Context Is The New Bullshit

Yoni Stern, on the matter of the Guardian and its sister title, the Observer, launching a searchable digital archive (which will soon contain all the copies of the papers from their first issues in 1821 and 1791), said:

A newspaper today might be full of bullshit, but it's all a part of the history of culture - the bullshit, too, no less than the reality. You can't get that from history books.

I don't think it is correct to say you can't get that from history books, but rather that history books -- or more pointedly, history text books -- often do lack context.

Context is the bullshit, the stuff which is, in truth, The Reality. More than facts, such as this fire happened, this law was passed, the stock market crashed, etc. on such-and-such dates, the culture is what people were saying, selling, spewing. What leads did the police have on the fire, what motives did they suspect? Why? Why were people passing the laws they did? That ad for frocks -- did hemlines rise as the stocks fell? That's the culture, that's the context, that's the bullshit.

As Maya Angelou said, "There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth."

And now, because you've paid attention to your history lesson, enjoy today's sexual contextual bullshit from the roaring 20's.


Newspaper clipping, dated December 4, 1924. It reads:

Nude Display Unnecessary

Dade City, Fla

Many of the younger generation are coming on laboring under the mistaken idea that the quick way to gain popularity is to make a generous showing of their legs. I still believe that modesty in a woman is a cardinal virtue and that men, as a whole, have a deep respect for women who are becomingly attired. The Gish girls, Mae Marsh, Alice Joyce, Lois Wilson and others are exceedingly popular, and they didn't attain that popularity by an unseemly nude display of their bodies. And who is it that does not love them? They are grand beyond compare.

G.W. Walker