...given the lovely, lovely state of public education.
Didja notice that at least one of the guys is black? Ya think he'd have sat still for posing with a symbol of white supremacy if he'd known?
If they were really going for the Schützstaffel logo, they would have probably gotten the color right: black, not blue. "SS" also stands for "sniper scouts", and an S shaped like a lightning bolt is just too damn cool. Why do you think the Nazis used it?
I've known at least one tenured Ph.D. who had no clue about one of the most obvious historical facts imaginable; my wife still laughs about the look on my face when I realized he wasn't kidding. In my experience, kids the age of those troopers can't place the American Civil War in the right decade; they're lucky to get the right century. If it happened more than 20 years ago, who cares? The Second World War was something that happened to their great-grandparents.
Here's the news item.
Thanks for posting this--I was just having this conversation (about ignorance of history) with my comp classes last week. They're in agreement with me: they're ignorant.
ReplyDeleteMy classes are reading and discussing Alvin Toffler's Future Shock (1970). The funny thing is, Toffler pointed out that even in the 60's there were students so ignorant of the past that they saw nothing unusual in what was going on at the time (Vietnam, Civil Rights, riots, protests, etc--most of which my students have to be led around to naming when I ask "What was so tumultuous about the 60s?"). So the ignorance isn't just a hallmark of this generation, though it does seem to me that this generation's lack of knowledge is somehow "bigger" than my generation's (X), or the Boomers'.
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by ignorance."
ReplyDeleteNever saw that symbol before.
ReplyDelete(Strelnikov facepalms.)
DeleteSeriously? (headdesk)
DeleteToffler's right: it's been going on for decades. One of my professors in law school mentioned the SS in passing and drew blank looks from everyone under 30. I have no doubt that one of these Marines saw the runes on a website, remembered the coolness, forgot (or ignored) the context, and appropriated them. Isn't the undiscriminating appropriation of anything found on the Internet the norm now?
ReplyDeleteOn a pedantic note, it's "Schutzstaffel." Unless you're in Mötley Crüe, in which case you're entitled to decorate everything with umlauts.
Oops. I was analogizing from the verb, schützen. People will leave off ulauts, and aren't always particular about using "ue" instead.
DeleteI don't know if the blog story title here is sarcastic or not, but I don't have the impression it is. I agree. I think it was a mistake. Introvert's evidence is good. Additional circumstantial evidence: The rock band Kiss popularized the SS runes as a kind of pseudo-gothic icon. In popular culture, I think the "lightening S" connotes Naziism to some, but simply "spooky" or "dark" or "somehow nasty" to most.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, before anyone thinks that only Americans are like this, I know lots of continental Europeans with MA degrees in various fields who have great difficulty placing events in their own histories that are comparable to our Civil War. Thirty Years War? Enlightenment? Ha.
It's a rune; Guido von List (a pre-Nazi German occultist) called it a Sig rune, it is a sun-rune and connotes "victory."
DeleteThe flag in the picture is probably black, but because that photo was taken in the blinding Afghan sun, the digital camera lightened it. The Nazi SS was authorized to display a Sig rune flag, but it has to have a death's-head insignia on it on the upper left corner.
The rune explanation doesn't make me any less likely to think that it's an intentional and racist symbol: a lot of the population who think runes are cool in the US are Nordic-themed white supremacists.
DeleteI agree that historical ignorance is widespread, but you'd think members of the US military would be able to identify core logos of enemies they're proud to have defeated, and wouldn't adopt them as their own....
@Strelnikov: Really? A digital camera would change black to a not-terribly-dark navy blue?
Delete@Ahistoricality: C'mon, dude. These are not officers, who are at least supposed to be educated, or intel guys, who have to be educated to do their jobs right. They're grunts, probably listening to a fair bit of Kiss and other metal bands, and they think the S-rune is kool. Oh, and did I mention that one of the guys in the picture is pretty damn dark for a suntan?
It's no mistake. Scout Snipers are different. You don't have to be a grognard(strange person who likes wargames too much) to know the SS logo.
ReplyDeleteIf the color was black - and it appears to match the guns so that might be the case - then the chances that it was an intentional reference to the SS go up, of course. It is, in any case, one of two forms of stupid - ignorance of history or complete failure of imagination. They couldn't come up with something better and couldn't imagine a picture getting into the media.
ReplyDeleteThe idiots who filmed themselves pissing on a corpse had a similar failure.
DeleteWhat I forgot to write is that there are places that sell these SS flags, usually dirt cheap.
ReplyDeleteHere is an example:
www.keepshooting.com/german-nazi-ss-flag.html
Notice it sells for $4.99.
The Third Reich lives on in reproduction flags, uniforms, insignia, reproduction propaganda, march music CDs, and the 40-or-so knockoff Nazi Parties around the globe (and we have three, because the Nazis are paranoid about FBI spooks; remember Hal Turner the radio talk-show host turned out to be an FBI informant.)
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The only explanation for using the SS symbol is that the Waffen-SS (the military arm of the SS) was considered a military elite, the Marines are an elite, so the Sniper Scouts (an elite within an elite) should take their symbol. It's cracked, but I've noticed a respect for the WW II German military machine in certain service members, mainly because they fought under impossible odds.
You've about convinced me, Strel.
DeleteIncidentally, the Waffen SS was a military elite, at least the German units; because they got the best training and the best equipment.
Delete