Ask Your Question today
When did America really lose it's innocence? I hear conflicting reports about this. Some claim that 9/11 was the day American innocence died. However, many older people claim that the JFK assassination was the day America lost it's innocence. I sometimes also hear people point to the Columbine shooting as a turning point. What is your opinion on this? When did American innocence die? Was there even any innocence to begin with?
I cant think of any country that has had innocence. The USA lost its innocence around the time the first settlers came.
Ok, so this whole pre-9/11 innocence thing that everyone is talking about is either bullshit, or highly exaggerated?
I think part of it may be nostalgia, especially from people who were young pre-9/11, but I do think 9/11 changed a lot of things as well (though admittedly, I was only 6 when it happened, so don't remember much about pre-9/11 American culture; I do remember 9/11 and the aftermath very well considering how young I was, though).
I mean we done had slavery and everything I wouldnt say we were innocent but idk what ur referring to I never heard it
The United States of America is a confederation created through rebellion and treachery. It has never had innocence.
Don't forget blatant armed robbery.
First, it has to be acknowledged that the American colonists were typical of people of their age in viewing themselves as more noble, godly and deserving of natural wealth than native peoples, so it's not like they were more evil than most.
But something that the grade school version of the War of Independence that most Americans know never mentions is that one of the grievances of the colonists was George III proclamation in 1763 that white settlers wouldn't just move in and occupy new lands without first establishing a treaty with the local tribe(s).
From that moment, no English settlers could legally travel through or acquire land west of the Appalachian Mountains, and this caused a great deal of resentment on the part of the colonists.
Boojum, the treaty was in response to the absolute savagery that Pontiac and their people displayed. Christians were afraid, they had never seen that ruthlessness towards women and children. Don't pretend the native Americans weren't murderous to eachother and towards the settlers on a whole different level that cringed the white Christians of the time. Despite what they teach you in school. The treaty was based on absolute fear.
Of course the narrative that Native Americans all lived peacefully with each other is complete BS (I'm a little surprised by your use of a strawman argument). And it is true that Native Americans were known to respond ruthlessly to invaders. But European history up to the 18th Century was drenched in blood and full of the merciless slaughter of innocents, so White Christians were hardly in a position to claim any moral superiority.
Hell, the Pilgrims - who have (absurdly) been elevated to the status of paragons of Christian virtue in the mythology of America - did their fair share of slaughtering Native Americans in the most savage ways and taking them as slaves, and they sometimes turned on tribes who considered themselves allies of the invaders.
And, yeah, I suppose you could say that the royal proclamation of 1763 (it wasn't a treaty) was based on fear. The Crown accepted that it couldn't afford to properly defend new settlements to the west of the Appalachians. So it drew a line, promised the natives that any advancement of White settlers to the west of the line would be done only following the signing of treaties and the "voluntary" ceding of land, and hoped that things would settle down to the east of the line. So there was fear on the part of the Crown, but in a similar sense to what the USA has been feeling when it has looked at what's been going on in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As for what the settlers felt personally, I'm sure there was a lot of fear on their part. They had to understand that they were invaders surrounded by hostile, often invisible people whom they knew virtually nothing about. So they probably often felt much like American ground troops have felt in places like Viet Nam and Afghanistan. But no matter how hard you try to twist the history of the USA to make it conform to the fantasy that it was a noble, enlightened endeavour blessed by God from the start, the fact remains that North America was not unoccupied when European settlers arrived. The natives were forced to give up their claims to the land, sometimes figuratively at the point of a gun, but very often literally so.
But American history books discuss a plethora of problems. For one thing, the settlers were taxed by the Crown, but were not English citizens. They organized a Continental Congress that got shut down. And, the huge problem was GUN CONTROL. This issue started fighting before the Declaration of Independence was even written.
Can you imagine winter provisions running out with no flintlock rifle for the family to hunt for deer? The point is the FRUSTRATION with the Crown became irreversible. The famous lines that preface our Declaration of Independence and Constitution reflect frustration, and self-determination. If you are interpreting this as an arrogant attempt at noble intent, you are misreading the whole thing. Anyone that thought that would have gone back to England.
To be clear, we were salty bastards, and are still known internationally for our bad manners. (I've tried to clean up my manners for international business trips, but I'm sort of an exception.)
Did America ever have "innocence"? They were pretty brutal to the natives when they moved in.
But when I think of it, I dont think any time and place in human history has ever been "innocent", there are always some problems just different ones
Innocence is a concept that does not apply to the establishment and growth of what we now consider the United States of America.
None of those people were innocent, and what transpired with the native population was not very innocent. The native population has a long history prior to that without innocence as well.
Recalling all the world or ancient history books I have studied or skimmed - the only time recorded anywhere that I can find mention of innocence would be Adam an Eve in the Torah/Bible before there was a bite of an apple; which some people do not believe is real history.
At least I would be interested, and I suspect others on this site, if you have studied or reviewed other history books that talk of a time of real innocence. Please provide the reference.
I wouldn't say ever. America is a beautiful and ugly collective of what the world has to offer, it is a nation of immigrants.
Innocence is just a polite, fluffy word for optimism and wishful thinking that exists only because of profound ignorance of the reality of the world.
Lots of Americans are still in that state of mind. Anyone who parrots the line about The Greatest Country in the World is innocent. Anyone who believes that the USA is a shining city on a hill and especially beloved by God is innocent. Anyone who believes that America has always been on the side of truth and justice when it has imposed its will on the rest of the world is innocent. Anyone who believes that American capitalism in its present form is the best possible system to ensure the well-being and happiness of the maximum possible number of people is innocent.
The moment Europeans invaded. The United States as a country has never been "innocent". Were built off of the slaughter and abuse of innocents.
I'm not sure I wouldn't put the loss of innocents for the whole world, somewhere around the invention of radio and TV .
A new source of propaganda media. Hitler learned to use it well, and if no other time the media sources learned during Orson Welles' War of the Worlds in 1938 just how easy it was to influence people.
Printed media has always been used but normally took way to long to get the desired reaction.
The internet is the newest tool being used especially when you get all the controllers on one side and to censor the material to influence their objective.
For the USA it might go back further to the civil war times. People generally like to think people are good or at least have good intentions.
The USA civil war was one of the first major incidents in the new country, where the people realized the government was lying to them and did not really represent everybody. Contrary to popular belief it was not just about slavery. That was the push button issue that was used to push it. It was taking sides and representing special interest.
Most countries have gone through these type of periods however, radio, tv, and internet found they can make money and have great influencing power. They have been corrupted and sold their soles for power.
Not sure I understand the question, innocent of what?
And if it's not innocent then what do you feel it's guilty of?
It is a slightly odd expression (and a peculiar thing to claim for an entire country), but an example of "innocence" in this context is a child who believes their parents will never die, who believes Santa is real, and who believes that nothing really bad will ever happen to them.
Nigga, when that main boi Eisenhower decided to nuke shit up in small eye land it showed all da hoods in da entire world that da red, white n blue don't fuck wit nobody!
Dat was when America took its mothafuckin braces off and developed its tits.
Fahreal.
That's what's up
JFK assassination, definitely. This indirectly led to US involvement in the Vietnam war. an incredibly unpopular war which cost the US over 50 000 men and hundreds of thousands more injured and mentally scarred. All of that for absolutely nothing. The conflict led directly to the counter-culture bullshit of the late 60s, which saw crime skyrocket. Shortly after this, the oil-crisis hit, and with that crook Nixon abdicating as the cream of the crop. American faith in government reached an all-time low during the late 70s. Not until the 80s did they kind of get their shit together again. However, they never truly managed to recover from the JFK assassination.