Reading "El Pais" I found an interesting article as usual. This one is a bit frightening, British TV Broadcaster UKTV Gold, made a poll trying to see if what the British public thought was fiction and reality, here are some of the results:
58% of the people asked believe Sherlock Holmes was real
23% of those asked believe Winston Churchill is a fictional character
47% of those asked believe Richard I the Lion-Heareted is a fictional charcter just like Winston.
4% ... think Cleopatra is a fictional character and worst of all 3% think that both Gandhi and Charles Dickens are fictional characters.
This is to me proof that the Western world is in absolute decadence.
1 comment:
Decadence, maybe. But let's not think that wealthy and/or Western cultures have any monopoly over appalling ignorance. Especially since, by and large, it is just that: the appalling but relatively harmless byproduct of a decadent culture.
The current Arab version of ignorance, for example, isn't harmless and isn't a byproduct. It's taught in the schools and includes gross distortions of history that make any of the example you cite pale.
Ignorance here in the USA in the 19th century fueled such wonders as Westward expansion (they thought the Plains would be paradise, yes, really) and an astounding variety of overtly fraudulent--but widely prescribed--"patent medicines".
The bigger worry is World History parallels. When a culture achieves the good life, such decadent ignorances rule. Those cultures without the good life retain insidious ignorances, and sooner or later, they (the Mongols, the Huns, etc) violently overthrow the decadents (Chinese, Romans, etc).
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