How typical of Paxman to make comments about
"British generals struggling to fill a trench" because young people are
"bubble-wrapped by a feckless culture", especially when he has a new book on, guess what, the history of World War One, to publicise. However,whilst it`s certainly not obsession with technology, it`s not the changing nature of warfare either that is the reason for the war-weariness of the
country, and the youth in particular, as some commentators have suggested, but the
lack of trust for politicians.
The undertaking to send our soldiers into
unwinnable and unecessary wars, often for reasons which politicians have
deliberately created to generate both jingoistic support and exaggerated fear of
the so-called "enemy", allied to Britain`s position in world affairs as
America`s poodle, at her beck and call to appease her rightwing bias and
warmongering defence industry, go a long way to explain why the young are
"war-shy". Politicians have been "economical with the truth" on so many occasions in recent years, young people cannot be blamed for disbelieving them when told war is necessary.
Education at the start of the 20th century
brainwashed gullible pupils into "being more ready to die" for their king
and country, something Paxman chooses to ignore, possibly because most to blame were the history books, written to glorify Britain`s imperial and war-mongering past, by people who were not expert historians! The state education sector,
today, produces young people more willing to challenge accepted and out-dated
ideas, especially perhaps ones which hold that wars must be "just", because
politicians say so. In his interviews Paxman often, if not usually, shows his
utter incredulity with the explanations and excuses of duplicitous politicians; is he so arrogant
as to believe young people are not capable of doing the same.
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