Imagine that in 1939 you'd planned a trip to Europe next year, in 1940.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

And now the war has broken out. You know you won't be going anywhere any time soon.

This is where we are now. It's September, maybe October 1939. The war has just started, and we all hope it will be over very soon. We have no idea that it will last six years, and that everything will be different at the end.

We are seeing that now. The Coronavirus is sort of like the war itself. And the recent demonstrations and riots across this country are likewise like the war. When we are finally past all of this, everything will be different. A lot like it was after WWII.

Again, imagine your planned trip. And imagine that you had simply put it on hold and perhaps in 1946 finally took that trip. Wow. A lot is different, isn't it? That's what it will be like when we are finally through this.

[regnaD kciN]

1. Ironic you put it that way...

...because my wife just retired a couple of months ago, and we had been planning, either this summer or (probably) next, to visit Europe. (I spent several years of my childhood in Switzerland, but my wife has never been there at all.) Now, of course, everything is on hold, both because of the pandemic and due to the hit the economic impact has had on our savings/investments. Who knows when, or even if, we'll finally be able to make that trip, or what we'll find there if we do? It certainly won't be like what I remember from a half-century ago.

[Skittles]

2. the coronavirus is nowhere near like a war

not even close

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

4. I am inclined to think that it is a lot like a war.

This is a topic well worth discussing.

More to the point, if the coronavirus is nowhere near like a war, how would you describe it?

[Skittles]

5. like a VIRUS

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

7. A virus or a war?

Make up your mind.

[uponit7771]

16. +1, we'd have less incompetent leadership during a war

[FreepFryer]

3. My grandfather was planning a return to his native Hungary in Sept. 1939...

...I have the unused passport, happily issued to him by the German consulate.

Your metaphor needs elaboration.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

6. How might I elaborate it?

I honestly have a vivid image of a hypothetical person or a couple planning to visit Europe, and making those plans in 1939. I am tending to picture an American, or a couple of Americans, making these plans. And then WWII breaks out, and those plans are put on indefinite hold.

For those of us now, we already know how WWII ended, and it's sort of easy to more or less plan our hypothetical war years already knowing that.

But in late 1939, or 1941, or even 1944, the outcome of the war wasn't entirely obvious.

I will refer you to the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. I finally got around to reading it when NPR had their book club on the air. I'd always knew I should read that book, and the book club thing gave me the incentive to finally do so. I assumed that it would be a slog, but it was a book I understood I should read. Well. The first fifty pages or so were a bit slow, but after that I literally could not put the book down. It was engrossing. The last part (plot spoiler of a sort here) when one of the slaves was sold down South, read like a description of the death camps of WWII. OMG. A huge part of the power of that novel is that it was written by someone who clearly hated slavery and wanted it gone, but who could not imagine slavery being ended in her lifetime.

Similar things have happened more recently. Not long before the fall of the Berlin wall, someone wrote a book about why the wall would be there forever. Around that same time I had a conversation with my older brother, who was stationed in Berlin not long after the wall went up, and he was of the opinion that despite the ongoing unrest, the wall was there to stay. This was in the spring of 1989.

The actual breaching of the wall later that year was astonishing, and for those of us watching the news at the time, incredibly memorable.

I think we are in a similar era. Things are changing. And changing, eventually, far more than the changes that took place in Europe between 1939 and 1945.

Imagine having travelled to Europe in 1938. And then again in 1946. Two entirely different worlds.

Right now we are smack-dab in the middle of changes. Sort of like Europe in 1942. We can't begin to imagine what it will be like on the other side. All I can say is that it will be very different.

[FreepFryer]

8. It's not well communicated, and the ideas are jumbled.

My family faced that situation and your metaphor doesn’t resonate imho because u haven’t explained the specifics of it well.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

9. I am not understanding what you are saying.

Last edited Thu Jun 11, 2020, 07:33 AM - Edit history (1)

What ideas are jumbled? What metaphor doesn't resonate? What exactly did your family face? I honestly think my above post does explain a lot. Help me out here, because I want to make my explanation clear.

I will try again. We start in 1939, planning a trip to Europe. But WWII breaks out, cancelling those plans. In 1946 that trip finally takes place, in a Europe now vastly different.

I am comparing now, 2020 America, to 1939 Europe. We are at the very beginning of the war. We have no idea what will happen, how it will play out. We can only hunker down and hope for the best.

Does that help?

[FreepFryer]

10. No becUse your metaphor implies a planned and cancelled trip, but doesn't explain that dynamic.

Interesting but incompletely thought out. Think it out.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

11. It feels as if you are being deliberately obtuse.

I have explained my metaphor. The planned and cancelled trip should be obvious. Right now, none of us are going anywhere. I, myself, have cancelled several trips already this year. What else do you need?

I'm thinking you're the one who needs to think this out.

[FreepFryer]

12. Not at all, you are being defensive to criticism, your metaphor is poorly articulated.

I have personal experience w the situation u cite, and your metaphor as expressed doesn’t resonate w me.

Not obtuse. Just informed.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

13. You are the one who is not being at all articulate.

I have explained myself in a lot of detail. What exactly is not resonating with you? What personal experience do you have in the situation I'm citing? I cannot respond to such vague complaints. So be a lot more specific. Please.

[FreepFryer]

15. Yawn. I tried. Weak metaphor, poorly implemented. I can't teach you to think it thru better. Nt

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

19. What exactly is the weak metaphor?

You can't just say that and then retreat. You are being obtuse and difficult. I've been thinking it through and explaining myself, and you've just offered flabby objections. So be direct and obvious, or admit you haven't any real objections to what I've said and explained several times.

In other words, go fuck yourself.

[FreepFryer]

21. Wow. Maybe take a break. (Nt)

[PJMcK]

14. You're right and you're wrong

You're right that everything will be different when the Covid-19 crisis is over. (By the way, we'll probably be gearing up for the next viral outbreak.)

You're wrong that Covid-19 is like a war. Wars violently pit nations against one another. Do you see that happening today? I don't see any armies amassing against one another.

The civil unrest that we're experiencing in our country is not a war. It's the politics of our age.

Your analogy has some resonance for me because my wife and I were planning to go to Europe in March and April. Obviously, that trip didn't happen and the airlines and hotels rebooked us for September but I doubt that will happen.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

18. Interesting point.

I had been thinking of war as a somewhat simple metaphor, but your statement that wars violently pit nations against one another is pertinent. You make me understand that using war as a metaphor isn't always accurate, and thank you for bringing that to my attention.

I was on a cruise to Hawaii when all of this burst forth. On that cruise I was in a bubble, which was truly wonderful, and I'm very glad I took that cruise. I was also set to go to Seattle at the beginning of April, via Amtrak from Lamy, NM to Chicago, overnight there, then to Seattle. I had wonderful plans for that journey, but since the event in Seattle was cancelled even before my cruise ended, I wound up cancelling trains, planes, and hotels for that trip. Sigh. Perhaps I will be able to it next year, or in 2022. I am the eternal optimist.

I have have the good fortune to be retired, and so I am in many ways not much affected by what's happening now. It is easy for me to stay at home. My income is totally unaffected. Lucky me. I am somewhat annoyed that the travel I've been used to, mainly the science fiction things I attend, have been cancelled. Darn.

And I mean the darn. Those cancellations are for me annoying, but do not profoundly affect my life. Unlike the artists who depend on such events to sell their wares, I am not losing any money. Again, lucky me.

I need to get a better handle on how much my retired person privilege is truly a privilege.

[jmg257]

17. I know what you mean. My SIL was planning to go to Disney, and now they have to wait till July.

I was planning on going to work March 16th, and now can't go back till next week.

It'll be totally different!
What with masks and all.

Of course there (hopefully) won't be 80 million dead and the whole world re-aligned, but, ya know - different.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

20. Even 80million dead would be at best

one percent of the world population.

If you look at death rates from the 1918 flu epidemic, it had no effect on population growth.

[a la izquierda]

22. I don't know...

I left England in December. I was slated to go back in March, but canceled. I’m leaving next week and will make a permanent move in November (well permanent until I finish my Law program).
I don’t envision things being very different. Masks on people, yeah probably. Pubs closed when I arrive (but open soon after)? Yeah. That’s surface difference. My friends have sent me photos from various places in Europe. Life looks pretty much the same. But with surface differences.
I don’t know, perhaps I’m missing the point.

[Backseat Driver]

23. Well, I for one, can't even conceive of the elite nature of your metaphorical scenario!

Change is involved no matter when one tries to re-visit the past; something will remain of it, but will play its devilish tricks going forward. It all depends on how you adapt to your naivete or willful ignorance that most things of remembrance, even what and how you have changed, in the interim. What will change YOU and then impact your children and grandchildren going forward who are just learning and growing as the leaves of a live tree or one poisoned, diseased, or just gone by a more serious loss than a vacation to re-visit the past.