When Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7, 1941, the number one question asked by most Americans was, “Where is Pearl Harbor”? Happy the nation who can be “Of the world forgetting and by the world forgot.”, but that hasn’t been the US since the first term of Thomas Jefferson.
Burn of the Day
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
As a young boy, I would use tracing paper on a map of the world and a pencil to trace out empires as I thought they should exist. It was from my fantasies that I learned geography. You see, when I was a kid, we didn’t have a TV and this was well before the advent of computers and cell phones. So all I had to amuse myself were books and maps. I think that deprivation of modern technology can result in some good.
I have a suspicion the question is posed to subjects and responses evaluated in a way that results like the one he offered are pretty much foreordained.
You know who knows about geography? Commies, and they want to dilute our precious bodily fluids, that who! I know where the USA is, that all the geography I need to know!
If the mullahs don’t surrender the question might be what happened to Iranl
When I was in middle school, we all knew where Iran was because of the hostage crisis. If people didn’t know Pearl Harbor’s location it’s likely that it was off the societal radar up until the attack, but for some news junkies of the day. But today, Iran has been in the news for years, so the question is why today, in our age of infinite information, would so few know its location?
In all fairness, a lot of those wrong answers are in the Asiatic portion of the Middle East.
As a comparison, let’s compare the percentage of Americans who know Colorado is in the Rockies and one of the rectangle states to the percentage who can bullseye it on the map. A certain amount of imprecision goes with a breadth of knowledge.
[…] Civ Defender. . . Geopolitical Analysis, Punditry, and News:God Uses Wars to Teach Americans about Geography – Don McClarey at The American CatholicThe Risks of Regime Change – Daniel McCarthy at […]
Bierce’s comment was sad, but in a sense true. Remember Iraq.
Bierce was a Union veteran of the Civil War. Most of the private soldiers who fought in it had never been a greater distance than 50 miles from their homes prior to the War.
“Over there are some Civil War veterans. Iron flags on their graves…New Hampshire boys… had a notion that the Union ought to be kept together, though they’d never seen more than fifty miles of it themselves. All they knew was the name, friends – the United States of America. The United States of America. And they went and died about it.”
Our Town, Thornton Wilder
Your response to my comment is great. I think you’ve earlier cited Benet’s John Brown’s Body: it would be excellent prescribed reading for all our political leaders.