Friday, February 9, 2007
Moving On
Today, during class we had a class discussion about All Quiet on the Western Front and war in general. We talked about different aspects of war, we talked about WWI, WWII, Desert Storm, and wars in general. After the discussion I came to the computer to write my reflection (about a subject that I already forgot) and Lucien told me that he was pretty annoyed about the fact that everytime we talk about war it goes back to past crimes and leaders. He told me that he was pretty annoyed about us not talking about wars NOW; it always goes back to Alexander, it always goes back to Hitler; WWI. Me, I believe he is right in the sense that war is NOT a thing of the past. War is currently waged in the Middle East, and in Africa, but for some reason we talk about Hitler and not Bush (or the US senate for that matter). We talk about the Holocaust and not Darfur, and even though the Holocaust was bigger, Darfur is present. And even though history is important; I believe that the present is more so.
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4 comments:
Nelson, I couldn't agree with you more with respect to your desire to talk more specifically about the the world around us today. It is important to understand why Darfur is a war zone and inorder to do that, the roots are linked to the past. We will be exploring 20th century genocides other than the Holocaust as well as other acts of intolerance and indifference and looking in depth at the conflict in Darfur. You are wonderfully connected and astute to your surroundings. Continue to ask questions about your world and to write about it here. This is a perfect place to explore your thoughts...Keep up the great work!
Nelson, to understand the present, we look to the past for answers. Many times, history repeats itself. Do you see the connection between Adolf Hitler and Germany int the 1930s-early 1940s and present day Iran and Ahmadinejad? We try to make connections to the past. In the case of Iraq, the US intervention was an attempt at three things: liberating the Iraqi people and removing an evil tyrant. We believed that Hussein had ties to the Al-Qaeda network and possessed large quantities of weapons of mass destruction. In Humanities, you must look at the past to understand the present conditon.
Ryan
I must agree with you Nelson on this one. I belive that the past is the past, why talk about the horror there was back then when people in our time are suffering horror too. I think the past should be talked about, but not in the sense where we have to talk about year to year. The present is more important than the past. Ive heard the saying " the past will kill you, if you dont forget about" I think this quote is saying that no one everything about the past, and if you blame yourself for something you did in the past, it fill strike you down, so we should forget about the past, and focus on what is happening to us.
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