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Bletchley code breaker Betty Webb dies aged 101

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Re: Bletchley code breaker Betty Webb dies aged 101

#101
post #23

Only about a dozen years ago Bletchley was inviting former codebreakers back for an annual reunion. I used to go along to hear the talks, meet some of them and get books signed, including by Betty Webb. I'm glad they eventually got the recognition they deserved. We have almost lost the chance now to hear personal testimony of WWII. I've met several Battle of Britain pilots too, but the last died in Dublin recently: h…

Most of them were told "Never, ever speak about any of this".

And they didn't.

Like the Zanryu Nipponhei [0], they were loyal to the last. Even my own father kept things about his airforce days way too tightly wrapped up long, long after the official secrets sell-by date. I have some admiration for this, but in the end it's a loss to historical record.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_holdout

Re: Bletchley code breaker Betty Webb dies aged 101

#102
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feels like cherry-picking. WWII had very little to do with America in the sense that the American involvement was only a reaction to others messing things up. While the other two are purely American.

WWII had little to do with America? Go look up lend/lease and then remember we were bombed by Japan. The US was intrinsically linked to WWII from the beginning, just not with troops on the ground.

Yes but the cause was not American. And USA was pretty reluctant to be dragged in (not Roosevelt but the voters).

I am just pointing out that you can make up any list in hindsight and make it look like Nostradamus prophecies.

Where is french revolution or the great war in that list?

Re: Bletchley code breaker Betty Webb dies aged 101

#103
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is rather lazy that people 'prefer' patriotic history and 'disciplined workforce'. I see no evidence of this. I do gather that some parents are rather sanctimonious and scandalized about their children learning anything but the most sanitized version of history. That seems so far to be the most presence in banning anything. Witness Harry Potter being listed as one of the most challenged book at the height of popul…

>> Moreover, the problem is that history wasn't taught well and made 'boring'. This. 100% this. At school we got an extremely biased view of history, but even then it was taught soooo badly. History (regardless of viewpoint, correctness, or accuracy) could be an enormously exciting topic. It's full of things that would appeal to any child when presented well. But school history curricula for me was full of meaningles…

Fully agree. My kids consider(ed) history to be very boring, other than when I teach them about it. I thought I disliked history after coming out of high school because the classes were always so excruciatingly boring and felt so irrelevant to anything "modern day." As I went through my early career I found myself constantly wondering "why is X that way?" Personal research including reading books written by historians who actually tell the story and also describe the many various links between events, and especially the "other side" of many of the issues (that's particularly fascinating regarding the USA "founding fathers" as they were far from a cohesive single-minded unit as presented in most history classes) many things started to click. When I've taught my kids about history using the same approach, especially zeroing in on the real fascinating aspects of it, they still don't love history but they have a strong appreciation for it.

By way of example, "the founding fathers were Christians" is a classic oft-repeated phrase I continually hear, to which I love talking about Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, all of whom were clearly agnostic (at the time, they were "Deist" which was essentially equivalent to "agnostic" nowadays). Thomas Paine's phenomenal book "The Age of Reason" was utterly mind-blowing and extremely radical at the time, receiving widespread banning and igniting firestorms in the culture. It's still a great read today! Especially fascinating when you consider this was many decades before Darwin would provide one of the most important scientific explanations that massively shrunk the area for God of the Gaps.

Re: Bletchley code breaker Betty Webb dies aged 101

#104
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is rather lazy that people 'prefer' patriotic history and 'disciplined workforce'. I see no evidence of this. I do gather that some parents are rather sanctimonious and scandalized about their children learning anything but the most sanitized version of history. That seems so far to be the most presence in banning anything. Witness Harry Potter being listed as one of the most challenged book at the height of popul…

Perhaps I wasn’t clear. Real history is much more persuasive. US elites love patriotic history and try to enforce it in schools.

I agree with you, but I would also add that real history is also typically much more uncomfortable, for nearly everyone. It can also be legitimately controversial as there's truly a lot that we don't really know, particularly around people's motiviations and sometimes true beliefs. For example it was common practice for people to burn any letters that didn't reinforce or support what they wanted history to remember. It takes someone with real dedication towards separating themselves emotionally from the topic to attempt an accurate portrayal, and that is a rare quality indeed. Certainly not a quality widespread enough to be present in every middle school and high school history teacher (though there are some excellent ones out there).

Some examples of the discomfort: to many white people now the history of slavery and racism is deeply uncomfortable. It's not even difficult to find hard evidence of such as many racist attitudes persisted well into the era of recordings and have been immortalized in movies and TV shows. I suspect a big part of that is the recency effect since we're still living with many follow-on effects of the practice even if we don't practice it actively anymore.

Much less talked about though is the history of racism and slavery among nearly all people at different times. For example a large majority of the black slaves that were sold to Europeans (including the Europeans living in the Americas) were originally enslaved by other black Africans and sold to the slave traders. Not all the slaves were sold either. To be fair the Spanish (at least in first half of the new world exploration) didn't have much of a problem doing the enslaving themselves as they routinely enslaved native people's after conquering them. We can also go back millenia and see the same behavior. Greeks, Romans, Persians, pretty much everybody had their slaves for as far back as history is recorded (and surely much, much farther).

We like to think we are enlightened nowadays, but I think history really demonstrates that as humans we are almost universally inclined toward enslaving other humans. Hopefully we're irreversibly past that now and well on our path to the Star Trek society, but even if that is the case it doesn't make the history any more comfortable.

Re: Bletchley code breaker Betty Webb dies aged 101

#105
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's much simpler to think that as a society we've manufactured a similar set of circumstances to the last time. That is, a growing proportion of the population that feel they have very little and no prospects or hope.

I won’t enter into a conversation about inequality and social justice, even though there are indeed points to be raised. I would however like to point out that people are not only victims of society, and that they have a responsibility as a critical member of society and an elector. Historic awareness, understanding of economics, law and geopolitics. To give an example: Mr Trump was not just votes into office, but RE…

>More than 50% of American voters voted for him. I am having a difficult time to believe that 50%+ of the US are economically oppressed that had no choice but to vote for Trump.

I think it's important to be accurate with this stuff. 49.8% of voters voted for Trump, approximately 32% of eligible voters voted for him, and roughly 23% of the population voted for him. Don't discount apathy, disillusionment, and disenfranchisement in all this.

Re: Bletchley code breaker Betty Webb dies aged 101

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps I wasn’t clear. Real history is much more persuasive. US elites love patriotic history and try to enforce it in schools.

I agree with you, but I would also add that real history is also typically much more uncomfortable, for nearly everyone. It can also be legitimately controversial as there's truly a lot that we don't really know, particularly around people's motiviations and sometimes true beliefs. For example it was common practice for people to burn any letters that didn't reinforce or support what they wanted history to remember.…

I think white ppl (i’m one of them) should get over themselves. We’ve been the bad guys of history and we need to face it and correct course. It’s not written in our fate, it’s in settler colonial ideology and capitalism. We can adopt a new outlook in solidarity with our brothers and sisters and the world and make a fairer more decent world. Being uncomfortable is ok

Re: Bletchley code breaker Betty Webb dies aged 101

#108
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's much simpler to think that as a society we've manufactured a similar set of circumstances to the last time. That is, a growing proportion of the population that feel they have very little and no prospects or hope.

I won’t enter into a conversation about inequality and social justice, even though there are indeed points to be raised. I would however like to point out that people are not only victims of society, and that they have a responsibility as a critical member of society and an elector. Historic awareness, understanding of economics, law and geopolitics. To give an example: Mr Trump was not just votes into office, but RE…

You make an interesting point, but there's an issue that significant resources are put into making sure that people do not understand economics, law and geopolitics properly. Economics is particular egregious in that the academic discipline is, for the most part, complete horseshit, and popular economics is a bastardised version of that. Geopolitics is also filtered heavily through whatever lens one views it.

Re: Bletchley code breaker Betty Webb dies aged 101

#109
post #23

Only about a dozen years ago Bletchley was inviting former codebreakers back for an annual reunion. I used to go along to hear the talks, meet some of them and get books signed, including by Betty Webb. I'm glad they eventually got the recognition they deserved. We have almost lost the chance now to hear personal testimony of WWII. I've met several Battle of Britain pilots too, but the last died in Dublin recently: h…

Most of them were told "Never, ever speak about any of this". And they didn't. Like the Zanryu Nipponhei [0], they were loyal to the last. Even my own father kept things about his airforce days way too tightly wrapped up long, long after the official secrets sell-by date. I have some admiration for this, but in the end it's a loss to historical record. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_holdout

Consider it a blessing. Those orders were about controlling history much more than 'secrets': Many things done in war are later considered war crimes. Your admiration might have taken a hit had he started talking gleefully about the time he - just to pick a random example of things that happened - heroically shot fleeing "enemy" children on the ground.

Re: Bletchley code breaker Betty Webb dies aged 101

#110
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WWII had little to do with America? Go look up lend/lease and then remember we were bombed by Japan. The US was intrinsically linked to WWII from the beginning, just not with troops on the ground.

Yes but the cause was not American. And USA was pretty reluctant to be dragged in (not Roosevelt but the voters). I am just pointing out that you can make up any list in hindsight and make it look like Nostradamus prophecies. Where is french revolution or the great war in that list?

> Yes but the cause was not American.

Yes, it was. America was setting up the scene for the pacific war by raising customs and tariffs on Japanese imports with the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (1930). The Japanese were just democratizing when the US decided to kill their economy. Thus, the Japanese had one of two choices - take needed resources they purchased before by force, or accept a massive decline in standard of living. They decided to take the first route. Attacked the Chinese, and when the US started sanctioning it, eventually they bombed Pearl Harbour.

And don't forget how the Nazis were basically funded out of American pockets.

Just because the first shot was not fired by an American does not mean they were not the cause.

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