Asklemmy

50177 readers

224 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 6 years ago

MODERATORS

103

Explain me the apparent obcession America has with it's civil war. (sopuli.xyz)

submitted 3 weeks ago by qyron@sopuli.xyz to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

38 comments fedilink hide all child comments

My country has had a civil war, invasions by the french, by the spanish, more recently a revolution that threw a fascist government, followed by a very colourful period of internal squirmishes between anti-regime forces, but we settled those events and that was that: off to the history books.

What motivates so many people to re-enact battles from the American Civil War?

It sounds cruel. Re-enacting a war where so many died gruesome deaths.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I haven't caught dog whistle stuff at all, and the Viking reenactors I know best seem progressive. I only know my local area, but some of them talk about going everywhere, including of course the east coast and L'anse aux Meadows. So, I've kind of assumed it's a national phenomenon.

Leif Erikson is a big reason why the period is so popular, but there's also just appeal in berserk, mead-swilling sea warriors. Knights in armour are also a major thing. The WWII reenactors have guns and maybe some troop carriers, but it just doesn't have the same imaginative crowd appeal. Cost might also be a factor - a wood shield, an axe and a tunic is all you really need to play a Viking.