I am a major history buff, and will read or watch anything history. If I had not wasted a youth on Witness, I would have been a history major and archaeologist. Anyway, I was thinking today about how we study things like WW1 and WW2. This generation, and even the schools show these events as a page in history and yet often overlook how much they are responsible for where we are and how we act. Instead they treat them as if it was an event that happened and we dealt with it, once over, we closed the topic and moved on like it had no affect. Yet think about how Germany's war affected us. I say Germany, as WW2 was really WW1 part 2 and had a lot to deal with tribal disputes of centuries coming to a head. Anyway, a world war is major and caused things we take as normal today and I question whether or not the world would be the same today socially and politically had it never happened.
As an example, after WW2 men came home so renewed on their view of life that they wanted a family to spread life and not just take it. So the Baby Boomers grew in to society. Then the industrial strength of our nation had to refocus from war to something else and soon we had products like cars, televisions and appliances to fill our desires. Something that sold better and made more millions to spurn growth from a growing population of Baby Boomers who helped to put more money in the manufactures pockets to encourage research and improvements to these products and yet to afford these items the common family now had to work more to support their desires and children no longer spent time with mom while dad worked, now mom worked and television and entertianment from the products babysit them. Instead of values coming from the dinner table, the television taught them. That generation was then raised to want even more and improve on what their parents had. Not about survival, about desires to have more as that is what television told them and mom and dad were too busy to show anything else. So rebellion was set out, as new thoughts replaced old and had more air time on the mind. The process continues and the generation that follows the next has more to choose from and less free time to enjoy life and raise children.
So maybe Germany had the most secret weapon to change the world, only it took longer to explode. Yet in the end, we are a world today that is still dealing with the outcome of a major world war and even though the generation who fought it is passing away, it's affect is still being felt and even leading to events that are having equally damaging power. Like 9/11, not a date a bench mark in change. I love thoughts like this, as you have to contemplate the Butterfly affect. How far back in history was the small event that lead to the world today and how easily you could change a world if you could time travel. Anyway, I was just thinking about this and thought it was an interesting subject.