People get strange about Remembrance Day; I feel it enjoys a very high level of respect in comparison to, well, pretty much any other public event. It's odd. Like you say, different people's reactions are very interesting. I think Cephas' reaction is very telling; that sort of instinctive respect, even from a very very smart person, and then a sort of pause and a double-take when they think about it more. It's so instilled. I guess to people from the outside it looks the same as big patriotic-type festivals always do to people from outside the culture. And I guess observers always have the same kind of reaction: trying to be courteous and culturally sensitive and whatnot, but privately... very relieved not to be stuck with that particular weird, warped, emotional prism of worldview. I dunno. I bang my head against things a bit.
I've seen those ads. I was probably a bit inaccurate; although a lot of the form and imagery comes from WWI, I think it is generally pretty well understood that it is an ongoing THANK YOU TO OUR ARMED FORCES, WE WILL CARE FOR YOU, VETERANS thing. Which is part of what makes me... god, so sick, the way everything about how it is told is already fading Iraq into myth and history and poppies, for dear mercy's sake, as if it wasn't an ONGOING WAR which we could stop tomorrow. As if it wasn't a matter of public record that these people have died and are dying and will continue to die for an illegal war the administration told lies to start. I don't have to be super leftist, I don't even have to pretend anything exists out of the borders of the UK to see the problems with that. I don't understand it. I think that even as cultural whatnots go, it's odd.
I've seen those ads. I was probably a bit inaccurate; although a lot of the form and imagery comes from WWI, I think it is generally pretty well understood that it is an ongoing THANK YOU TO OUR ARMED FORCES, WE WILL CARE FOR YOU, VETERANS thing. Which is part of what makes me... god, so sick, the way everything about how it is told is already fading Iraq into myth and history and poppies, for dear mercy's sake, as if it wasn't an ONGOING WAR which we could stop tomorrow. As if it wasn't a matter of public record that these people have died and are dying and will continue to die for an illegal war the administration told lies to start. I don't have to be super leftist, I don't even have to pretend anything exists out of the borders of the UK to see the problems with that. I don't understand it. I think that even as cultural whatnots go, it's odd.
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