i've been making this argument for quite some time, now: world war two is ancient history, now. it truly remains at the core of our entire society. but, young people are increasingly oblivious to it, and will mostly argue that it was such a long time ago that it doesn't matter, anyways. we're on the cusp of what is going to be a pretty big generational overturn, as the memory of this war exits our collective consciousness. and, the ramifications of this are both profound and extremely varied.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/news/canada-election-2015-ndp-hamilton-alex-johnstone-auschwitz-1.3241065

H.S.C
yah...like slavery...it was soooo long ago... Ancient history...lets play video games and forget about all that old stuff...

One word sums your comment up....pathetic.

jessica murray
i'm not attempting to take a moral position on the matter, i'm pointing out that this is a part of a developing social phenomenon.

Think twice
These young people you refer to, are they the ones with massive student debt and little job prospects?

jessica murray
i think this is more broadly cultural.

H.S.C
you have clarity issues...

jessica murray
i think i'm perfectly clear; you have comprehension issues.

people don't want to live their lives shackled by the oppression of history, either. they want to look forward.

as it stands at the moment, the israeli state is carrying out far greater crimes than they're being subjected to.

Think twice
Is this your assertion or do you have facts?

jessica murray
i'm not sure how you'd propose that i prove such a thing.

it's an intuition brought on by observation, but the intuition is accelerating due to increasing observation.

Think twice
I get it. What you are saying is that young people are mostly interested in current things.
Quite a revelation. A similar thing happened in the 70's apparently:)

jessica murray
it's more profound than that, though. wwII is our modern founding myth - which is not to say the things didn't happen, but to say that the way we interpret it is through myth. my grandparents were born *during* the war; i'd have had to have had a relationship with great-grand-parents to have any first-hand recollection of it, and i don't. my stepmother's father has told me some stories about seeing u-boats off the coast of nova scotia. he was just a kid. he could've been seeing things. that's the closest thing to firsthand knowledge.

basically, the myth of wwII - rather than the reality of it - is our existing justification for the state. it's a social contract that gives it the right to fight bad guys - cartoonish, but the reality in the public perception. if the myth begins to fade into history, then the state begins to lose it's legitimacy.

the "war on terrorism" that came out of 9/11 doesn't have the same legitimizing effect, because the enemies are not as clear and the policies are far too transparent - it's as clear as day that it's a ploy to contain the russians. there was a really definable bad guy in wwII. there was even a really definable bad guy at the beginning of the cold war. funding islamist extremists while you pretend you're fighting them in order to hem in the russians just isn't as convincing as fighting a legitimately powerful state entity bent on world domination on frightening terms.

so, for world war two to pass into history requires massive adjustments in virtually everything. a real generational overhaul.