WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.919 Welcome back to another deep dive. Usually when 00:00:03.919 --> 00:00:06.160 we curate these custom explorations for you, 00:00:06.240 --> 00:00:09.220 we're looking at a stack of academic papers or 00:00:09.220 --> 00:00:12.539 maybe a sprawling biography or, you know, a dense 00:00:12.539 --> 00:00:14.779 piece of investigative journalism. Today, though, 00:00:14.919 --> 00:00:18.000 we are doing something entirely different. Very 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:20.820 different. Yeah. Today, our source material is 00:00:20.820 --> 00:00:24.679 a single Wikipedia disambiguation page. Which 00:00:24.679 --> 00:00:27.120 is such a fun concept. It really is. For those 00:00:27.120 --> 00:00:29.100 who haven't fallen down a wiki rabbit hole recently, 00:00:29.339 --> 00:00:31.980 a disambiguation page is basically Wikipedia's 00:00:31.980 --> 00:00:35.219 traffic cop. It's the menu it gives you when 00:00:35.219 --> 00:00:37.920 one specific phrase means a dozen different things. 00:00:38.340 --> 00:00:41.159 And the page we are looking at today is for a 00:00:41.159 --> 00:00:44.420 single four -word phrase, peace in our time. 00:00:44.719 --> 00:00:46.880 It's an incredibly unique lens through which 00:00:46.880 --> 00:00:49.250 to view history. Yeah. But before we jump in, 00:00:49.270 --> 00:00:51.250 let's establish a few ground rules for how to 00:00:51.250 --> 00:00:53.950 listen today. Good idea. This deep dive is fundamentally 00:00:53.950 --> 00:00:56.750 an exercise in spotting patterns. We're going 00:00:56.750 --> 00:00:59.109 to be connecting the dots across vastly different 00:00:59.109 --> 00:01:01.990 genres, entirely different mediums, and wildly 00:01:01.990 --> 00:01:04.209 different eras. It goes all over the place. It 00:01:04.209 --> 00:01:06.689 really does. So I want you to be prepared for 00:01:06.689 --> 00:01:10.090 some surprising aha moments. We are examining 00:01:10.090 --> 00:01:14.620 how human beings reuse, recycle, and, honestly, 00:01:14.879 --> 00:01:17.260 weaponize language to make sense of their world. 00:01:17.420 --> 00:01:19.439 Yeah, weaponize is a good word for it. Looking 00:01:19.439 --> 00:01:21.879 at a disambiguation page is almost like examining 00:01:21.879 --> 00:01:24.840 a cross -section of cultural DNA. You can see 00:01:24.840 --> 00:01:27.959 exactly when a phrase mutated, who mutated it, 00:01:28.060 --> 00:01:30.340 and where it ended up next. Okay, let's unpack 00:01:30.340 --> 00:01:32.939 this, because to understand where this phrase 00:01:32.939 --> 00:01:34.599 went, we have to start with where it actually 00:01:34.599 --> 00:01:37.400 began. Right. And looking at the wiki entry, 00:01:37.599 --> 00:01:40.480 the oldest origin of peace in our time has... 00:01:40.680 --> 00:01:43.180 absolutely nothing to do with 20th century politics. 00:01:43.439 --> 00:01:45.540 Not at all. It traces all the way back to religion. 00:01:46.140 --> 00:01:48.280 Specifically, it stems from a traditional English 00:01:48.280 --> 00:01:51.480 translation of a Latin hymn called Da Pacem Domine. 00:01:51.640 --> 00:01:54.519 The translation gives us the specific line, Give 00:01:54.519 --> 00:01:56.799 peace in our time, O Lord. Which is beautiful. 00:01:57.140 --> 00:01:59.739 It is. And from that Latin hymn, it made its 00:01:59.739 --> 00:02:02.159 way into the Book of Common Prayer. That is a 00:02:02.159 --> 00:02:05.230 crucial starting point for us. Well... It establishes 00:02:05.230 --> 00:02:08.629 the phrase originally not as a boast or a political 00:02:08.629 --> 00:02:12.569 guarantee, but as a solemn, hopeful prayer. It's 00:02:12.569 --> 00:02:15.509 a plea to a higher power for safety and stability 00:02:15.509 --> 00:02:18.650 in a world that, frankly, didn't have much of 00:02:18.650 --> 00:02:22.069 either. For generations, if you heard those words, 00:02:22.250 --> 00:02:24.689 you were likely standing in a church, and the 00:02:24.689 --> 00:02:27.650 context was entirely spiritual and reverent. 00:02:27.650 --> 00:02:30.530 It was the ultimate expression of human vulnerability. 00:02:31.189 --> 00:02:33.169 But that reverence doesn't last, though. No, 00:02:33.189 --> 00:02:35.129 it does not. The spiritual context gets completely 00:02:35.129 --> 00:02:38.009 hijacked in the 20th century. Which brings us 00:02:38.009 --> 00:02:40.490 to the absolute centerpiece of the disambiguation 00:02:40.490 --> 00:02:43.590 page. This is the moment that most people immediately 00:02:43.590 --> 00:02:45.969 associate with the phrase. The big one. Yeah. 00:02:46.250 --> 00:02:48.770 We are talking about the British Prime Minister, 00:02:48.949 --> 00:02:50.629 Neville Chamberlain, and the Munich Agreement 00:02:50.629 --> 00:02:54.090 of 1938. Right. Chamberlain returns from negotiating 00:02:54.090 --> 00:02:56.650 with Nazi Germany, and he speaks to a British 00:02:56.650 --> 00:02:59.210 public that is utterly terrified of being dragged 00:02:59.210 --> 00:03:02.110 into another devastating world war. He is trying 00:03:02.110 --> 00:03:05.490 to reassure them. This is the massive pivot point 00:03:05.490 --> 00:03:09.569 for the entire phrase. The context shifts abruptly 00:03:09.569 --> 00:03:12.430 from a quiet religious plea to a highly charged, 00:03:12.569 --> 00:03:15.460 incredibly public political declaration. And 00:03:15.460 --> 00:03:18.199 this is exactly where we hit a massive Mandela 00:03:18.199 --> 00:03:20.680 effect moment on the page. Oh, I love this part. 00:03:20.860 --> 00:03:23.879 It's so weird. For anyone unfamiliar, the Mandela 00:03:23.879 --> 00:03:26.680 effect is that weird phenomenon where a large 00:03:26.680 --> 00:03:29.699 mass of people collectively misremembers a historical 00:03:29.699 --> 00:03:32.819 event or a famous quote. We all think we know 00:03:32.819 --> 00:03:35.300 what happened in 1938. We picture the black and 00:03:35.300 --> 00:03:38.039 white footage. Exactly. History books, movies, 00:03:38.300 --> 00:03:40.740 everyday conversation. Everyone thinks Chamberlain 00:03:40.740 --> 00:03:43.300 stepped off that plane and proudly declared peace 00:03:43.300 --> 00:03:46.009 in our time. The page explicitly points out that 00:03:46.009 --> 00:03:48.229 he didn't actually say that. He did not. He is 00:03:48.229 --> 00:03:50.930 constantly misquoted. What Chamberlain actually 00:03:50.930 --> 00:03:53.770 said was, peace for our time. What's fascinating 00:03:53.770 --> 00:03:56.870 here is how a single, seemingly minor preposition 00:03:56.870 --> 00:03:59.110 completely changes the psychological weight of 00:03:59.110 --> 00:04:02.009 the phrase. Just changing for to in. Yes. When 00:04:02.009 --> 00:04:03.729 you break it down, the difference between in 00:04:03.729 --> 00:04:07.610 and for is staggering. Peace for our time implies 00:04:07.610 --> 00:04:11.310 a sense of temporary, pragmatic relief. It sounds 00:04:11.310 --> 00:04:14.169 almost bureaucratic. It suggests we have secured 00:04:14.169 --> 00:04:16.769 a cessation of hostilities for our current generation, 00:04:17.050 --> 00:04:19.410 for the time being. It's a very measure. Exactly. 00:04:19.730 --> 00:04:23.029 But peace in our time, the misquoted version 00:04:23.029 --> 00:04:25.069 that actually stuck in our collective cultural 00:04:25.069 --> 00:04:27.910 memory, sounds entirely different. It sounds 00:04:27.910 --> 00:04:30.509 sweeping. It sounds like a grand, almost biblical 00:04:30.509 --> 00:04:33.379 declaration of a permanent state of being. It 00:04:33.379 --> 00:04:35.620 really highlights how human memory operates. 00:04:35.920 --> 00:04:38.300 We don't remember the bureaucratic practical 00:04:38.300 --> 00:04:41.439 phrasing. We remember the poetry. We want the 00:04:41.439 --> 00:04:44.339 drama. Yeah. It's like our collective consciousness 00:04:44.339 --> 00:04:46.860 decided that peace in our time sounded more dramatic 00:04:46.860 --> 00:04:49.519 and maybe a bit more hubristic. So we just collectively 00:04:49.519 --> 00:04:52.199 overwrote the historical record. We played historical 00:04:52.199 --> 00:04:54.759 telephone. We essentially played a massive game 00:04:54.759 --> 00:04:57.819 of historical telephone. We reverted back to 00:04:57.819 --> 00:04:59.779 the cadence of the old Book of Common Prayer. 00:04:59.959 --> 00:05:02.660 And because the Munich Agreement spectacularly 00:05:02.660 --> 00:05:05.339 failed to prevent World War II, those four words 00:05:05.339 --> 00:05:08.459 became permanently infamous. The ultimate failed 00:05:08.459 --> 00:05:10.920 promise. The phrase goes from a sacred prayer 00:05:10.920 --> 00:05:14.459 to a political promise and finally to an absolute 00:05:14.459 --> 00:05:17.639 historical blunder. That transition to blunder 00:05:17.639 --> 00:05:20.300 is exactly what sets up the next major pattern 00:05:20.300 --> 00:05:23.529 we see. Once the phrase becomes globally recognized 00:05:23.529 --> 00:05:26.889 as this huge political failure, subsequent generations 00:05:26.889 --> 00:05:29.569 start using it, but they add a very deliberate 00:05:29.569 --> 00:05:32.009 typographic twist. They introduce skepticism. 00:05:32.129 --> 00:05:35.629 Exactly. The punctuation shift. As we move chronologically 00:05:35.629 --> 00:05:37.990 down the list of media, there is a recurring 00:05:37.990 --> 00:05:41.329 pattern that jumps right off the screen. Creators 00:05:41.329 --> 00:05:43.589 stop using the phrase as a definitive statement 00:05:43.589 --> 00:05:46.290 and start using it as a question. They literally 00:05:46.290 --> 00:05:48.589 tack a question mark onto the end of it. Yes. 00:05:49.000 --> 00:05:51.519 For example, there is a nonfiction book published 00:05:51.519 --> 00:05:55.379 in 1985 by an author named David Atkinson titled 00:05:55.379 --> 00:05:57.879 Peace in Our Time with the question arc included. 00:05:58.300 --> 00:06:01.319 We see that same typographic choice in 1991 with 00:06:01.319 --> 00:06:03.500 another nonfiction book by June Goodfield and 00:06:03.500 --> 00:06:06.060 Mary Fitzgerald, again titled Peace in Our Time. 00:06:06.199 --> 00:06:08.720 It completely flips the dynamic. The most striking 00:06:08.720 --> 00:06:10.860 example of this, because it perfectly blends 00:06:10.860 --> 00:06:13.199 this modern skepticism with the actual historical 00:06:13.199 --> 00:06:16.800 events, is a 1988 British television film. It's 00:06:16.800 --> 00:06:19.480 called True Stories, Peace in Our Time. And the 00:06:19.480 --> 00:06:22.579 casting for this is incredible. Oh my gosh, yes. 00:06:22.759 --> 00:06:25.500 Who did they cast to star as Neville Chamberlain 00:06:25.500 --> 00:06:29.180 in this 1988 film? John Cleese. Which is an incredibly 00:06:29.180 --> 00:06:32.240 pointed casting choice. Yeah. John Cleese is 00:06:32.240 --> 00:06:34.779 practically synonymous with British satire and 00:06:34.779 --> 00:06:38.459 absurdity. When you cast a legendary comedian 00:06:38.459 --> 00:06:42.560 as the architect of appeasement and you add a 00:06:42.560 --> 00:06:45.379 simple question mark to the title, it transforms 00:06:45.379 --> 00:06:48.420 the original hopeful prayer entirely. It makes 00:06:48.420 --> 00:06:51.100 it almost a joke. Right. It completely undercuts 00:06:51.100 --> 00:06:53.399 the confident political statement. I want you 00:06:53.399 --> 00:06:56.240 listening right now. to think about that dynamic. 00:06:56.439 --> 00:06:59.060 What stands out to you about how these creators 00:06:59.060 --> 00:07:01.120 view their own history? That's a great question. 00:07:01.300 --> 00:07:03.620 By adding that punctuation, they are just naming 00:07:03.620 --> 00:07:06.139 a book or a movie. They are actively engaging 00:07:06.139 --> 00:07:08.439 in a dialogue with the past. They are taking 00:07:08.439 --> 00:07:11.060 a phrase that represented naivety. and turning 00:07:11.060 --> 00:07:13.480 it against itself as a tool for critical inquiry. 00:07:13.680 --> 00:07:15.959 They're looking at their own world in the 1980s 00:07:15.959 --> 00:07:18.139 and 90s and asking, have we actually learned 00:07:18.139 --> 00:07:20.720 anything? Do we really have peace? Precisely. 00:07:20.720 --> 00:07:23.379 It becomes a diagnostic tool for their own era's 00:07:23.379 --> 00:07:25.639 geopolitical anxiety. Here's where it gets really 00:07:25.639 --> 00:07:28.110 interesting. Because while those authors and 00:07:28.110 --> 00:07:30.129 filmmakers were adding question marks and being 00:07:30.129 --> 00:07:32.810 highly analytical, the music industry took this 00:07:32.810 --> 00:07:35.189 exact same phrase and absolutely ran with it 00:07:35.189 --> 00:07:37.149 in a completely different way. Oh, the music 00:07:37.149 --> 00:07:39.829 section is wild. The wiki page has a dedicated 00:07:39.829 --> 00:07:42.209 subsection just for music and the sheer density 00:07:42.209 --> 00:07:45.029 of musical acts that adopted this phrase is staggering. 00:07:45.470 --> 00:07:48.490 But the timeline is what truly catches your eye. 00:07:48.889 --> 00:07:52.370 There is a massive, unmistakable spike in usage 00:07:52.370 --> 00:07:55.029 right around the late 1980s and throughout the 00:07:55.029 --> 00:07:57.589 1990s. It really is a tidal wave. You're looking 00:07:57.589 --> 00:08:00.850 at a clustering of usage that spans wildly different 00:08:00.850 --> 00:08:03.949 genres, all hitting at roughly the same historical 00:08:03.949 --> 00:08:06.490 moment. Let me just map out the sheer variety 00:08:06.490 --> 00:08:08.329 of artists we are talking about here because 00:08:08.329 --> 00:08:11.829 the contrast is wild. In 1984, Elvis Costello 00:08:11.829 --> 00:08:14.329 uses it as a track on his album Goodbye Cruel 00:08:14.329 --> 00:08:16.089 World. Which fits his whole aesthetic perfectly. 00:08:16.290 --> 00:08:19.370 Oh, entirely. Then jumping to 1988, you have 00:08:19.370 --> 00:08:21.629 a song by Jennifer Holliday called Peace in Our 00:08:21.629 --> 00:08:24.470 Time. And this specific track was incredibly 00:08:24.470 --> 00:08:26.490 resilient. Resilient is a great word for it. 00:08:26.550 --> 00:08:28.810 Right. It gets covered by rock singer Eddie Money 00:08:28.810 --> 00:08:31.449 just a year later in 1989. Eddie Money, yeah. 00:08:31.569 --> 00:08:34.009 And then covered again by pop legend Cliff - 00:08:34.059 --> 00:08:37.759 Richard in 1993. So it's jumping genres from 00:08:37.759 --> 00:08:40.639 R &B to rock to pop. Exactly. But the cluster 00:08:40.639 --> 00:08:42.980 gets even tighter right at the end of the decade. 00:08:43.440 --> 00:08:46.220 You have the rock band Big Country totally double 00:08:46.220 --> 00:08:49.259 dipping on the phrase. They named their 1988 00:08:49.259 --> 00:08:52.580 album Peace in Our Time and then released a title 00:08:52.580 --> 00:08:56.679 song for it in 1989. Wow. That exact same year, 00:08:56.799 --> 00:09:00.720 1989, a band named Gorky Park released a track 00:09:00.720 --> 00:09:03.059 with the same name on their self -titled album. 00:09:03.379 --> 00:09:06.299 As we push into the 90s, the alternative acts 00:09:06.299 --> 00:09:08.419 take ownership of it. Yeah, there's a band with 00:09:08.419 --> 00:09:10.500 the unforgettable name Carter, the Unstoppable 00:09:10.500 --> 00:09:13.120 Sex Machine. That's quite a name. They have a 00:09:13.120 --> 00:09:15.799 track called Peace in Our Time on a 1993 release 00:09:15.799 --> 00:09:18.889 called Peace Together. In 1995, the rock band 00:09:18.889 --> 00:09:21.669 10CC uses it on their album Mirror Mirror. If 00:09:21.669 --> 00:09:24.350 we connect this to the bigger picture, this clustering 00:09:24.350 --> 00:09:26.830 in the late 80s and early 90s is not a coincidence. 00:09:27.110 --> 00:09:29.610 No. We are talking about a very specific, highly 00:09:29.610 --> 00:09:32.129 volatile period of late 20th century history. 00:09:32.350 --> 00:09:34.889 This is the tail end of the Cold War, the period 00:09:34.889 --> 00:09:36.870 leading up to and immediately following the fall 00:09:36.870 --> 00:09:38.990 of the Berlin Wall. The tension was palpable. 00:09:39.389 --> 00:09:42.490 Exactly. What you see here is a fascinating psychological 00:09:42.490 --> 00:09:46.169 phenomenon. Artists are collectively reaching 00:09:46.169 --> 00:09:49.149 back for heavily weighted historical phrases 00:09:49.149 --> 00:09:52.269 to make sense of their own turbulent times. Let's 00:09:52.269 --> 00:09:54.490 push back on that a bit, though. When a Soviet 00:09:54.490 --> 00:09:58.070 rock band like Gorky Park uses a phrase intrinsically 00:09:58.070 --> 00:10:00.990 linked to a British prime minister's failed appeasement 00:10:00.990 --> 00:10:03.870 of Nazi Germany, are they using it ironically 00:10:03.870 --> 00:10:07.350 to mock politicians? Or is it a genuine plea 00:10:07.350 --> 00:10:09.950 for peace as the Iron Curtain is falling? That 00:10:09.950 --> 00:10:12.529 ambiguity is the true power of the phrase by 00:10:12.529 --> 00:10:14.549 this point in history. It's likely doing both 00:10:14.549 --> 00:10:17.370 simultaneously. Peace in our time carries the 00:10:17.370 --> 00:10:19.690 heavy ghost of World War II and the visceral 00:10:19.690 --> 00:10:22.450 memory of a broken promise. It's loaded. Extremely. 00:10:22.610 --> 00:10:25.649 So when an artist in 1989 uses it, they're tapping 00:10:25.649 --> 00:10:28.149 into all of that pre -existing emotional resonance. 00:10:28.190 --> 00:10:31.269 They're laying down a cynical, ironic armor over 00:10:31.269 --> 00:10:33.409 what might actually be a very genuine desire 00:10:33.409 --> 00:10:35.850 for global stability. That makes a lot of sense. 00:10:36.110 --> 00:10:38.710 It functions as a cultural shorthand for geopolitical 00:10:38.710 --> 00:10:40.629 anxiety. You don't have to explain the fear of 00:10:40.629 --> 00:10:42.610 war to your audience. You just use those four 00:10:42.610 --> 00:10:45.309 words and the audience instantly feels the historical 00:10:45.309 --> 00:10:47.809 weight. And it's a shorthand that hasn't lost 00:10:47.809 --> 00:10:50.129 its edge. Even though the biggest explosion of 00:10:50.129 --> 00:10:52.809 use was in that 80s and 90s window, the list 00:10:52.809 --> 00:10:55.769 shows that the phrase has enduring musical appeal 00:10:55.769 --> 00:10:59.210 well into the modern era. Oh, for sure. Ray Davies 00:10:59.210 --> 00:11:01.830 from the Kinks used it in 2007 on his Working 00:11:01.830 --> 00:11:04.500 Man's Cafe album. The punk band Good Riddance 00:11:04.500 --> 00:11:07.179 named their 2015 album Peace in Our Time. Punk 00:11:07.179 --> 00:11:10.200 bands love that kind of iron. Absolutely. And 00:11:10.200 --> 00:11:13.200 as recently as 2022, a music group called Globus 00:11:13.200 --> 00:11:15.919 used it for a track on their album Cinematica. 00:11:16.019 --> 00:11:19.159 The phrase just refuses to retire. It demonstrates 00:11:19.159 --> 00:11:21.860 the incredible durability of language once it 00:11:21.860 --> 00:11:24.610 becomes saturated with cultural memory. Once 00:11:24.610 --> 00:11:26.909 a specific sequence of words gets heavily charged 00:11:26.909 --> 00:11:29.149 with meaning, it becomes a permanent part of 00:11:29.149 --> 00:11:32.370 the artistic toolkit. However, it's easy to assume 00:11:32.370 --> 00:11:34.909 Chamberlain put this phrase on the map in 1938 00:11:34.909 --> 00:11:38.070 and plop culture simply remixed his blender for 00:11:38.070 --> 00:11:40.629 the next 80 years. But if we look closely at 00:11:40.629 --> 00:11:42.990 the timeline of early adopters and the more unusual 00:11:42.990 --> 00:11:45.789 items on this list, there is an anomaly that 00:11:45.789 --> 00:11:47.830 completely breaks that assumption. There is a 00:11:47.830 --> 00:11:50.809 massive anomaly hiding in the other uses section 00:11:50.809 --> 00:11:54.279 of the page. An author named Oliver. Onions published 00:11:54.279 --> 00:11:58.659 a novel titled Peace and Our Time in 1923. 1923. 00:11:58.820 --> 00:12:01.899 That is 15 years before Neville Chamberlain ever 00:12:01.899 --> 00:12:04.700 spoke those words at the Munich Agreement. That 00:12:04.700 --> 00:12:07.659 1923 novel is a fantastic piece of linguistic 00:12:07.659 --> 00:12:10.200 evidence. It proves that the phrase's earlier 00:12:10.200 --> 00:12:12.850 religious roots from the Book of Common Prayer, 00:12:13.029 --> 00:12:16.350 were already deeply embedded in the secular cultural 00:12:16.350 --> 00:12:18.470 lexicon. It wasn't just a church thing anymore. 00:12:18.750 --> 00:12:21.370 Right. It was a recognized, evocative phrase 00:12:21.370 --> 00:12:24.330 entirely independent of the political disaster 00:12:24.330 --> 00:12:27.000 it would later become synonymous with. the narrative 00:12:27.000 --> 00:12:29.940 shifts so dramatically after 1938 though the 00:12:29.940 --> 00:12:32.360 immediate reactions in the media just after the 00:12:32.360 --> 00:12:34.779 munich agreement are fascinating to track just 00:12:34.779 --> 00:12:38.500 a year later in 1939 the exact year the war begins 00:12:38.500 --> 00:12:41.059 the exact year world war ii officially begins 00:12:41.059 --> 00:12:43.799 a british film called the silent battle is released 00:12:43.799 --> 00:12:46.179 and it is alternatively known as peace in our 00:12:46.179 --> 00:12:49.299 time You can feel the heavy, devastating immediacy 00:12:49.299 --> 00:12:52.039 of that irony. It's heartbreaking, really. Millions 00:12:52.039 --> 00:12:54.419 of people are bracing for a catastrophic conflict, 00:12:54.500 --> 00:12:57.200 and a film is released bearing the title of the 00:12:57.200 --> 00:13:01.039 promise that just failed them. Then, in 1946, 00:13:01.399 --> 00:13:04.440 right after the war finally ends, the legendary 00:13:04.440 --> 00:13:07.419 playwright Noel Coward releases a play, also 00:13:07.419 --> 00:13:10.360 titled Peace in Our Time. The transition from 00:13:10.360 --> 00:13:12.480 the biting, immediate irony during the outbreak 00:13:12.480 --> 00:13:15.320 of the war to the post -war reflection of Noel 00:13:15.320 --> 00:13:18.220 Coward's stage play, is stark very different 00:13:18.220 --> 00:13:20.860 vibes you watch the phrase evolve from a fresh 00:13:20.860 --> 00:13:23.960 wound into a historical scar and as even more 00:13:23.960 --> 00:13:27.200 time passes the phrase continues to dilute eventually 00:13:27.200 --> 00:13:29.740 filtering down into light entertainment it really 00:13:29.740 --> 00:13:32.120 does the page notes it was eventually used as 00:13:32.120 --> 00:13:34.139 an episode title for a british sitcom called 00:13:34.139 --> 00:13:37.259 please sir we've gone from a solemn 16th century 00:13:37.259 --> 00:13:40.860 latin hymn to an episode title for a 1970s sitcom 00:13:40.860 --> 00:13:43.580 incredible but incredibly that is not even the 00:13:43.580 --> 00:13:45.840 strangest destination for this phrase we have 00:13:45.840 --> 00:13:47.970 to talk about the final most glaring contradiction 00:13:47.970 --> 00:13:50.330 on this entire list. This raises an important 00:13:50.330 --> 00:13:53.149 question about how completely, how ruthlessly 00:13:53.149 --> 00:13:55.629 a phrase can be stripped of its original intent. 00:13:56.269 --> 00:13:58.830 The final item we see notes that Peace in Our 00:13:58.830 --> 00:14:02.090 Time is the title of an expansion set for a war 00:14:02.090 --> 00:14:05.309 game. Yeah. Specifically, a tabletop war game 00:14:05.309 --> 00:14:08.289 called Europa. Let that sink in for a second. 00:14:08.690 --> 00:14:11.090 We are talking about a phrase that began its 00:14:11.090 --> 00:14:14.070 life as a literal, desperate prayer for peace. 00:14:14.750 --> 00:14:17.730 Give peace in our time, O Lord. It was then used 00:14:17.730 --> 00:14:20.029 by a prime minister to promise millions of terrified 00:14:20.029 --> 00:14:22.549 citizens that a devastating global war had been 00:14:22.549 --> 00:14:25.269 avoided. And today? And today, that exact same 00:14:25.269 --> 00:14:27.690 phrase is packaged, printed on a cardboard box, 00:14:27.830 --> 00:14:30.409 and sold as an expansion set for a tabletop war 00:14:30.409 --> 00:14:32.730 game, a game where the entire objective is to 00:14:32.730 --> 00:14:35.269 simulate military conflict. The irony is almost 00:14:35.269 --> 00:14:37.710 too much. It's the phrase that now ruins friendships 00:14:37.710 --> 00:14:39.750 around a dining room table on a Friday night. 00:14:39.990 --> 00:14:42.389 You honestly couldn't write a darker, more profound 00:14:42.389 --> 00:14:45.029 irony if you tried. It is the ultimate inversion 00:14:45.029 --> 00:14:49.269 of meaning. The phrase has been completely hollowed 00:14:49.269 --> 00:14:52.210 out. It takes a concept centered entirely on 00:14:52.210 --> 00:14:54.509 the preservation of human life and the desperate 00:14:54.509 --> 00:14:57.490 avoidance of conflict and turns it into a branded 00:14:57.490 --> 00:15:00.370 title for recreational warfare. It's a complete 00:15:00.370 --> 00:15:03.710 180. It perfectly encapsulates the bizarre, unpredictable 00:15:03.710 --> 00:15:06.029 journey we've been tracking. So what does this 00:15:06.029 --> 00:15:08.620 all mean? We started today by just looking at 00:15:08.620 --> 00:15:11.480 a simple bulleted list of links on a Wikipedia 00:15:11.480 --> 00:15:14.440 disambiguation page. But when you take the time 00:15:14.440 --> 00:15:16.860 to actually track the journey of these four words, 00:15:17.000 --> 00:15:20.360 you get this incredible sweeping narrative of 00:15:20.360 --> 00:15:22.759 human history. A huge narrative. It starts as 00:15:22.759 --> 00:15:25.720 a solemn Latin hymn echoing in a church. It morphs 00:15:25.720 --> 00:15:28.220 into a notorious and actually misquoted political 00:15:28.220 --> 00:15:30.700 promise made on the absolute brink of World War 00:15:30.700 --> 00:15:33.759 II. It gets questioned and interrogated by skeptical 00:15:33.759 --> 00:15:36.840 authors and filmmakers, adding deliberate punctuation. 00:15:36.940 --> 00:15:39.559 Yes, the question marks. And then it gets belted 00:15:39.559 --> 00:15:41.639 out by rock and roll bands and pop stars trying 00:15:41.639 --> 00:15:44.360 to capture the intense geopolitical anxiety of 00:15:44.360 --> 00:15:47.139 the 80s and 90s. And ultimately, it serves as 00:15:47.139 --> 00:15:50.279 a title for a tabletop war game. It's quite a 00:15:50.279 --> 00:15:53.779 resume for four words. The core value of exploring 00:15:53.779 --> 00:15:56.279 a source like this, of doing this kind of linguistic 00:15:56.279 --> 00:15:59.539 deep dive, is realizing that language is highly 00:15:59.539 --> 00:16:02.500 malleable. A phrase's meaning isn't just about 00:16:02.500 --> 00:16:04.639 who originally said it or even what they meant 00:16:04.639 --> 00:16:06.940 when they said it. It's about what we do with 00:16:06.940 --> 00:16:09.940 it later. Exactly. Meaning is ultimately dictated 00:16:09.940 --> 00:16:13.039 by how society chooses to remember it, how we 00:16:13.039 --> 00:16:16.460 reuse it, and how we remix it over time. The 00:16:16.460 --> 00:16:18.679 historical telephone game is always being played 00:16:18.990 --> 00:16:21.690 And the original contest is almost always the 00:16:21.690 --> 00:16:24.210 first casualty. And we are the ones constantly 00:16:24.210 --> 00:16:26.509 playing that game, whether we realize it or not. 00:16:26.649 --> 00:16:28.309 Which brings me to a final thought I want to 00:16:28.309 --> 00:16:30.590 leave you with today, to mull over as you go 00:16:30.590 --> 00:16:33.490 about your week. Lay it on us. Think about the 00:16:33.490 --> 00:16:35.830 viral quotes, the political catchphrases, or 00:16:35.830 --> 00:16:37.830 the quick sound bites you consume daily on the 00:16:37.830 --> 00:16:40.009 news or while scrolling through social media. 00:16:40.769 --> 00:16:43.029 How many of the historical quotes you confidently 00:16:43.029 --> 00:16:45.769 know, the ones you might even use to win an argument, 00:16:45.970 --> 00:16:48.730 are actually misquotes? Just like Chamberlain's. 00:16:48.809 --> 00:16:51.230 That's a little scary to think about. And looking 00:16:51.230 --> 00:16:54.490 forward decades from now, which of today's serious 00:16:54.490 --> 00:16:56.950 political blunders or grand declarations will 00:16:56.950 --> 00:16:59.830 end up as the title of a pop song, a sitcom episode, 00:17:00.149 --> 00:17:03.350 or a video game? At what point will the original 00:17:03.350 --> 00:17:05.849 serious context of the things being said today 00:17:05.849 --> 00:17:08.410 be completely overwritten by the pop culture 00:17:08.410 --> 00:17:11.210 of tomorrow? That is such a wild concept to wrap 00:17:11.210 --> 00:17:13.710 your head around. The things we take so incredibly 00:17:13.710 --> 00:17:16.289 seriously today might literally just be a track 00:17:16.289 --> 00:17:18.869 on an alternative rock album 50 years from now. 00:17:19.009 --> 00:17:21.789 Almost guaranteed. Thank you so much for joining 00:17:21.789 --> 00:17:24.250 us on this deep dive into the strange, winding 00:17:24.250 --> 00:17:26.890 life of peace in our time. We hope you enjoyed 00:17:26.890 --> 00:17:29.190 this unique look at how history, memory, and 00:17:29.190 --> 00:17:31.430 language collide. It's been a fun one. Keep that 00:17:31.430 --> 00:17:33.710 curiosity alive, keep questioning the quotes 00:17:33.710 --> 00:17:36.069 you hear, and we will be right back here waiting 00:17:36.069 --> 00:17:38.589 for you next time with a brand new stack of sources. 00:17:38.640 --> 00:17:39.220 to explore.