Should Civil War re-enactments be abandoned?

The Patriot-News ^ | July 7, 2013 | Donald Gilliland

[2ndDivisionVet]

Comments?

[GeronL]

Cosplay is in vogue - at least its educational

[Venturer]

Without the re-enactments there would only be a few tourists.

Those re-enactors spend a lot of money traveling to Gettysburg and bringing their families along. It isn’t like they are re-enacting 24/7 there are plenty of times when people can visit Gettysburg when the re-enactors aren’t there.
This professor is just another Richard Cranium.

[ottbmare]

The professor, like so many of his colleagues, is as foolish and benighted as he is intellectually snobbish. His snobbery is unearned, for he is ignorant of some of the fundamental contributions of reenacting. Reenactments not only educate the general public and the participants about the events of the past; they also permit a type of experimental anthropology research, in which the reenactors find out how our ancestors lived—how they experienced their environment. Research into the personal lives of individuals or of non-famous people is a valid, relatively new area of study, and it’s no less important than the study of which great man fought which battle. Reenactments permit this type of study.

The idiot is probably annoyed because for a few weekends a year he can’t find a parking place. He should shut up.

[CarmichaelPatriot]

This country would be better off in so many ways if we could get rid of professional academics.

Maybe we need term limits for college professors? After 5 years they need to go out and get a real job where they have to produce something of value for 5 years before they can return for another 5 year hitch. Rinse and repeat.

[MacMattico]

I saw a reenactment at Gettysburg in the 1990’s. Where I live we have Revolutionary War Reenactments. It’s one of the things that keep or get kids interested in history, in my opinion. Many of the people do know more about the events they’re reenacting then the so-called Academics. I’ve seen many kids also get interested in the military by attending reenactments, which may be why a lefty college Professor may have a problem with them. To me, a reenactment is a play put on for free by people that devote their time to preserving history. But it also shows that the soldiers were real people, and we can’t have that./s

[GeronL]

that could be an interesting idea

[kalee]

Placemarker

[GeronL]

I get that a lot!

[Standing Wolf]

Puritans, leftist extremists, and career academics are deathly afraid someone, somewhere may be having fun.

[PghBaldy]

Well for one thing, it humanizes BOTH sides, and America doesn’t stand for that anymore.

[max americana]

No. It’s a dry run before the country really splits into 2 in the near future.

[tet68]

“Peter Carmichael, a professor of history at Gettysburg College, calls re-enactments an ‘unfortunate distraction’ from a deeper understanding of the Civil War, including the motivations of those who fought and its legacy.”

Maybe Peter would have a better deeper understanding of
the Civil war if he marched 15 miles on a hand full of
partched corn then spent the night in a thin wool blanket
knowing that when the sun came up other guys just like
him would be trying to blow his head off.

It’s ok Peter we know you meant it’s a destraction from
the racism and slavery and how everything today
revolves around that point. Well, doesn’t it for you?

[max americana]

There’s a South Park episode where the Confederate actors just got fed up of losing to the North that they really took over state after state while drinking. Maybe this perfessor’ should wish for this happen.

[Nemoque]

Using his logic, there should be no Christmas or Easter pageants or reenactments.

[Salamander]

When the re-enactors aren’t there, neither is much of anybody else.

I’m near there so I see it.

During Gettysburg Bike Week, you can have the place nearly to yourself, even on the weekends.

A few brave souls tromping around but nothing like the weekends when the ‘battles’ are going.

Then, you can barely move on the sidewalks.

I’m wondering what this years GBW will be like, since things are sort of running simultaneously.

Should be...weird.

:)

[Salamander]

tet68 delivers a rousing smack upside the head.

The crowd goes wild.

;]

[nathanbedford]

The readers comments to the effect that professor Carmichael, a critic of reenactments and reenactors is a Marxist, are revealing.

Assuming the description to be true, we have the application of The Frankfurt School brought to the sacred battlegrounds of Gettysburg. The Marxists seek to control history, the way we study history, the conclusions we draw from history, and, ultimately, the way we think about the world. The Critical Theory is an attempt to so disparage what we think we know and how we know it so that we are eventually prepared psychologically for a a new worldview conveniently supplied to us courtesy of Marxism.

We conservatives have largely lost these battles in the kindergartens, grammar schools, middle schools, high schools and universities of America so it is not surprising that the struggle to indoctrinate has moved to a real battleground.

[tet68]

Liberal academics make me sick.

I’m saving my money to get everything I need for
the Vietnam reenactment.

WW I. starts next year.

Howz that lil pup?

[Smokin' Joe]

Puritans, leftist extremists, and career academics are deathly afraid someone, somewhere may be having fun.

Well, they sure Bowdlerized the Fur Trapper's Rendezvous.