Saturday, June 23, 2007
Ken Burns and War
Today's auditorium speaker series featured film maker Ken Burns who discussed the importance of preserving the memories of war. His speech served as an introduction to a preview of his new work The War that will air on PBS this fall. Burns was, as expected, profoundly moving, as he emphasized the need to teach all aspects of human history, not just the crimes or the glories. There was a shocking moment when Burns quoted a survey that said that ninety-five percent of this year's high school graduates thought that, during World War II, the United States and Germany fought on the same side against Russia. It asks the question, what do our students really know about war? Burns spoke about the impending loss of recovering the personal histories of the remaining World War II veterans as time passes, and that the authenticity of their memories may not be recorded for the future. His work The War will premiere on PBS on or about September 7th on local PBS stations. Librarians, get ready: your history teachers will want to create lessons to accompany this series, and you should get a headstart now!
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The statistic about high school students mistaking the roles of our allies and enemies in WWII is particularly frightening. This brings to mind Orwell's 1984 in which the "enemy" is switched from the eastern powers to the western powers at the whim of "Big Brother". Could it be that in our ignorance we become our own tyrannical "Big Brother"? Rewriting history to fit our sensibilities?
Our present rulers have used our fear and acted on misinformation and have made the world a much dangerous place.
Information is power. Lack of information or wrong information is disaster.
Let us keep our libraries strong.
We have seen what terrible mistakes can be made due to misinformation.
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