Victorians were right weirdos

[tobee]

A somewhat click baity title.

I’m just reading Master Georgie by Beryl Bainbridge, historical fiction largely written set at the beginning of the Crimean War. Much mention of cholera etc.

I know very little about this period which is why I was interested. I took a bit of time out reading the book to have a very quick google of the war and cholera. I had forgotten that I’d previously known that tourists and society people went to view the battles. Hiring boats and watching, taking picnics and drinking champagne on hillsides as they watched the fun.🤨

Just so unfathomable to imagine today. Or the recent past. I can’t think of anything equivalent really. I don’t know, maybe it was some assumption that this was The British Empire and therefore it was a foregone conclusion to people that we (and our allies) would win? That’s probably way too simplistic. I know death and disease was much closer and public hangings still happened and were great sport (?). But travelling in the heat and devastating conditions with cholera and other awful conditions rife…

You could trot out the oft used quote “the past is a different country, they do things differently there.”

Using another cliche , the mind boggles.

But just imagine what people will think of social media content in years to come. Public prank videos for example, where random people are startled, harassed or worse. Then there are TikTok challenges - need I say more. Also see "grief farming" and "reaction videos", especially those involving children. And people filming murders, dead bodies and a multitude of other tragic situations just to post them online for likes. This content isn't viewed (or indeed created) exclusively by weirdos. Far from it, a fairly large percentage of ordinary people watch it. Basically the human race has always been titillated by death, brutality (either physical or psychological) and the misfortune of others. From the gladiatorial fights of ancient Rome to public hangings. The internet satisfies the exact same human desire to witness public ruin.

It wasn't just the Victorians. It happened before then as well, it was just that by the Victorian period it was easier to get there. I wonder how many of then regretted it once they realised it wasn't like a Boys's Own adventure.

True enough @ginasevern! I’m often banging on about how we arrogantly think of ourselves as the height of sophistication right now but I’m sure we’ll seem very backwards and uncivilised to our descendants.

Yes I think I’ve got the somewhat wrong idea through reading Jane Austen that everyone then was incredibly socially insightful with a brilliant wit and human perception and the Victorians were some sort of closed off era of people hamstrung by appearances and seeming to be entirely virtuous. When the scientific and social and economic progress was vast in reality.

People wanted to visit the Western Front as soon as the guns stopped in November 1918. Many had personal reasons - they wanted to see where their son/husband/brother had fallen and was buried. But many just wanted to go as sightseers. Thomas Cook etc were running tours while human remains were still being recovered from the battlefields.

Israelis gather on hillsides to watch and cheer as military drops bombs on Gaza | Israel | The Guardian

Sadly, this particular brand of weirdness continues to this day.

Read up on what the Victorians did with mummified bodies OP, all while calling other nations “uncivilised”!

Bull fighting, dog fighting social media. We're probably worse.

Late MIL lived on the south coast as a child, and once told us that during WW2 they were able to watch the dog fights between the RAF and the Luftwaffe out over the English Channel.

Or being live streamed on Facebook on 7th October shooting children and families. 🙄

Given there was no radio or tv and books were still hardback / expensive I suppose they had to do something for entertainment?

The most important thing you learn in history is not to judge the actions of the past by the standards and expectations of the present day, but even so this seems quite wild.

Nevertheless there are places nowadays (hello Saudi Arabia) that hold public floggings/executions.

Dog fights?

@Minasamathat’s what the plane flights are/were called.

Dog fights?

That's what they were called.

It wasn't a matter of seeking them out for sightseeing purposes, like some of the other events mentioned in this thread. They were happening overhead if you lived in the SE in the summer of 1940.

In the USA Civil War people from Washington went out to watch the Battle of Bull Run. Some were caught up in it and were allegedly robbed of their horses and carriages. That is about 10years after Crimea.

Truly vile. A shade of brown oil paint was created from discarded mummies.

It’s the cannibalism that I can never get my head around. How on earth did they justify that behaviour to themselves? All while looking down their noses at the “lack of civilisation” of other ethnicities, cultures and their own working class!

What’s with the emoji?

Tourists paid to take part in the siege on Sarajevo. They actually killed civilians in the street for the fun of it. This was in the 90s.

I don't know if this link will work The Times

Not only is it inaccurate in its reporting that guardian article is 12 years old.

more recently we’ve had Hamas terrorists cheering dragging beheaded, raped and mutilated Israeli festival goers then using the dead’s blooded phones to call their families excitedly reporting how many Jews they’d massacred.

all for anyone to see if they have the guts to see the Nova festival exhibition..

Its an eye roll in reference to @FetchezLaVache post.

Look at how quickly the Charlie Kirk video was shared. The Victorians created the modern world that we still live in and weren’t that different to us.

I know what an eye roll is, I was asking why you were using that emoji within that context.

Public hangings were popular around that time too. A big day out.

@tobee "’m often banging on about how we arrogantly think of ourselves as the height of sophistication right now"

are you? Sorry to go off piste but I'm completely thrown by that one. Who thinks of us as being the height of sophistication right now?

In terms of going to see battles, I am surprised that people felt safe enough to do it but not surprised that they wanted to just go and look. Because they would want to see beheadings and so on.

I don't think Victorians were more or less weird than people from any other time.