Dreamspell

Dreamer (10 February 2011) © by ~zinaart / Zina Nedelcheva (see her Facebook page). Image Source: deviantART. Reproduced with kind permission.

The blog is on a break until the Mayan calendar turns over on 21st December 2012. See you then!

The Evolution of Remembrance Day

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Ottawa, Canada. Image Source: Globe and Mail.

In the Commonwealth and elsewhere, Remembrance Day or Armistice Day marks the moment when fighting stopped at the end of the First World War. The day now also commemorates the dead of the Second World War and subsequent wars. More recent conflicts have inspired the invention of brand new memorial 'traditions.' This is one way that conflict reclaims the past in the present time.

Dreams in Japan's Battle Memories

Still from "The Tunnel," Dreams (1990). Image Source: Collin County Community College.

In Dreams (1990), Japanese director Akira Kurosawa and Ishirô Honda produced a fourth dream, "The Tunnel," which looked back on Japan's ghosts from the Second World War. This is a tricky sequence because Kurosawa began his career in 1942. Then and later, he produced war narratives which attracted criticism. The segment was remade recently in a student effort (see it here), which shows how the bland Millennial dilution of World War II washes away controversies. All the same, the original chilling excerpt reveals how survivors remain suspended between the realities of conflict and the unrealities of civilian peace that follows. A defeated officer, shamed by his survival, trails home after the war; as he enters a tunnel on the road, he is greeted by an anti-tank dog. Soon he confronts his whole dead platoon ...

Let No One Say These Things Were Never Real

 

The Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. Image Source: Cnet via Inocuo/Flickr.

One of the clearest and most sobering signs of the Millennial anti-reality malaise is the upswing in Holocaust denial. When a British prince can show up at a costume party dressed as a Nazi, you know there is a softening around the whole memory of the Second World War and of that war's genocidal underbelly. Specific denial comes in many forms. It criss-crosses through wild anti-Illuminati and anti-Masonic chatter, which sometimes revives and updates the Protocols of the Elders of Zion for online doom cultists and 9/11 conspiracy theory buffs. There is a whole contingent which views the present politics in the Middle East through a meta-Holocaust lens. There is a blandly expressed, but equally nasty, anti-Zionist political discourse floating around, notably in highbrow circles. This last viewpoint either takes the Holocaust skeptically or obliquely challenges the Holocaust's continued historical relevance.

The Holocaust remains relevant for all the historical reasons that it became a bloody watershed in the past; for the reasons that it plugs into troubles today; and for one more reason related to both, which ties the past, present and future together. That last relevance is the fact that the Holocaust was so horrible that it made, and still makes, us question reality. Even survivors from the death camps repeatedly echoed the sentiment expressed by Harry Herder, a liberator at Buchenwald: "We see it, but we don't believe what we see."

The Blitz in Millennial Media

London during the Blitz, September 1940. Image Source: Guardian.

Last year, a 70-year old film with colour footage of London during the Blitz resurfaced:

Previously unseen colour footage of London during the Blitz has been discovered, after lying in an attic for almost 70 years.The amateur footage includes images of bombed-out landmarks such as the John Lewis department store - on Oxford Street.The 20 minute film was shot by the wartime mayor of Marylebone in west London, Alfred Coucher. The film was used as part of a US government propaganda film entitled "Why We Are At War."

For images, sounds and records of London during the Blitz (which lasted from 7 September 1940 to 16 May 1941), see a Channel 4 report and a Guardian article below the jump.

Time Capsules of World War I

Image Source: BBC.

Last year, BBC reported on found aerial footage of France just after World War I, kept in a Paris vault for nearly 100 years. In this rarely seen film (below the jump), you can see what the countryside looked like after the guns stopped. The BBC juxtaposed those images with shots of what the same landscape looks like today.

Another report, here, similarly this year uncovered a WWI-era camera with undeveloped film. The camera, stored in a chest in France, had photographs of Australian (and other nationalities) soldiers just behind the front lines of the Somme. The camera belonged to a French couple who offered to take and develop photographs of resting soldiers, so that the latter could use the pictures as postcards home.

For more images and films, see British Pathé's WWI Archive. Included among them are the films and photographs of shell shocked soldiers, who reflected modern battle horrors and psychological injuries never before seen.

WWI: 10 Telling Images

Click on the image to go to a WWI photo gallery. Image Source: British Pathé.

Bidding Farewell to the 20th Century

 

20th Century Fox logo. Image Source: flickr via Yoda_56.

 

The hardest thing about living through a turn of a century, let alone a turn of a Millennium, is that it is serious business. It isn't just a throwaway fact. 9/11 and the recession should have been a warning, a demand for some soul-searching. But even through the economic downturn, I know loads of people who have superficially surfed the wave of change with enthusiasm, and with scant consideration for what is going on around them. And, on the basis of their ability to go unfazed, they have really profited! But if one is sensitive at all to the deeper meanings in things, then it becomes difficult to absorb all that is happening. It is like having the volume turned up to maximum on everything, and the noise becomes debilitating.

 

In addition, many things are lost forever, and quickly. Anything suddenly and arbitrarily consigned to the dustbin of history becomes impossible to hold on to: there is no going back. Commonplaces of 15 years ago are unheard of today. The same goes with people and history.

 

You might see a Gen Y diatribe against the late Marxist historian, Eric Hobsbawm, totally dismissing him as a product of the evils of the 20th century, in a way that would have been unheard of a few years ago, even from his critics. A friend of mine was recently talking to a guy in his early 20s. The latter had never heard of Alfred Hitchcock or Joan Rivers. I hyperlinked them, because I figure there are other people out there who have never heard of them, either.

Enforced Memory, Enhanced Humanity?

Image Source.

Would losing our ability to forget be a recipe for a future utopia? Surely, forgetting is part of the healing process after painful experiences? BBC reports that some argue for caution against enhancements of humanity, including enforced memory, so trumpeted by pro-Singularity commentators:

A race of humans who can work without tiring and recall every conversation they've ever had may sound like science fiction, but experts say the research field of human enhancement is moving so fast that such concepts are a tangible reality that we must prepare for. 

People already have access to potent drugs, originally made for dementia patients and hyperactive children, that boost mental performance and wakefulness. 

Within 15 years, experts predict that we will have small devices capable of recording our entire life experience as a continuous video feed - a life log that we can reference when our own memory fails. 

There are a range of technologies in development and in some cases already in use that have the potential to transform our workplaces - for better or for worse” Advances in bionics and engineering will mean we could all boast enhanced night vision allowing us to see clearly in the dark. 

While it may be easy to count the potential gains, experts are warning that these advances will come at a significant cost - and one which is not just financial. 

Four professional bodies - the Academy of Medical Sciences, the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society - say that while human enhancement technologies might improve our performance and aid society, their use raise serious ethical, philosophical, regulatory and economic issues. 

In a joint report, they warn that there is an "immediate need" for debate around the potential harms. 

Chairwoman of the report's steering committee Prof Genevra Richardson said: "There are a range of technologies in development and in some cases already in use that have the potential to transform our workplaces - for better or for worse." 

There may be an argument for lorry drivers, surgeons and airline pilots to use enhancing drugs to avoid tiredness, for example. 

But, in the future, is there a danger that employers and insurers will make this use mandatory, the committee asks. 

... Several surveys reveal that many students now use brain-enhancing "smart" pills to help boost their exam grades, which raises the question about whether colleges and universities should insist candidates are "clean" in the same way that Olympic athletes have to prove they are drug-free to compete.