World War II Legacy
Excerpt from “Why Knot?” Buy the book at Amazon
I wrote this essay before the Ukrainian War, when Hitler was deemed an anomaly and the generation that came of age during WW II seemed to have a distorted view of global politics. Now I wonder how this new experience, living on the brink of WW III, will distort the perspective of a new generation.
Traumatic events can change how an entire generation views the world, leaving a strong imprint long after. For instance, we came out of World War II with three assumptions: 1) good and evil are real and identifiable, on a large scale, and some wars are just, 2) people in crowds tend to act irrationally, more like animals than human beings, and 3) the kind of rapid technological progress spurred on by the war would continue indefinitely into the future.
We came out of the Viet Nam War with a different set of assumptions: 1) good and evil are interconnected, and there are no just wars, 2) resources are becoming scarce, 3) every technological advance comes at a high price.
We see the world from the perspective of the crisis that marked our youth. And we remain on alert for a recurrence of a similar event. We are always preparing to fight the battles of the last war and hence set ourselves up to be surprised by the next generation-defining event, which inevitably will be different from the last one.
How will the current generation be shaped by today’s crises: global warming, threats to democracy, and Putin’s war on Ukraine?
