Hi All, In Lila Chapter 7 Pirsig describes how the killing fields of WW I destroyed Victorian morality:
"The period ended when, after having defined for all time what 'Truth" and "Virtue" and "Quality" are, the Victorians and their Edwardian successors sent an entire generation of children into the trenches of World War I on behalf of these ideals. And murdered them. For nothing. That war was the natural consequence of Victorian moral egotism. When it was over the children who survived never got tired of laughing at Charlie Chaplin comedies of those elderly people with the silk hats and too many clothes and noses up in the air. Young people of the twenties read Hemingway, Dos Passos and Fitzgerald, drank bootleg gin, danced tangos into the night, drove fast roadsters, made illicit love, called themselves a "lost generation," and never wanted anything to remind them of Victorian morality again." (Lila, 7) But Thomas Sowell writing in The Washington Times presents another side of the story: "In France, after World War I, the teachers´ unions launched a systematic purge of textbooks in order to promote internationalism and pacifism. Books that depicted the courage and self-sacrifice of soldiers who had defended France against the German invaders where called `bellicose´ books to be banished from the schools. . . . The once epic story of French soldiers' heroic defense against German invaders at Verdun, despite massive French casualties, was now transformed into a story of horrible suffering by all the soldiers at Verdun -- French and German alike. In short, soldiers once depicted as national heroes were now depicted as victims - and just like victims in other nations´ armies. . . . Did it matter? Does patriotism matter? France, where pacifism and internationalism were strongest, became a classic example of how much it can matter. . . . During World War II, France collapsed after just six weeks of fighting and surrendered to Nazi Germany. . . Charles de Gaulle, Francois Mauriac, and other Frenchmen blamed a lack of national will or general moral decay for the sudden and humiliating collapse of France in 1940. " Sowell concluded with a sobering question: "Our media are busy verbally transforming American combat troops from heroes into victims, just as the French intelligentsia did - with the added twist of calling this `supporting our troops.´ Will that matter? Time will tell." Reminds me of the Hippie chant of the 60´s during the Cold War expressing a similar lack of patriotism - "Better red than dead." The full text of the Sowell article is at: http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jul/04/does-patriotism-matter/ Regards, Platt Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
