Still, it is a recent band singing joyously about genocide. (It is a little better given that the Psalm was written by people at a time when they had just been conquered and the same atrocities done to them, crying out to a power for vengeance.)
They are actually really catchy, and most of their songs (and the Psalms themselves) are reasonably poetic.
The comedian looks young enough to not remember the extent to which there’s been a big campaign to take rape seriously.
Earlier, (and to a lesser extent still) it could be presented with enough distance to be a subject of humor. For example, I can remember when a boss chasing a secretary around a desk was considered funny.
More recently, prison rape was a reliable joke in general. Now there are social circles where such jokes aren’t welcome but I wouldn’t say it’s a sort of joke you absolutely can’t get away with.
With the recent research on the effects of concussion, I don’t think the old cartoons (with the character looking dazed and the little birds chirping as they circle his head) are going to look quite the same as they used to.
To some large extent, people notice what they’re told to notice. This doesn’t mean I think it’s all signaling, but I think perception is very much shaped by social pressure.
He hits the nail on the head: “At the point when everyone who fought in [the World Wars], and everyone who remembers anyone who fought in them, has died, surely they’ll become as comic as the Vikings.”
After all, the purpose of moral disapproval of atrocities is simply to avoid offending anyone who could be personally connected to them†. Even when people acknowledge that there’s nothing besides length of time separating ancient genocides from modern ones, there’s just no way to spark the same feeling of outrage.
† Of course, longstanding cultural divides can keep offense alive even when the secondhand witnesses are gone; the Armenian genocide shows no sign of becoming funny, because the acknowledgment of it is a continuing rift between Armenians and Turks.
After all, the purpose of moral disapproval of atrocities is simply to avoid offending anyone who could be personally connected to them.
Personal connection is in the mind, as you say later. I’ve been looking at the “It would have been me” aspect of the past, and I think it’s mostly trained in.
A major reason that the Holocaust is taken very seriously is that there are people who believe that doing so will make a repetition less likely. I don’t know how long it would take for that to fade out.
I also don’t know how close we are to longevity tech, but when such exists, the past is presumably going to fade more slowly.
On the relativity of what is considered serious—I think there’s been a bit of a shift lately, but when you think about Hitler’s atrocities, you probably mostly think about the Holocaust. He was also responsible for tens of millions of deaths as the result of WWII, but that doesn’t get the same publicity, probably because building an empire is viewed as sort of normal behavior. Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Shaka Zulu, and Napoleon aren’t usually counted as mass murderers.
On the relativity of what is considered serious—I think there’s been a bit of a shift lately, but when you think about Hitler’s atrocities, you probably mostly think about the Holocaust. He was also responsible for tens of millions of deaths as the result of WWII, but that doesn’t get the same publicity, probably because building an empire is viewed as sort of normal behavior. Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Shaka Zulu, and Napoleon aren’t usually counted as mass murderers.
Alexander the Great, Shaka Zulu and Napoleon were ‘just’ empire builders. Genghis Khan, on the other hand, make Hitler look like a fluffy puppy in every way except temporal and social proximity.
Our strength is our quickness and our brutality. Genghis Khan had millions of women and children hunted down and killed, deliberately and with a gay heart. History sees in him only the great founder of States. What the weak Western European civilization alleges about me, does not matter. I have given the order—and will have everyone shot who utters but one word of criticism—that the aim of this war does not consist in reaching certain designated [geographical] lines, but in the enemies’ physical elimination. Thus, for the time being only in the east, I put ready my Death’s Head units, with the order to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of the Polish race or language. Only thus will we gain the living space that we need. Who still talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians?
-Part of a speech allegedly made by Adolp Hitler on August 22, 1939 at Obersalzberg
Its interesting since this quote seems to show:
a) Hitler having values very different from the postChristian West, rather than disagreeing on how to live up to those values.
b) The genocides of WW2 helped to rekindle interest and even an air of seriousness around what was 70 years ago not considered an important event (Armenian genocide).
Also Hitler has a point. Might does (eventually) make right to as much as our value systems can be influenced by upbringing (and after genetic engineering that won’t be a limiting factor either). What does anyone truly care about what the weak or a weak tired civilization thinks of you beyond signalling concerns?
A major reason that the Holocaust is taken very seriously is that there are people who believe that doing so will make a repetition less likely. I don’t know how long it would take for that to fade out.
That the Jews were slaves in Egypt [1] has been commemorated every year for at least 2500 years—possibly 3000 years or so.
I wouldn’t expect it to fade quickly.
[1] This is disputed—there doesn’t seem to be any solid evidence of it.
After all, the purpose of moral disapproval of atrocities is simply to avoid offending anyone who could be personally connected to them
That’s absurd. When I disapprove of Serbs (and Greek volunteers) massacring civilians in Srebrenica, it’s not because I want to avoid offending people, it’s because I want to offend them into shame, so that they stop supporting policies and parties in my own nation (Greece) that will make a repetition of the butchery and support of such butchery, likely.
You talk as if all discussion of politics is a signalling of status, rather than a sometimes hopeless attempt to influence the future into a better direction.
You’re right, of course- my comment needs modification. I’m just talking about the case where one isn’t really angry about an old atrocity, but would still hesitate to make a joke about it. I’m not made of Hansons all the way down.
He hits the nail on the head: “At the point when everyone who fought in [the World Wars], and everyone who remembers anyone who fought in them, has died, surely they’ll become as comic as the Vikings.
Assuming a non-Singularity future where all the second-order witnesses have died, one would not expect many people to go and watch video of 20th-century atrocities. I mean, first-hand accounts of the Spanish Inquisition and the genocide of the Americas exist. How much of them have you read?
(In high school, we read a few excerpts at most; I did read this book in college, thanks to its Great Books focus. Of course, I read plenty in high school about slavery, but that’s because the Civil War is still tied to current cultural divides in the U.S.)
Assuming a non-Singularity future where all the second-order witnesses have died, one would not expect many people to go and watch video of 20th-century atrocities. I mean, first-hand accounts of the Spanish Inquisition and the genocide of the Americas exist. How much of them have you read?
None. Now I’m anticipating learning about the world wars via “Age of Empires IX”.
He hits the nail on the head: “At the point when everyone who fought in [the World Wars], and everyone who remembers anyone who fought in them, has died, surely they’ll become as comic as the Vikings.”
As noted in the Mitchell video, there are comical pieces set in the World Wars, but one has to be careful how one writes it. Catch-22 is a black comedy, as are Blackadder Goes Forth, Life is Beautiful and most of the other comedies set in 20th century wars.
The simplest way to put it, perhaps, is to note that Mel Brooks could do the Spanish Inquisition and the French Revolution in straightforward screwball style, but had to do Hitler as a musical-within-a-movie.
That’s comedy as wartime propaganda, which has its own rich history. Note that WB has basically refused to show it since the war. If you want a real exception, Hogan’s Heroes might qualify.
If you want a real exception, Hogan’s Heroes might qualify.
The fascinating thing is that the actors who played the major Nazi roles were all Jews. Two of which spent time in concentration camps and had their families butchered. That impresses me.
So did Donald Duck, and quite a few others. IIRC Hitler was generally viewed pretty comically (at least in America? I don’t remember) before the Holocaust and its scale became widely known after the war.
It’s been a while since I’ve read it, but I think all the viewpoints were in the military and about the treadmill of being trapped into flying unlimited bombing missions. There was nothing from the point of view of the people on the ground who were being bombed, was there?
And people bow to and kiss the Torah.
David Mitchell has a youtube video on the subject.
There is also a group “Sons of Korah” who sing remixes of the Psalms. Including Psalm 137. Which builds up to:
The Sons of Korah version makes it sound a little better:
Still, it is a recent band singing joyously about genocide. (It is a little better given that the Psalm was written by people at a time when they had just been conquered and the same atrocities done to them, crying out to a power for vengeance.)
They are actually really catchy, and most of their songs (and the Psalms themselves) are reasonably poetic.
The comedian looks young enough to not remember the extent to which there’s been a big campaign to take rape seriously.
Earlier, (and to a lesser extent still) it could be presented with enough distance to be a subject of humor. For example, I can remember when a boss chasing a secretary around a desk was considered funny.
More recently, prison rape was a reliable joke in general. Now there are social circles where such jokes aren’t welcome but I wouldn’t say it’s a sort of joke you absolutely can’t get away with.
With the recent research on the effects of concussion, I don’t think the old cartoons (with the character looking dazed and the little birds chirping as they circle his head) are going to look quite the same as they used to.
To some large extent, people notice what they’re told to notice. This doesn’t mean I think it’s all signaling, but I think perception is very much shaped by social pressure.
He hits the nail on the head: “At the point when everyone who fought in [the World Wars], and everyone who remembers anyone who fought in them, has died, surely they’ll become as comic as the Vikings.”
After all, the purpose of moral disapproval of atrocities is simply to avoid offending anyone who could be personally connected to them†. Even when people acknowledge that there’s nothing besides length of time separating ancient genocides from modern ones, there’s just no way to spark the same feeling of outrage.
† Of course, longstanding cultural divides can keep offense alive even when the secondhand witnesses are gone; the Armenian genocide shows no sign of becoming funny, because the acknowledgment of it is a continuing rift between Armenians and Turks.
Personal connection is in the mind, as you say later. I’ve been looking at the “It would have been me” aspect of the past, and I think it’s mostly trained in.
A major reason that the Holocaust is taken very seriously is that there are people who believe that doing so will make a repetition less likely. I don’t know how long it would take for that to fade out.
I also don’t know how close we are to longevity tech, but when such exists, the past is presumably going to fade more slowly.
On the relativity of what is considered serious—I think there’s been a bit of a shift lately, but when you think about Hitler’s atrocities, you probably mostly think about the Holocaust. He was also responsible for tens of millions of deaths as the result of WWII, but that doesn’t get the same publicity, probably because building an empire is viewed as sort of normal behavior. Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Shaka Zulu, and Napoleon aren’t usually counted as mass murderers.
Alexander the Great, Shaka Zulu and Napoleon were ‘just’ empire builders. Genghis Khan, on the other hand, make Hitler look like a fluffy puppy in every way except temporal and social proximity.
-Part of a speech allegedly made by Adolp Hitler on August 22, 1939 at Obersalzberg
Its interesting since this quote seems to show:
a) Hitler having values very different from the postChristian West, rather than disagreeing on how to live up to those values.
b) The genocides of WW2 helped to rekindle interest and even an air of seriousness around what was 70 years ago not considered an important event (Armenian genocide).
Also Hitler has a point. Might does (eventually) make right to as much as our value systems can be influenced by upbringing (and after genetic engineering that won’t be a limiting factor either). What does anyone truly care about what the weak or a weak tired civilization thinks of you beyond signalling concerns?
That the Jews were slaves in Egypt [1] has been commemorated every year for at least 2500 years—possibly 3000 years or so.
I wouldn’t expect it to fade quickly.
[1] This is disputed—there doesn’t seem to be any solid evidence of it.
That’s absurd. When I disapprove of Serbs (and Greek volunteers) massacring civilians in Srebrenica, it’s not because I want to avoid offending people, it’s because I want to offend them into shame, so that they stop supporting policies and parties in my own nation (Greece) that will make a repetition of the butchery and support of such butchery, likely.
You talk as if all discussion of politics is a signalling of status, rather than a sometimes hopeless attempt to influence the future into a better direction.
You’re right, of course- my comment needs modification. I’m just talking about the case where one isn’t really angry about an old atrocity, but would still hesitate to make a joke about it. I’m not made of Hansons all the way down.
But this time we got video.
Assuming a non-Singularity future where all the second-order witnesses have died, one would not expect many people to go and watch video of 20th-century atrocities. I mean, first-hand accounts of the Spanish Inquisition and the genocide of the Americas exist. How much of them have you read?
(In high school, we read a few excerpts at most; I did read this book in college, thanks to its Great Books focus. Of course, I read plenty in high school about slavery, but that’s because the Civil War is still tied to current cultural divides in the U.S.)
None. Now I’m anticipating learning about the world wars via “Age of Empires IX”.
You mean this hasn’t happened already?
As noted in the Mitchell video, there are comical pieces set in the World Wars, but one has to be careful how one writes it. Catch-22 is a black comedy, as are Blackadder Goes Forth, Life is Beautiful and most of the other comedies set in 20th century wars.
The simplest way to put it, perhaps, is to note that Mel Brooks could do the Spanish Inquisition and the French Revolution in straightforward screwball style, but had to do Hitler as a musical-within-a-movie.
Bugs Bunny did it...
That’s comedy as wartime propaganda, which has its own rich history. Note that WB has basically refused to show it since the war. If you want a real exception, Hogan’s Heroes might qualify.
The fascinating thing is that the actors who played the major Nazi roles were all Jews. Two of which spent time in concentration camps and had their families butchered. That impresses me.
The actor who played Colonel Klink had it written into his contract that the Nazis would never win.
:) I like it.
So did Donald Duck, and quite a few others. IIRC Hitler was generally viewed pretty comically (at least in America? I don’t remember) before the Holocaust and its scale became widely known after the war.
Aw crap, Godwin’s Law.
That really used to be a problem
It’s been a while since I’ve read it, but I think all the viewpoints were in the military and about the treadmill of being trapped into flying unlimited bombing missions. There was nothing from the point of view of the people on the ground who were being bombed, was there?