From the editor: ‘Conventional’ wisdom

I was taught twentieth century history at school by a former card-carrying Communist. An interesting perspective when studying Tricky Dicky, Reaganomics and the Cuban Missile Crisis. We were also taught the rise of the Nazis, the Civil Rights Movement, and a smattering of Fascists of Italy in the Axis and Allies overview of World War II. And everything seemed quite clear. How could people not see that segregation and persecution was wrong? Obviously people in the past just didn’t understand. And I was glad I was benefiting from the wisdom of the present.

My copy of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History Of The United States textbook included first person diary entries from people running to the North of America using the Underground Railway, escaping slavery, songs sung in protests… and conventional wisdom had me asking my grandfather in genuine confusion as to how it was this had happened in a modern world that he could remember.

‘Conventional’ wisdom of the time also had my mother not allowing me to play outside for two years after the Chernobyl accident – if it was raining. Sounds paranoid now, but then terms like ‘acid rain’ were being bandied about with the same gay abandon as ‘mason jar’ and ‘moustache wax’ is now.

Current ‘conventional’ wisdom advises us to check our sources so as to watch out for ‘fake news’, and to expect trolling when expressing anything remotely political on Twitter. Hopefully this will be seen as its own paranoia of the times.

‘Conventional’ wisdom is one of those river-like things – always there but always changing. So not very conventional after all.

Victoria Nangle
editorial@thelatest.co.uk