As a Society, We Keep "Forgetting" The Most Important Lessons. It's Intentional.
We're the memory rebels.
Today, I’m thinking about that little pen from Men in Black. If you saw something you weren’t supposed to, you got flashed. Then Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones would give you a much safer, believable story to explain any remaining strangeness. It was funny until it wasn’t. There’s no memory zapper, but there’s something almost as good. It’s called collective amnesia. Or social amnesia. Or social forgetting. It has a lot of different names, but it’s the same thing.
It’s the will to forget.
As we speak, corporations are obliterating entire archives from the internet. States are banning history textbooks. Politicians and media outlets are actively reshaping our memories of recent events. The public seems happy to play along. For many of us, it’s downright infuriating to watch politicians and talking heads lead the public through the same cycle of mistakes, over and over again. Lately, it feels like the vast majority of everyone we know never learns a lesson. In fact, it often feels like they don’t want to learn. When they do, they wish they hadn’t.
Well, it’s not just in your head.
It’s a thing.