Canada's military history (among other things)

What military history? We're a nation of "Peacekeepers", remember? Our legacy from the Lester Pearson era.

Get a copy of "Who Killed Canadian History?" by Granatstein. I think I spelled that right. I loaned my copy out so many times, eventually it found another home. They stopped teaching Canadian history a long time ago in a systematic attempt to rewrite it according to PC standards.

I grew up with a whole different perspective on our internal conflicts and foreign wars than my son was exposed to in high school. History to him was when women, aboriginals, and Chinese got the vote. He knew nothing of the 1837 Rebellions, the Metis fight for rights, etc. I couldn't have a conversation with him even about the Gold Rush in BC as all he knew was that the miners slaughtered the Indians on the Fraser River on their way to Barkerville.
 
TheTooner said:
No, I'm not telling you Germany in either war wouldn't have rolled across the Atlantic, but neither should you assume that they would have. (And your assumption that I am assuming our dominion would still exist has we not fought those wars is incorrect.)

People voted for social programs before WWII and people born decades after who didn't see and largely haven't heard of the horrors of war are voting for social programs today. They vote for them because politicians and others persuade them that by doing so they are being "good" and because they believe the programs are affordable. If those wars hadn't occurred politicians would probably be telling us the same things to get us to vote for things. And if we didn't vote for the social programs or couldn't pay for them they wouldn't occur, and if that were the case the fact that some of our people fought and died in wars wouldn't cause the social programs to exist.
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I can see your point.

My point is that WWI caused a shift in Canadian humanitarian thinking. This was passed down through families as they encouraged their children to reach out to their fellow man. The horrors stayed with the men who experienced it, but the desire to change how we solve social problems was passed on. So, now we have the social conscience without the sense memory that it grew out of. So much so that we cannot imagine how horrible men actually can be to each other.
 
As a life long student of history, I was always disappointed with the teaching of it in schools.
IMHO history died when social studies started being taught instead of history.
Why the education system gets so worked up about a bunch of female racists (McClung and her ilk) yet doesn't teach about VC winners, Beurling, Prince and the various storied regiments always drove me crazy.
 
Kirk1701 said:
I can see your point.

My point is that WWI caused a shift in Canadian humanitarian thinking. This was passed down through families as they encouraged their children to reach out to their fellow man. The horrors stayed with the men who experienced it, but the desire to change how we solve social problems was passed on. So, now we have the social conscience without the sense memory that it grew out of. So much so that we cannot imagine how horrible men actually can be to each other.
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And in thinking, generally. Yes, war does tend to bring changes.
 
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