What ever happened to Peace Through Understanding?

Someone once told me I don't have enough pictures of myself...so here I am. Portrait of a fool...



Perhaps some of you(all two of you that read this blog) may recognize the reference in my post title - "Peace Through Understanding" was the official slogan of the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair held in what is now known as Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. Not surprisingly, that was also the site of the 1939-1940 New York World's Fair. In fact the whole area was originally a landfill that was redeveloped into one of New York City's largest and most scenic parks. Fuck Central...for realz.

Getting to my point...The World's Fair's have always been a showcase of cutting edge technology and cultures from all over world with a healthy dose of education and corporate commercialism. The Expos(as they are sometimes called, also where the Canadian baseball team got their name) are generally used to present a glimpse of the world around us as well as the world to come, provided by the future innovations of the corporate sponsors who finance the Fairs in exchange for plots on which to build their own exhibition pavilions. While I generally frown on commercialism and marketing, the Fairs can really only operate with the corporate sponsorship, as each one basically requires large amounts ofland to be redeveloped and a small city constructed at the site. Typically, the corporate pavilions are done in good taste as well. You get the impression that they genuinely wish to bring about a better tomorrow, even if the dollar is still the bottom line.

Along with the corporate buildings, the participating nations from all over the world build there own pavilions as museums of their culture and people. In some of the more ambitous designs, there have been attempts to recreate famous landmarks, traditional structures, or even a small town(in the case of Belgium)of their native land. Within the national pavilions (as well as State pavilions for US fairs) you can find treasures, artifacts, and works of art that reflect the identity of the presenters. World's Fairs have played host to everything from Michaelangelo's "Pieta" to a 4000 year old engraved Turkish monolith. Truly a gathering of the world populous, even the UN got it's start at the 1939-1940 New York World's Fair.


Which I guess brings me to my point....What ever happned to Peace Through Understanding? That was a phrase uttered back in a time when the world was slowly shrinking, in a national sense and from a cosmic view as well. The Space Race was in full swing, the Cold War had begun, WWII and Korea were still recent memories in the eyes of many, and the Civil Rights movement was at it's peak. The attitude behind such a lofty ideal was surely a kind of backlash to the turmoil which was gripping not only our nation but the whole world. The Fair's gave us a very optimistic view of the future, where cars flew, food was plentiful for everyone, clean utopian cityscapes sprawled across the globe, even under the sea. But these are goals that can never be achieved. For one, the engineers at the time didn't put to the mind the enviromental impact an under-sea city would have on the ocean, nor did they consider the ozone layer or species extinction when they designed that rainforest bulldozer thing (GM's Futurama exhibit).


Another hinderance to the World of Tomorrow is the very real politics and economics of today...But I'll talk more about that later...