
Remember them more honestly - never-the-bride
https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/november-2019/remember-them-more-honestly/
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hprotagonist
_It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions
upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to
old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one
way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have
among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.

Armistice Day has become Veterans’ Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans’
Day is not.

So I will throw Veterans’ Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I
don’t want to throw away any sacred things.

What else is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance.

And all music is._

Vonnegut, 1973

~~~
empath75
And then they did it again not even 30 years later and would have done it
again if it wasn’t for the threat of mutual nuclear annihilation.

Remember that when people talk about the superiority of western civilization.

~~~
corporateslave5
All that we have is a product of the west, there are arguments about why that
is, but the fact remains

~~~
thundergolfer
You can't really believe this, as it's so obviously wrong.

It is also a contention that has pretty racist adherents; Charles Murray's
_Human Accomplishment_ book comes to mind. This isn't a coincidence, as
suggesting that non-western peoples have contribute nothing of value to this
"we" is pure western chauvinism, which is racism's non-identical twin brother.

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Normal_gaussian
I have attended Sunday Remembrence at a cenotaph (in whichever town I resided
that year) every year since I turned 18.

In each place it is somewhat different.

In my home town it was a small affair. Barely attended and some
straightforward words. No depth of literature or political will; it isn't as
relevant to them.

In my university town it was a diverse affair. Many ages, many creeds, many
worlds. It was oddly right but oddly political.

In my current town. A military town if there ever was one; it is a
despairingly religious event.

I don't feel any of these have been honest.

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Normal_gaussian
A small point of interest:

The author takes issue with a line in the song/poem "I vow to thee my
country". The line is "the love that asks no questions".

Firstly, I confess to this being one of my favourite - if not my favourite -
poems. And in that I must confess to have a different take on it; what the
lyrics mean to me if you will.

I take a non-religious, but not strictly incompatible, reading. One where
"another country" is an ideal to strive for.

I read the "the love that asks no questions" to be the unconditional love of a
person for their country, and not an unconditional acceptance of their
governement or a surrendering of will. Whether this is the original intention
I do not know or really care.

It is in that line that these lyrics give me great strength. In a career where
I can easily emigrate, having few living ties, I could very easily blame the
country for all that I see as wrong and leave it.

But that of course doesn't help anyone but me - and likely only myself in the
short term. My love for my country shouldn't be strictly conditional on the
state those I disagree with have put it in. I have to recognise I am of my
country. I have to recognise that it is my responsibility.

