believe many do not appreciate the wonderful gift they have in it. That is is why wars are so frequent, between individuals and nations!
Dresden and Horishima was obviously seen as the only way, how else could it be once war is began it requires to be ended somewhere... That this is an abomination to God matters little to men who begin or end wars.
Tony Blair would be a not so humble barrister, if it wasn't for his 'need' to take this country to war in a far flung field of poverty and dust. and now he is an middle-east envoy. I feel no sense of humour erupting within me.
About the sex change appendages.... l am very surprised there were that many women requiring sex-changes...I never understood nurses who prefered to become one of the chiefs rather than hands on indians that nurses remained(or did)
The only disabilities l recognise are the disablity of people to seeing the person beyond a disabilty.
What is so perfect regarding the perfection that many wish to view themselves as being? Even the fruit and vegetables we buy are uniformed and 'perfect' they taste of nothing, but hey-ho they look so 'perfect'. l do find a sense of humour erupting on this one..
<<>>
The love you mention is what comes with the 'peace that passes all understanding' that is perfect love. And yes...that is what people seek through history imv. l do not believe it is just England but the world over.
And as this love gains momentum, then the evil that is against such love also gains momentum (eg. twin towers and all wars, love is growing cold)
But we do not have to be 'of' the world, although we are in the world....... a bit like moon planting..... something that is worth looking at and seeking out is often thought by many to be impossible to grasp, and that is the biggest lie.. Be still.....
etc., and that is a commodity that people see as a luxury today, and of course, modern society has made sure that it is a luxury that we can ill afford....also an untruth.
We are not automatoms, although we are made to feel as though we are at times, it progresses us nothing except a step nearer destruction to our earthly masters, who begin wars....and find a way of finishing them that destroys all in its path...Goodness nearly a full circle.
SS
. -
Message 14
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 24th January 2011
sunshineand showers
Here is a direct link to a contents page for the book that I have been writing recently- which now I am nearly at the end I think might be called "History For Our Own Time"..
In fact many of themes that you raise - including the question of "that peace that passeth all understanding"- I really tackled more directly in what I eventually decided should be treated as my first book- unpublished- that I finished over ten years ago- partly thanks to one of those amazing numinous experiences -though one that seems to be unique to me- when I had an experience of the "glories" - a word meaning an opening of a way up into the Heavens. In this case the experience of driving apparently along a rainbow for over half a mile, that then curved up into the Heavens..
The whole context was strange, not least because it was April 1999 and the ending, and new beginning of so many different cycles all coming together in a millennial moment.
I entitled the book "English Peace" and it set out to explore through History how one can try to live happily as an individual in the Modern World..
I then moved on to the parallel question of how it is possible for Human beings to live together happily in the Modern World. And "History for Our Own Time" looks at the collective and communal sense of mission and purpose that enables people to fully exploit their capacity as social beings-- for wherever two or three are gathered together in God's name the sum is greater than the total of the parts.
By the way- I have just seen the announcement that the h2g2 site is one of the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ ones that will be phased out.
Cass -
Message 15
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 24th January 2011
sunshineand showers
Sorry I forgot tp paste the link.
Cass -
Message 16
Posted by sunshineandshowers (U13926964) on Monday, 24th January 2011
cass
Have followed the link given for your page and have visited and left a posting (l hope, if l did it correctly?) l will take chapter by chapter and post on anything that prompts me,
As we are on a history board..and usually by now someone has complained as to perhaps 'moving away from the subject of history of war' which l believe is ridiculous, hence my OP.
I do not know or have no experience of the glories you experienced, the rainbow is significant in Scripture, l believe there was a flood and the rainbows we see today are a covenant from God that the world would not experience another such flood.
I am amazed at the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ phasing out what is a public service, paid for by the public , but the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ appear a law to themselves and have the ambition to knock down boundaries
(told to me by Mark Thompson) the trouble is by knocking down boundaries mean that sooner or later eveyrhting falls down.
Hope to 'speak' again on h2g2. it is such a shame that peoples lifes work and experiences have such little space in this large planet of ours.
s&s.
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