Posted on 07/10/2013 11:09:26 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
“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.”
Oh, p-— off egghead.
Talking ain’t the same as experiencing.
I’ll bet Peter Carmichael never fried up some side meat in a canteen half on a rainy day.
I like going to any reenactment stuff. Sometimes learn things, see equipment and other gear, and more time to play with the cameras.
One CW artillery crowd I talked to a year or so back said it was getting to expensive to fire the cannon.
Academia feels the heat of amateur competition.
I’ve been to a few re-enactments and they’re pretty amazing. Even though the guys are typically older and fatter than a typical soldier of the time, watching them walk across an open field with cannons and guns firing really gives you a feeling about the battle, rather than simply reading “Lee did this and then Meade did that...”
These days there’s always one party pooper.
And it’s usually some egghead with a “cause.”
“Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
- George Santayana
Of course they should continue.....the South needs the practice.
Try banning it and see. They do not know passion until they meet these Civil War buffs.
LLS
Professor Carmichael’s profession has been completely hijacked by those who view history as a tool to advance their political agenda. True historians are very rare indeed these days. He sounds like someone who does not want anyone to present a view that might be contrary to the current meme of the academy. They are a very intolerant bunch.
“He didn’t like it very much when I told him he needed to get a real job that didn’t involve using 1984 as a how-to manual ... “
That’s rich! If “1984” wasn’t his notion of an ideal society, he would have just laughed it off. Bet these lefties wouldn’t mind a reenactment of the fall of Saigon or reeducation camps or the Cambodian genocide.
There’s going to be a Civil War reenactment before too long, only it will be fought with AR-15s instead of muskets.
maybe later they can do revolutionary war II reenactments.
lol that’s what happened in 1812, when they came out of Canada, they stopped the advance when they ran out of alcohol heh.
Winner!
He’s probably under the mistaken assumption that these are all Southerners, waving the battle flag around while hoopin’ and hollerin’ and hatin’.
maybe the prof doesn’t like the reminder that Americans will fight (what they believe) injustice?
Some of the re-enactors ARE more knowledgeable.....
So what you are saying is that for some reason this nut case has a bias against for re-enactors, and should just STFU?
Carmichael is just voicing what academics feel about the rest of us paeons!! Mommas don’t send your babies to Gettysburg College to get indoctrinated by atheists, Marxists, and other just plain losers!! He really oughta be more careful with saying what he REALLY thinks — his college, if it is like most small liberal arts colleges these days, can probably barely fill its freshman class in the coming year since tuition is what, $42,000 a year there???
The National Park Service does depend heavily on re-enactors for other purposes. For example, after I retired from re-enacting, I spent two years at the Manassas National Battlefield Park as a volunteer delivering talks to tourists on what occurred at the Old Stone House during those two epic battles. This required knowledge of the house itself, the battles, and the common soldiers and how they ended up there for medical treatment.
When I want to read history, I find that usually if there is a PhD behind the author’s name, the book is nearly unreadable!! The best historians are so-called “amateurs” I think— they tend to write with passion and clarity.
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