American Elephants

How “informed” does a citizen of the United States need to be in today’s world? We have all sorts of sources for news and knowledge, good schools, good colleges, and a thriving business community, but what do we need to know to be really on top of things? As Americans, do we need to know a lot about our country, our state, our city? Our part of the world, or most parts of the world. Are those of us who are widely traveled better equipped to deal with today’s world, or those who are widely read? Lots of bad stuff happens out there in the real world, and much of it we are unprepared for. Some of us much more than others.

Pearl Harbor ranks way up there as the ultimate surprise attack, and probably led to all of us who were alive at that moment to view “being informed” in a vastly different way. For those who were thoroughly frightened by the attack on America, which did start rather a major war, did our perceptions of the world change permanently? Do we simply regard Japan and Germany differently than we did in 1939? Do those who were not around before Pearl Harbor or the war it started regard the world differently than the post WWII crowd? I suppose that’s like asking contemporary Americans their opinions of the Second World War, isn’t it?. Each of us carry around a mental history of the world of our lifetimes, and the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Second World War are all just ancient history to today’s people.

But do we learn enough history in today’s schools to be prepared for another surprise attack on Hawaii, for example? Or us that just “ancient history”, as remote as the Revolution or World War One? I don’t have much knowledge, for example, on what today’s young people know about World War II, Is it just as remote s WW I or the Civil War, the Revolution are to those of us who are older. Certainly those of us who lived through the Second World War regard the world around us differently than those to whom it is just ancient history. Pearl Harbor remains as a “Never Again” traffic light.