"Missing Parts" of History (war, influence, economic, events)

[2nd trick op]

Mr. GrandpaPipes' recent thread on "new" discoveries related to the Nazi Holocaust serves as a reminder that the flow of human events over a very long time leads to a fairly selective process of what is recorded, and eventually accepted, as historical fact, and what might be downplayed, and eventually disacrded. For example, the average high-schooler probably knows tht the Second World War was waged primarily by democracies against a coalition of dictaorships, but not as many are taught to recognize that the Allied coalition involved some pretty unsavory regimes, and that at leeast one fully-tested democracy (Finland) ended up as classified on the side of the Axis Powers.

Simlarly, the origins of the Holocaust itself is seldom linked to the roots of the tensions between Gentile and Jew which go back hundres of years. Few high-schoolers know of this, or that the Zionist movement itself started as long ago as the late Nineteenth Century. Jewish history between the time of Christ and the persecutions in Eastern Europe is virtually ignored -- few people are aware that the Jewish Diaspora went "the long way around" via North Africa and Spain, or of the once-great influence of Coptic Chrisitianity, which contracted drastically with the rise of Islam.

In short, none of these issues are likely discussed before the individual encounters them via a course in the Humanities undertaken at the undergraduate level -- and then only as an elective. And I belive that the root cause lies in the reluctance of public-sector educators to tackle these issues due to the divisions and controversies of a not-that-much earlier time.

I grew up in a community which was "divided", in more ways than one, by a large foundry which ran for thrteen of the sixteen blocks throufgh the community's center; what side of "the Forge" you grew up on was likely to be a good clue as to your religious and economic upringing. There was no Catholic high school, and most of us in our teens could have cared less, but the parents and grandparents could raise some pretty divisive opinions, and because of this, any issue whic might have given rise to differences of opinion, such as the early Christan prohibition against usury (the lending of money at tinterest -- still an issue in Islamic states today), was discretely skirted.

We have come so far, in so relaively little a time, that points such as this are seldom touched upon today. But the advance of time merely gives rise to other differences of opinion. and the growing division of our nation among two very-different and sometimes-hostile poles, means that the tactic of "selective history" will sometimes be embraced by factions within both camps.

Some food for thought, ladies and gentlemen; please lead on.