Some thoughts on numbers
Jul. 22nd, 2007 08:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumNight before last I went to church, at the Cathedral in Chavez Ravine. Sadly the Dodgers lost.
But that wasn't what I wanted to talk about. As I was eating my Dodger dog, and drinking my Gordon Biersch hefeweizen (which has bannana notes, but there ya' go) I was looking around the stadium.
No, I was thinking of issues of scale.
The official count for the game was 52,000 people, in real terms, it was probably more like 50,000 (season tickets count, so if no one shows up, there will still be a paid attendence in the thousands).
We tend to forget that 50,000 is a lot of people.
There were lots of battles, battles which shaped the course of events (Hasting, Agincourt, Poiters, Pharsalus, Yorktown) had no more than that.
Compared to the massive battles of the US Civil War, World Wars 1, and 2, we tend to lose track of that, to see Armies as masses of faceless figures in khaki. Those who pump the war try to ignore the humanity of the soldiers; to convert them into icons.
Lots of those opposed to the war do the same thing, it's just that the ends are differnt, so the stereotypes are mirrored (the one side sees dupes; poor; or patriotic, slaves to duty, the other sees warriors lusting for glory and certain of victory. The truth is they are people, as varied as the fans at a baseball game. Some came to cheer the Dodgers, some to root for the Mets.
There are 130,000 soldiers in Iraq. 130,000 separate stories, and it's still less than three times the number of people sitting in that small space which is Dodger stadium.
They are responsible for occupying, and pacifying, an area the size of California, with a population of 30 millions.
But that wasn't what I wanted to talk about. As I was eating my Dodger dog, and drinking my Gordon Biersch hefeweizen (which has bannana notes, but there ya' go) I was looking around the stadium.
No, I was thinking of issues of scale.
The official count for the game was 52,000 people, in real terms, it was probably more like 50,000 (season tickets count, so if no one shows up, there will still be a paid attendence in the thousands).
We tend to forget that 50,000 is a lot of people.
There were lots of battles, battles which shaped the course of events (Hasting, Agincourt, Poiters, Pharsalus, Yorktown) had no more than that.
Compared to the massive battles of the US Civil War, World Wars 1, and 2, we tend to lose track of that, to see Armies as masses of faceless figures in khaki. Those who pump the war try to ignore the humanity of the soldiers; to convert them into icons.
Lots of those opposed to the war do the same thing, it's just that the ends are differnt, so the stereotypes are mirrored (the one side sees dupes; poor; or patriotic, slaves to duty, the other sees warriors lusting for glory and certain of victory. The truth is they are people, as varied as the fans at a baseball game. Some came to cheer the Dodgers, some to root for the Mets.
There are 130,000 soldiers in Iraq. 130,000 separate stories, and it's still less than three times the number of people sitting in that small space which is Dodger stadium.
They are responsible for occupying, and pacifying, an area the size of California, with a population of 30 millions.
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no subject
Date: 2007-07-23 02:44 pm (UTC)Poland was a big player, they sent a battalion (i.e. about 1,500) soldiers. Italy sent about 300 (those are gone).
Nappy went to Russia with 600,000 in, La Grande Armée. 60,000 came home.
Most were lost, not to battle, per se, but rather to cold and hunger. The Russians burnt the crops to the ground as he came in. This was only some problem on the way in, leaving, in the winter, harried by cossack and never getting to rest in decent billets, lacking in food, and with no granaries to raid; they died.
If he'd overwintered in Smolensk, he might have pulled it off (or convinced Aleksandr to negotiate; though that's less likely), but the six weeks he dithered (sort of like the month Hitler spent propping Mussolini up in Greece) put paid to the plan.
It also kept him from having troops to face Wellington when he crossed the Pyrenees.
TK