Monday, January 4, 2010

FILM: World at War

[image: http://img.openablog.net/sv10/images/ww2fy6.jpg]

I think the Churchill biopics just wet my appetite for more. I just downloaded the first part of the incomparable World at War BBC documentary. Up ahead 30+ hours of rare WWII footage and insightful commentary.

Part I was absolutely, positively, fascinating. Taking place between 1933 and 1939, the first hour sets up the causes of the war and delves into Hitler’s cult of personality. I can’t remember any History channel program being so gripping and so informative. I’ve never seen anything quite like this.

Questions that I have after watching this first hour: can this happen again? Can group think ever threaten the fate of the world? Have we learned enough about history to stop a similar downward spiral from occurring yet again? More importantly, how can we still allow entire societies to succumb/acquiesce to state-sponsored brutality and mass killings (see Cambodia, Congo, Rwanda, etc…)?

1 comment:

  1. Sadly, the need for violence is simply human nature. As much as teachers may spread knowlage, there will always be those in ignorance. As much as romantics may speak of love, there will be those who live in hate. As much as philosophers may preach of peace, there will be those who breed nothing but war, injustice, and brutality.
    ...But then again, consider this. Imperfections make you think. If you were to drive down a road with perfectly trimmed trees boardering it, they would pass on without a second thought. However, if one of the trees were to be strewn across your path, you would wonder a great many things. This is why rich children become spoiled adults: their childhood wanted of nothing, and thus their minds were equally vacant.
    If the world harbored no violence, we would have no great philosophers to encourage peace. Our greatest works of literature, plays, music, art, dance, and film would be nonexistant without turmoil. As absolutely horrible, terrible, monstrous as it is to say this, would you rather have the world peaceful and unenlightend, or cannabalistic yet with the potential for change and enlightenment?
    Ultimately, isn't this the human experience? Kind, malicious, generous, selfish, wise, ignorant, life, death and all of the above mixed together, personified in US... And who we choose to be.
    Should we have the right to make wrong choices?

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