Posted on 12/08/2003 7:57:41 PM PST by jrushing
HISTORY may be written by the victors but it is being adapted for the MTV generation by Hollywood and the media.
Widespread misconceptions, prejudice and outright ignorance about major events of the past six decades have been revealed in a major study of undergraduates in the UK, USA and Germany.
The Scottish academic who carried out the work says factually inaccurate movies and biased news reporting is skewing young people’s grasp of recent history.
Greg Philo, professor of communications at Glasgow University, also blames a lack of teaching of history and politics in British schools for what he has dubbed "black holes of history".
Philo set questions to a selection of 750 randomly picked students across Britain, Germany and the USA aged between 17 and 21. The questions ranged from details of the Second World War to the September 11 terror attacks and will be published in full in his new book Tell Me Lies.
One of the questions put to undergraduates was which country suffered the highest casualty rate in the Vietnam war? Around a third of students in all three countries believed that US forces suffered the highest losses. In fact, there were 60,000 American deaths compared with the loss of two million Vietnamese, a ratio of 33 to one.
Philo claims Hollywood action movies must take some of the blame for the students’ distorted views.
He said: "They are generally all about the suffering of American soldiers and the demonisation of the Vietnamese and what the Americans did to the population was not discussed.
"The problem is that people do not have the historical facts which allow them to distinguish between fact and Hollywood-spun fiction so they just believe what they see at the movies."
The British and American students were then asked how many lives were lost in the September 11 terror attacks. The vast majority - 93% - correctly answered that it was about 3,000.
The same students were asked how many people were estimated to have been killed during bombing raids in Afghanistan in the subsequent war. Only 2% of the students knew the correct answer: approximately 20,000.
To Philo, this gap in the students’ knowledge should be partly laid at the door of broadcasters. He said: "There was obviously a huge amount of coverage on September 11 and it was so close to home that no one could fail to know about the event. Afghanistan deaths did not really feature in any big way."
Asked "In the Second World War, which allied country defeated the most German divisions?" just 18% of US and 29% of British gave the correct answer as the Soviet Union in contrast to the 73% of Germany students who answered correctly.
Nearly half the British students and 65% of US students thought the answer was Britain or the US. In fact, the Soviets defeated more than three times as many German divisions as their western allies.
The research also found widespread ignorance when students were asked what were the Gulags in the Soviet Union. Only 5% of British students and 8% of Americans knew that they were slave camps established by Stalin. Again, German students appeared better informed with 30% knowing the correct answer.
Analysing the data Philo said he blamed the education system, media outlets and misleading films for the level of historical ignorance.
He said: "In Germany, history and politics is compulsory in school until 17 and I think this is reflected in the results."
Dr Thomas Weber, who specialises in British and German history and modern anti-semitism at the University of Glasgow, said he was not surprised by the levels of ignorance.
"It’s shocking but not surprising. Many students who come here don’t really have much of a clue about current or historical events."
They fail to mention that most of the 2 million VC died while trying to enslave a whole country into Communism! This is a sad example of moral equivalence. (ie Both Vietnamese & Americans suffered so they must be equal--both guilty!)
I wonder where they got this number, are they lumping Al Qaida and the Taliban in with the civilian population? I remember a study by a leftist professor from UNH(?) that concluded 4,000 civillian casulties, and it was a widely touted figure afterwards. His sources of course came from Al-Jazeera and Taliban officials claiming civilian casualites. I was thought the real number was more like two to five hundred.
If this is the kind of BS being peddled as "history," then ignorance is truly bliss.
A better explanation is that two of the questions directly pertained to Germany and the experiences of their direct relatives.
Me, too. It seems way inflated.
He said: "They are generally all about the suffering of American soldiers and the demonisation of the Vietnamese and what the Americans did to the population was not discussed.
When I think Vietnam action movie, the picture that comes to mind is Rambo or maybe Chuck Norris singlehandedly mowing down the entire gook army.
Which movies was this guy watching? If the good guys don't slaughter the bad guys, it isn't an action movie at all - it's a historical film or maybe a drama.
But there are other facts that permitted the Nazis to kill so many Russian soldiers and civilians chief among them Stalin's incompetence in running the war and murdering most of Russia's best officers a few years before the war. Stalin still didn't react to the German invasion until weeks after the initial attack. And millions of ill-trained Russian troops were slaughtered through inept strategy and merciless punishment by the NKVD. Still Russia's role in defeating the Nazis has been underplayed for decades.
Remember though that Britain and the U.S were also fighting the Germans AND the Japanese on two other fronts plus the sea warfare. Additionally we gave or loaned Russian millions in supplies and equipment. Russia also likes to portray itself as the sole heroes of WWII, however that is not totally accurate. But we should give credit where credit is due. They did kill most of the Germans.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.