Friday, May 08, 2020

Victory in Europe Day, 75 years on

VE Day being today, I am glad to say how proud I am of the many members of my family who fought for Britain against Nazism, and who supported the war effort in many ways including as soldiers, seamen, airmen, drivers, mechanics, nurses, engineers, telephonists, and more. 
RAF Spitfire 
Their lives were permanently altered by a second world war that killed millions, and that started just twenty years after the official end of the first. How could the world let this happen? 
As a history teacher for many years I am sure that the explanation lies in the study that is outlined below. And to commemorate the meaning of VE Day, with the fervent hope that the definitive cause of war be known everywhere, here is a short quotation from some of the most important writing I've ever seen:
It was contempt which made for that awful mode of retaliation called Nazism... In the unconscious, dear unknown friends, it is the other person who will have accomplished contempt for you unless you have first contempt for him. 
http://bit.ly/32cyx2k
In this essay, "What Caused the Wars," Eli Siegel has explained the force in self that can have one cold, unseeing, cruel - and the real alternative. The study of contempt, and of the opposing force - the desire to have honest respect for the world -- which are both in every person all the time, is the needed education for today. 
Nazi Party Gathering

    2nd Lt. William Robertson (U.S. Army) and Lt. Alexander Silvashko
(Red Army) after the meeting of the two armies at the Elbe River

#VEDay 
#WorldView
#Philosophy  
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