4 ms·

I mean, it's obvious that this is what you're being told in the US. But trust me, they tell people in the UK or in France the exact same thing. They cherry pick

by 317070 3y ago

I mean, it's obvious that this is what you're being told in the US. But trust me, they tell people in the UK or in France the exact same thing. They cherry pick different examples though, but the story is the same. US/English/French-exceptionalism. Not in Belgium though. I figure that in Belgium it would be too obviously false.

glenngillen 3y ago
I couldn’t believe the narrative of WW2 I “learned” when I visited the War Museum in New Orleans. It’s really quite remarkable how countries can simultaneously tell the truth while having widely differing narratives.
- aziaziazi 3y ago
  Reminds me an Hezbollah war museum in Lebanon. What a surprising history class, keeps me curious of what I ear /read that is produce in “my” western country. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourist_Landmark_of_the_Resistance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourist_Landmark_of_the_Resi...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- fooblaster 3y ago
  what was incorrect about it?
  - bena 3y ago
    I've been there a couple of times. I wouldn't say it's outright incorrect, but everything is very US-centric. The place is also massive, you do get a sort of mental fatigue going through, reading, and processing all of the stuff. We were there from opening at 9 and I think we left some time around 2 or 3. And while we made it through all of the building and exhibits, we were definitely spending less time on any one thing towards the end. So if there were any real errors, if they came towards the end of the day, I'd have likely just not been paying any real attention by that time. There are little NFC cards you get that you can scan on various stations to hear about the person your card represents. There are various soldiers, leaders, and Bob Hope (not kidding, you get to hear all about his USO tours). But you hear about everything through the lens of its relationship to America.
    - AlgorithmicTime 3y ago
      [dead]
    - glenngillen 3y ago
      To expand on this US-centricism (and to address the glib reply you got)... if this was your primary source of information for WWII you'd easily come away with the impression the US were the only country fighting the Axis. There's a few exhibits that present the number of US troops/vehicles/ships/etc vs the Axis to try and emphasis the scale of the challenge ahead of them. The contribution of most of the other Allied nations, and the fact they were fighting for years before the US fully entered, is so diminished that it seems irrelevant.
agurk 3y ago
Ah, but don't forget the Saxophone was a Belgian invention! Well the inventor was born in the Netherlands, but Belgium didn't exist then, and that territory is now in modern Belgium. And he did invent it after he permanently relocated to Paris. But still, through and through a Belgian invention!
- jacquesm 3y ago
  You can have the sax, we'll take superconductivity, the microscope, the telescope, realism in painting, the Mercator projection, concurrent programming, and the capacitor ;)
peoplefromibiza 3y ago
> Not in Belgium though don't forget fentanyl
joenot443 3y ago
When I think of American inventions, my mind goes to the airplane, the transistor, the telephone, and more recently, GPS. When I think of French inventions, the stethoscope, braille, and pasteurization are immediately obvious. Hot air balloons too I believe. I donno, it doesn't seem like much of a competition to me. Hell, I'm a Canadian - we've got the snowmobile and insulin, to reference, not a whole lot else. I don't think it's unreasonable for one to observe that some countries have been more inventive than others.
- 317070 3y ago
  The French would claim the enlightenment, the republic, Voltaire, Rousseau, Sartre. Basically how societies around the world are organized and the modern way of giving meaning to life. You might say those are a different categorie of things, and they would say it is a more important category of things and it therefore demonstrates French exceptionalism. Countries tend to demonstrate their exceptionalism on metrics they are good at. (btw, the French list of inventions is actually quite long too. Bicycles, cars, airplanes, submarines. In fact, many of the things Americans and English also claim to have invented. Like Americans have the atom bomb, the French have radioactivity. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_inventions_and_discoveries https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_inventions_an... )

by 317070 3y ago

glenngillen 3y ago

I couldn’t believe the narrative of WW2 I “learned” when I visited the War Museum in New Orleans. It’s really quite remarkable how countries can simultaneously tell the truth while having widely differing narratives.

aziaziazi 3y ago
Reminds me an Hezbollah war museum in Lebanon. What a surprising history class, keeps me curious of what I ear /read that is produce in “my” western country. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourist_Landmark_of_the_Resistance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourist_Landmark_of_the_Resi...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
fooblaster 3y ago
what was incorrect about it?
- bena 3y ago
  I've been there a couple of times. I wouldn't say it's outright incorrect, but everything is very US-centric. The place is also massive, you do get a sort of mental fatigue going through, reading, and processing all of the stuff. We were there from opening at 9 and I think we left some time around 2 or 3. And while we made it through all of the building and exhibits, we were definitely spending less time on any one thing towards the end. So if there were any real errors, if they came towards the end of the day, I'd have likely just not been paying any real attention by that time. There are little NFC cards you get that you can scan on various stations to hear about the person your card represents. There are various soldiers, leaders, and Bob Hope (not kidding, you get to hear all about his USO tours). But you hear about everything through the lens of its relationship to America.
  - AlgorithmicTime 3y ago
    [dead]
  - glenngillen 3y ago
    To expand on this US-centricism (and to address the glib reply you got)... if this was your primary source of information for WWII you'd easily come away with the impression the US were the only country fighting the Axis. There's a few exhibits that present the number of US troops/vehicles/ships/etc vs the Axis to try and emphasis the scale of the challenge ahead of them. The contribution of most of the other Allied nations, and the fact they were fighting for years before the US fully entered, is so diminished that it seems irrelevant.

agurk 3y ago

Ah, but don't forget the Saxophone was a Belgian invention! Well the inventor was born in the Netherlands, but Belgium didn't exist then, and that territory is now in modern Belgium. And he did invent it after he permanently relocated to Paris. But still, through and through a Belgian invention!

jacquesm 3y ago
You can have the sax, we'll take superconductivity, the microscope, the telescope, realism in painting, the Mercator projection, concurrent programming, and the capacitor ;)

peoplefromibiza 3y ago

> Not in Belgium though don't forget fentanyl

joenot443 3y ago

When I think of American inventions, my mind goes to the airplane, the transistor, the telephone, and more recently, GPS. When I think of French inventions, the stethoscope, braille, and pasteurization are immediately obvious. Hot air balloons too I believe. I donno, it doesn't seem like much of a competition to me. Hell, I'm a Canadian - we've got the snowmobile and insulin, to reference, not a whole lot else. I don't think it's unreasonable for one to observe that some countries have been more inventive than others.

317070 3y ago
The French would claim the enlightenment, the republic, Voltaire, Rousseau, Sartre. Basically how societies around the world are organized and the modern way of giving meaning to life. You might say those are a different categorie of things, and they would say it is a more important category of things and it therefore demonstrates French exceptionalism. Countries tend to demonstrate their exceptionalism on metrics they are good at. (btw, the French list of inventions is actually quite long too. Bicycles, cars, airplanes, submarines. In fact, many of the things Americans and English also claim to have invented. Like Americans have the atom bomb, the French have radioactivity. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_inventions_and_discoveries https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_inventions_an... )