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The Pope's no to the People's yes: The tide of British history. (6).



 Better ways to kill people.
 
The Tree of Knowledge harvested. For Machine Gun nests and The Mustard Gas.


    New times call for new ideas. As the only place we ever live in is always a new time, you might think that our best and brightest would be busily intent on producing new ideas to react to the new information of the times. 
     Unfortunately, it is clear that the "educated elite" are most often trained to continue the current systems at all costs. People rise to positions of power because they are prepared to passively agree to whatever it takes to reach that position. Thus, inevitably, in a world where better communication  is paramount, we most often end up with leaders who are our worst and dullest.
     In 1914, Britain sent an army to war. The popular view of Lions led by Donkeys,* might be rightly questioned by historians, but anyone with any experience of any traditional British institution will recognise the ringing truth of it. The first World War kicked off with tactics of trench warfare that saw the conflict grind to a halt. New ideas were soon in demand. People wanted better killing machines, and very soon they got them.



A British Mark V Tank. Correctly described as male.
 The first new machines rumbled onto the battle-field in 1916.  Someone somewhere had noted their resemblance to a large water tank, and the military, with its natural desire for unclear  description, kept the name. The more evocative landships was deemed no longer fit for purpose. . All sides quickly moved to adopt this new idea, with the French company Renault producing the first modern tank, the Renault FT.  The Russians on the other hand....


Russian Tsar tank: big revolution required.


    

       World War One produced many technological advancements, from tanks to air traffic  control to sanitary towels. Clearly, the rich information  of wartime gives plenty of ideas. Perhaps education shouldn't be so grimly determined to train people for a life of passive consumerism and boredom, but be a lot more concerned with putting people into novel and challenging situations? Also, perhaps we should acknowledge that experiment is vital for progress? That, whether or not necessity is always the mother of invention, the child's ancestors consistently tend to bear the name Failure?


Basic communication. Grunts and Violence.
More complex communication.
Arguments and agreement
                                                 


  








      With the end of the war in 1918, the communication style went from basic Australopithecus,** towards more Homo Sapiens Sapiens. That is to say, negotiations were entered into about war reparations and the re-drawing of certain European boundries. France wished to ensure that she would no longer have to worry about a German threat and the French demands reflected this. Germany was shorn of land the size of Sri Lanka, and lost 7 million people.
   The Treaty of Versailles has often been seen as laying the foundations of Hitler's Reich; in that a German economy weakened by the demands of reparations coupled with a German sense of taking back what was rightfully theirs only served to encourage fascism. But 20th century fascism was an idea whose time had come; whether it was draped in red  or cut by Hugo Boss, this idea was a fashionable hit all across Europe as the twenties became the thirties.
 
   Perhaps we all just needed to try it. To do the experiment, and learn what happens when you attempt to reverse the great communicative tide of history. To learn all the lessons provided by those fascist cnuts.











* Field Marshal Haig, who has been both praised and criticised for his leadership, was seemingly convinced that he was doing God's work. From this alone, It may be assumed that, for Haig, Bela Lugosi was very much dead.


 ** I may be being unfair to Australopithecus here. Ozzie probably relaxed as soon as there was enough food and shelter. Ozzie's finest academies were not being directed towards the development of poison gas, used on the poorest to protect a system designed to mainly benefit those who already lived in the finest homes.


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