"In 21st century America, everything is recorded, but nothing is remembered."

Overheard in the (former?) Imperial Capital, Washington DC

image from

Comments

  1. dnmaxwellJanuary 28, 2021 at 12:56 PM

    I suppose the intention of recording everything is to have a record of everything, just in case there is disagreement about these things later. So then we can go back and check to see who is right. That seems to be the way it works in theory. On the other hand, we need a system to be able to find the facts we want to check on. The more complicated the world is, the harder it becomes to maintain such a system. Perhaps someday the system will no longer function as well as we think it does.

    When and if this happens, this failure will be kept a secret. Many probably suspect that this has already happened, so they distrust what they are told. This may be what has happened in the recent election.

    ReplyDelete
  2. John Brown's Notes and Essays, including on Public DiplomacyJanuary 28, 2021 at 2:01 PM

    Maxwell -- Thank you for your wise & articulate comment. Didn't know you had a blog! Pls. keep on truckin'. Best john

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Case for Keeping San Francisco’s Disputed George Washington Murals

Image
Exposure to art — even uncomfortable art — is healthy, stimulating, and worthy of students’ debate. Image The San Francisco Board of Education voted to cover “The Life of Washington,” a mural cycle from 1935-36, at a school named for the first president. Victor Arnautoff’s  frescoes include images of slaves and a dead Native American, which angered some students and parents.  Credit Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times By  Roberta Smith , The New York Times July 26, 2019 512 After half a century of intermittent debate and protest, the  San Francisco Board of Education   voted unanimously  in June to whitewash the 13 murals depicting the life of George Washington that line the halls of a high school named for the first president. The murals’ offense is that they depict some ugly truths about the history of the United States, namely two of its original sins: slavery and the Native American genocid...
Read more

Will Biden’s Fall Be Worse Than His Summer? [Yet another negative media reaction re Biden]

Image
From the Afghan debacle to his economic overreach, the White House has ample reason for alarm. Image from article: President Biden pauses while speaking at the White House, Sept. 24.  By Peggy Noonan , The Wall Street Journal , Sept. 30, 2021 6:43 pm ET The White House should be feeling alarm. It hasn’t been a good summer for the president, and it isn’t looking to be a good fall. The manner and timing of the withdrawal from Afghanistan was a catastrophe that left Americans infuriated and ashamed. The president’s statements and interviews in the aftermath were highly unsuccessful. The testimony of his top military leaders that they advised him to leave 2,500 troops to keep the process safe made him look dodgy. The whole thing was a botch from beginning to end, and it will stick in history. The images it yielded (kids running to the planes, 13 Americans killed as they tried to bring order) seemed to sum up the political moment, making this seem not like merely a bad event for the pre...
Read more

How Sir Francis Drake and Queen Elizabeth I Made England a Global Power

Image
  Image from article: Queen Elizabeth I knighting Francis Drake, 1581. Credit...Alamy   Book Review by Nigel Cliff , The New York Times , March 10, 2021  IN SEARCH OF A KINGDOM Francis Drake, Elizabeth I, and the Perilous Birth of the British Empire By Laurence Bergreen England is a nation divided. In one camp, nationalists decry the diabolical threat to their freedom posed by dastardly Continentals, instead throwing their hopes on a shadow empire of boundless trading opportunities. In the other, pro-Europeans bitterly protest that their country is making a cataclysmic mistake and bide their time. Sound familiar? Just kidding. It’s not Boris Johnson’s Brexit Britain but the England of the late 16th century, the subject of “In Search of a Kingdom.”   In Laurence Bergreen’s colorful assessment, an unlikely alliance between Queen Elizabeth I and Sir Francis Drake empowered English Protestants to see off Continental Catholics and stake out the beginnings of the British ...
Read more