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Do you feel pressured to wear a poppy?

Poll

Do you feel pressured to wear a poppy?

With Remembrance Day coming up once again, do you feel like you HAVE to wear a poppy just because everyone else is? For many people who have little or no relation to WW1 and other battles/conflicts, it can seem quite 'intimidating' when people are asking you why you aren't wearing a poppy. I'll be wearing one out of respect but I personally don't have any connection to WW1. Any thoughts?

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Reply 1
Avatar for Juno
Juno
20
I lost my poppy :-(

Posted from TSR Mobile
Nope, haven't worn one in years.
Reply 3
Avatar for Clip
Clip
19
Original post by lightningdoritos
With Remembrance Day coming up once again, do you feel like you HAVE to wear a poppy just because everyone else is? For many people who have little or no relation to WW1 and other battles/conflicts, it can seem quite 'intimidating' when people are asking you why you aren't wearing a poppy. I'll be wearing one out of respect but I personally don't have any connection to WW1. Any thoughts?


Except on TSR, I have never heard of anyone asking why a person isn't wearing one. Usually it's the other way around - people being interrogated as to why they are.
Nah, I find the nationalist undertones distasteful.
In my school the headteacher basically forces all teachers, the head boy and girl plus all house captains to wear a poppy. I wear one anyway but I don't agree with how he does it..
Reply 6
Avatar for AdamCee
AdamCee
18
At school we must wear poppies or face detentions - "uniform detentions" as they call them.

If it wasn't for that, no I wouldn't wear one
I don't feel pressured to wear one and I don't pressure anyone else to wear one, but I don't see why it is an issue to wear one because it's part of our (Britain's) history, a very sad part of our history and men died to help our country, which has indirectly helped us even if we don't have any direct links to either world wars. God knows what life could've been like now...
I don't see the point. They usually just fall of and then they get trampled on.

How is that supposed to be respectful?
I definitely feel the pressure. At my school, we're all made to attend a remembrance assembly, two minutes silence, we even have a remembrance garden; the whole nine yards. One of the year twelves I'm friends with got on my back about why I wasn't wearing one the other day, and I'm always hearing the "oh I must go out and get a poppy" from around the Sixth. But no matter what, I refuse to wear one. I have no connections to WW1, and I don't feel it has a general significance to the modern world. It was the first world war, sure, but its events are (and quite rightly are) overshadowed by those of WW2. That, and I have my own personal views on what actually classes as a "hero" and who I'll pay my respects to. We don't sit around remembering the civil war or anything like that anymore, so why should we still bother with a war that was over a hundred years ago, now.
Reply 10
Avatar for Boople
Boople
10
Yes, our school forces us to buy and wear one, and many people who I know think of you as disrespectful if you don't wear one. I will wear one out of respect, but I do disagree with how Remembrance day has been made to be a somewhat nationalistic and war-glorifying event by the media and politicians, rather than being about peace and helping those who have suffered due to war.
Original post by lightningdoritos
With Remembrance Day coming up once again, do you feel like you HAVE to wear a poppy just because everyone else is? For many people who have little or no relation to WW1 and other battles/conflicts, it can seem quite 'intimidating' when people are asking you why you aren't wearing a poppy. I'll be wearing one out of respect but I personally don't have any connection to WW1. Any thoughts?


Nobody should make you wear one.

However, it's naïve to think it's about something that doesn't affect you. We're extremely lucky to be living in a rare period of peace (meaning all our current battles are abroad). Most of the people who died in the world wars were average teenagers, most of whom had no choice, either through conscription or social pressure. It could easily be you, except you were born in the 'right time'.

In fact, this is exactly the reason we should wear poppies. If you aren't forced to think about the deeply personal side of war and death, they become abstract ideas that happen to 'someone else'. If people start thinking like that, there's very little to stop it happening again.
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by Octohedral
Nobody should make you wear one.

However, it's naïve to think it's about something that doesn't affect you. We're extremely lucky to be living in a rare period of peace (meaning all our current battles are abroad). Most of the people who died in the world wars were average teenagers, most of whom had no choice, either through conscription or social pressure. It could easily be you, except you were born in the 'right time'.

In fact, this is exactly the reason we should wear poppies. If you aren't forced to think about the deeply personal side of war and death, they become abstract ideas that happen to 'someone else'. If people start thinking like that, there's very little to stop it happening again.


Did you forget about The Blitz before you edited that? :teehee: I'm sure it said "hundred years of peace" right before I quoted you to mention it. Unless I imagined it, in which case it must be time for bed.
Original post by herondale
I have no connections to WW1, and I don't feel it has a general significance to the modern world. It was the first world war, sure, but its events are (and quite rightly are) overshadowed by those of WW2.


Remembrance Sunday marks armistice day, but it's official purpose is to remember both world wars and all later conflicts. It's about war, not about 'the war'.

Nonetheless, you have a right not to wear it if you choose.
Original post by Drunk Punx
Did you forget about The Blitz before you edited that? :teehee: I'm sure it said "hundred years of peace" right before I quoted you to mention it. Unless I imagined it, in which case it must be time for bed.


No, no - I edited it. Forgot about WW2. :tongue:

Actually, the UK has technically been at war continuously for over 100 years, but not on UK soil (unless you count Northern Ireland).
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/ng-interactive/2014/feb/11/britain-100-years-of-conflict
No. I don't need to wear a symbol to remember that the World Wars happened. And people pressuring me? I haven't noticed any.
I've never felt pressured to wear one but I do just because I want to think about the people that fought in WW1 and have in other wars since then. It's a nice idea imo, but people shouldn't be forced to wear them if they don't want to.


Posted from TSR Mobile
I don't give a **** and never will lol
I wear one simply because I know that if I were alive in Nazi Germany during WWII I'd be getting sent to a concentration camp lol. Although I would have preferred to wear white, they weren't selling them in my nearest town :/

and yes I am aware that it's in commemoration of WWI but in practice every ceremony I have gone to commemorates any fallen soldier in any of the major 20th/21st century conflicts. We don't actually have a 2 minute silence for WWII so Remembrance Sunday still has its place.
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by bittr n swt
I don't give a **** and never will lol


2edgy4Churchill

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