One: Times have changed. People are less concerned with tradition and ceremony. It's viewed as an anachronistic holdover of an older age. It's not that people are less patriotic today, they just feel less of a need to show it or prove it through codified actions. Personally, I feel that a little bit of something has been lost, but times and mores change. That's just the way it is.
Two: I think the other may be that, since WWII, there's been a trend away from displays or hints of Nationalism in many parts of the world (especially Europe, America, and Japan). IMO, the world got a very harsh, first hand view, of the dark side of Nationalism. A view of what can happen when Nationalism is taken to extremes. Now, I'm not saying that Nationalism is inherently bad or good. Nationalism is a thing, just like anything else, that in moderation is just fine. But, perhaps in the aforementioned areas, there's something in our collective psyches that left us a little gun-shy to displays of Nationalism. Anyways, I don't want this to devolve into a politics discussion (which we all know is verboten here), or devolve into a psychiatric discussion (which isn't verboten but IMO, is even a worse subject) so I'll just leave it here without any extra analysis. It just is what it is, and my two cents.
EM, very well said...
This is a little bit off direct subject maybe, but recently I've had to attend a number of funerals, some civilian, some military. People dying in my church, my squadron, vets, family of people in my squadron, etc.
Went to a couple of funerals for old folks in my church.
During one service now, the one in the church, not the graveside service, I kept hearing this high pitched sort of tinkering squelch. I don't hear very well so I couldn't make it out exactly, but after we left the service I asked one of my daughters if she had heard it. She rather disgustedly said, "yeah, during the service some people were texting. I saw them doing it."
I thought to myself, "
Damn, is there nothing so seemingly unimportant nowadays that people can't stick their stupid phones into it?" Using your phone to tape or record some of the service, maybe. I get that, at least to some extent. Texting while it's going on?
What do the vast majority of people on the face of the Earth have to text, or say, that's so important it can't wait twenty minutes for a funeral to respectfully conclude? Let's face it,
if you're that freaking important (and you're probably not), you got better things to do than be at a funeral anyway. And if you do I'll betcha dollars to doughnuts you're working whatever it is that's so vital, and not freaking texting about it.
So folks, in the big scheme of things are you really so incredibly important that the world can't do without an ultra-urgent, red-alert, right now, gotta-make-this emergency text or phone call from ya? Think the world didn't turn before that cell phone was invented, and that it won't keep turning long after both it and you are buried? My supposition is, probably so. I also suspect that in the big scheme of things, at certain times at least, (
and I know this will be a big shock to some modern people) you just don't have that much of real importance to pass along.
And that's one of the things that really bothers me about modern people. Especially younger ones, but you'd be surprised how many clustered up old farts I see with blueteeth crammed in their head holes at all times as if they're on tactical alert for a surprise Martian invasion. If I didn't have to have a cell-phone for security reasons then I'd ram the thing down the throat of Mount Doom. Hard. Course it would probably spit it back out.
I'm looking forward to the day when you can cause one to remotely build up a massive feedback and explode. Like they used to do in Star Trek. Then they finally might be really entertaining.
As to the other points, about making mistakes in custom, I'm guilty of that too. Some weeks back I went with some kids in my squadron to run the flag up on the day after the soldiers at Fort Hood had been murdered. I was talking with my old man about it later and told him that they had run the flag up, "half-mast." He corrected me and it took me a moment to figure out what he was saying. I still say half-mast when I really mean half-staff. It's just habit I guess.
