To think that 45 year old British citizen should know what I'm talking about.....

[Bekindtoyourknees]

when I mention the wars in Slovenia, Bosnia, Croatia etc?

His excuse: 'I wasn't there, so why should I know about them?'

I thought there was nothing left to shock me at work, seems I was wrong

Of course not everyone can know everything. But anyone who doesn't know the name of the current Prime Minister is most certainly living in a bubble.

Id also be shocked at someone not knowing who the PM was or what party the current government was tbh. But i still think that is no reason to think of a person as inferior in any way. And to say they live in a bubble does suggest that.

But it is a bubble. How can it be anything else?

when we were living it, it was known as "the war in Yugoslavia" Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina et al did not come into play until later.....

a relative of mine died in the Falklands war... a friend asked if my family came from Argentina.... she was unaware that any UK forces personnel had died.

It reminds me of The Simpsons film, when the glass dome is placed over Springfield. It absolutely is living in a bubble.

I'm 26 and I remember the Bosnian war. My dad was one of the British troops sent over as part of the UN forces. I remember the first Gulf war too which most of my friends didn't even know about but its one of my earliest memories as my dad was over there.

I remember these wars as they were very relevant to me even at a young age. However I don't have a clue about the miners strikes and Margaret Thatcher as we were posted overseas at that time and I was very young.

I think people tend to pay more attention to things that are relevant / directly affect them over things that are more removed from them.

Living in a bubble can actually be the better thing to do .
Our first responsibility should be to look after ourselves and our loved ones . So many people fail to manage that and fail to grasp how the effects ripple .

I have banned all newspapers from our house , monitor strictly the tv and radio . I don't want to hear about all the shit things that have happened,are happening and will happen .
I feel passionately that we fill our children's heads to full of misery and gloom . Every bloody week there's a collection for some unfortunate soul - the message we are sending our kids is terrifying - We're all doomed .

I actually want to stay in my bubble . I will keep it shielded around me and mine for as long as I can .

JR, how can you possibly not think less of someone who (without mitigating factors such as significant MH issues, for instance) is so utterly cut off from their own society that they don't know the most basic facts about its government? It suggests someone who doesn't vote, who makes no efforts whatsoever to engage with life outside their own personal bubble, and who is likely to be easily manipulated by any 'news' with an agenda that does somehow break through to them.

If you are so cut off from the usual sources of information that you don't know who the PM is or who is in government, and someone down the pub is frothing off about Muslims cancelling Christmas and the rumour that the guy who lives in number 52 is a paedo, and UKIP being the last bastion of defence against millions of Bulgarians arriving to be greeted with houses and jobs - aren't you less likely to have any other information to set against that of the pub racist?

Sorry, RedTooth, I know no one died in the Arndale bomb, but I can see the way I phrased it looked as if I thought they did.

Walton, I agree that young children need to have information and images that they are not mature enough to deal with filtered, but they live in the world as it is. I don't think you are actually saying this, but surely you wouldn't want your children to grow up into adults who neither know nor care who the PM of their country is?

i didnt have a clue what you meant by the war in slovenia but i see you mean the break up of yugoslavia and the wars in the former yugoslavia
when was that renamed the 10 day war of slovenia? (google, i thank you)

You can say we all live in a bubble then. Its just that some bubbles include more of one thing than the next.

I know a fair bit about current politics due to my work, i know probably quite a lot for my age about the first and second world wars. But i couldn't name you one song in the current music charts and i am completely oblivious to the wars that the OP mentions. I have no idea whether that means i 'live in a bubble' or whether my levels of knowledge are acceptable to the masses.

Some people are very ignorant of the rest of the world.

I met somebody once who had only been abroad once in her life, on a package holiday, but she didn't know what country it was she had been to. She was 20 when she went.

I think that takes some beating

Burren , the problem is that because of the Information Age we live in , there is just too much knowledge . This comes in a visual form , as I have said before ;reading about something and seeing something are different experiences .
So many of us now suffer with anxieties - mental health issues affect more and more kids . I link this too an overload of utter misery .
The images of the Boxing Day tsunami and the poor souls jumping from the Twin Towers for example- utterly traumatic events burnt onto all our memories .

I think children need to know about politics of course , but this doesn't require the level if in depth knowledge that's being talked about on here .

I feel the same as littlewhitebag. I'm interested and would love an "idiots guide to world conflicts", as a film rather than text as I find reading about serious issues very hard work and consequently the facts don't sink in. I've tried reading "The Bottom Billion" for example; a fascinating subject about the causes of poverty in Africa but it was such a slog and I didn't finish it. If I can watch a video on a serious subject it sinks in far better for me than reading it. If anyone has any links to documentaries about conflicts in the Balkans or African countries please share

he not only sounds ignorant but obnoxious too! Most of us weren't 'there' during the two World wars or any other major war/conflict that's taken place since - but we are 'aware' or 'heard' of them....and if we're not we certainly wouldn't respond in such a rude manner.

i'm 34. I don't remember dates/lots of details of wars and conflicts, but i remember where i was when the Gulf war broke out, i recall kids in the playground asking each other 'who's side are you on?'. I remember the images i saw on news clips,in newspapers and magazines. I remember the adults talking about it. Same thing when the Balkan conflict started, school had started a Penpal scheme and i had been matched with a Croatian girl (same age as me), her dad was a soldier. we talked about it. I remember finding out about the conflicts in Africa through sponsoring a child whilst at school. My dad's friend (lovely man) came to the UK when Idi Amin threw them out. A guy i once fancied came to the UK as a refugee from Serbia when he was child....and then you've got the more recent fighting in Afghanistan/Iraq/Cuba etc. Most of us weren't there for any of them either but we KNOW about them. So whether it was through school, word of mouth or seeking information out for myself i came to know about these things, and the same goes for the majority of people.

I don't there is any excuse for people growing up and living in the UK - especially in a multi-cultural UK to have such an ignorant attitude. War affects us all, no matter where we are in the world. The current situation in Ukraine may not directly affect many of us, but i know it's being discussed/commented on everywhere from facebook to the local pub because it DOES affect us all in one way or another.

How old are you, JRmumma? If, like the OP's colleague, you are over 40 and spent your twenties completely oblivious to the fact that there was a major war and attempted genocide going on a short hop away then, yeah, probably you were living in a bubble. If you're not, and they count as history to you, not so much.

I was reminded of this thread this morning when reading about 20 year old Gemma Worrall from Blackpool who tweeted the following.......

'if barraco barner is our president why is he getting involved with Russia, scary'.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/10682490/Blame-spellcheck-Twitter-user-misspells-US-presidents-name-as-Barraco-Barner.html

The thing is, does he vote?

If you vote you SHOULD have at least limited knowledge of current affairs.

You should know WHY we might have a lot of foreign nations coming here - both legally and illegally - if you have a opinion on their presence here.

Thinking that Barraco Barner is our President is mind boggling.

As a 55yo Brit, I'm going to say I'm very much in the "it's bad, shocking, should not have happened" camp, but doubt there is a speck of difference that I personally could make, in relation to any of these conflicts.

FL "Studying conflicts, genocides, wars is crucial to understanding society and trying to prevent further conflict." and "I suppose I think that there should be an automatic level of knowledge of conflicts/politics etc from one's own lifetime and region"

I accept the first statement but (as my line of work probably has no likelihood of affecting any conflict) prefer to spend my time on other things.

In the case of the second statement, I would classify my "region" of interest as being the UK primarily, and everywhere else, if conflict might lead to the UK being a target, or affect us (eg WW III being started by China or Russia, against the USA, or perhaps between themselves).

I have not bothered with a daily newspaper since I was 20, rarely watch TV news broadcasts, but do listen to some of the radio news (BBC R 4), though it gets boring when the same clip gets played on news at 1300, 1700, 1800, 2200 and then again at 0000 (!)

I am often beyond caring who said what, to whom, and the implications, if there has been nothing "new" in the past 4 hours.

No, he doesn't vote - possibly a good thing, given he knows so little?

I hope all these people who don't vote never complain about government decisions, e.g. tax rates, benefit rates/policies, level of funding for the NHS, schools, councils, etc etc.

In (possible) defence of your colleague: I'm 45 too and the late 80s/early 90s are very sketchy for me because I was studying then (maybe he was too?): I couldn't recognise the songs from the charts or have much of an idea of what was going on in the news. I was vaguely aware of the break up of the former USSR and the subsequent fallout at the time, but no details. I only picked up on the full genocidal horror many years later watching a documentary.

Debbie I'm 30 so whilst i was alive i would have been too young to have taken any of that in. But if that excuses me, then that doesn't hold up with much of the other criticisms on this thread. Some see that just because you weren't 'there to see it' so to speak, that doesn't excuse you from knowing about it as it was important. So while you think its ok for me not to know much about it, others wouldn't agree.

My point is that we all have different ideas about what is important to us or what affects us. I understand that important world events are in some way or another important to and affect everyone, whether they realise it ot not, but if it isn't on one person's radar then i don't think they should be judged on it.

"Burren , the problem is that because of the Information Age we live in , there is just too much knowledge . This comes in a visual form , as I have said before ;reading about something and seeing something are different experiences .
So many of us now suffer with anxieties - mental health issues affect more and more kids . I link this too an overload of utter misery .
The images of the Boxing Day tsunami and the poor souls jumping from the Twin Towers for example- utterly traumatic events burnt onto all our memories . "

I agree with this. I tank we just have to much constantly pumped at us 24/7, the images getting more and more graphic. A dead baby in a street in China, rows of dead children in Syria, Gaddafi's dead beat up body - on and on and on. It didn't used to be like this. People lived in their villages and got the odd big piece of news from outside by mouth or the odd newspaper days after the event. One extreme to todays extreme. I don't really lame people for just feeling it's all too much and switching off the news channels. Obviously some world events are big news and part of our history and what formed our society etc. just wonder how much we are supposed to know or absorb.

I'm 45 too and the late 80s/early 90s are very sketchy for me because I was studying then

Sorry - how on earth does the fact you were studying have any relevance to a lack of knowledge? Surely, if anything, you should have known more about the world around you, since studying in general encourages you to read widely, take an interest in the world around you and also gives you more time to consider things. Students are often very political - getting involved in protests and campaigns.

Also, I disagree we have too much knowledge. The fact that there is so much information at our fingertips should mean we know more about the world we live in, not less. There are fewer reasons to say that we're unaware of current affairs.

I despair that anyone can write such ignorant drivel on Twitter - "Barraco Barner". Honestly - I'm ashamed that anyone could display such a lack of knowledge and show themselves to be so bloody stupid.

I think winterhat and littlewhitebag this should help.

Doesn't take long to use google if you are remotely interested...