I read these words, “collective amnesia” in a review by Michael Kimmelman in the Arts & Ideas section of the N.Y. Times this morning on p. A17.  It was used in connection with German responses to the horror pictures of the Allied bombing of cities and the record of death left behind when the planes flew back to their bases in England.  I think many of us conspire jointly to selectively forget about a myriad of uncomfortable things and become amnesiacs.

What are some of the things WE choose to forget?  Somehow, the vast majority of Americans have forgotten the way our current and future president was selected by a Conservative Supreme Court. Americans have gotten over the scare they received when four airplanes were taken over by terrorists and brilliantly brought down two trade towers, damaged the pentagon and killed thousands within moments. We have also forgotten the rosy glint a huge surplus of money owned by ALL of us (this is probably an understatement) had in our eyes when President William Jefferson Clinton left office.  We have not been allowed to forget HIS infidelities as a disqualification for being listed among one of the best leaders our country has had.

WE choose to forget hard times.  As a child, I was born just before the Great Depression and I lived through times that marked my thoughts and behavior and, perhaps, made me a timorous frightened person needing security and avoiding taking risks throughout my life.  WE choose to remember only the “good old days” of our childhood and it did not matter if those days were lived through poverty and hardships.  WE shared them with friends although when remembering, we choose to forget the bad conditions that colored everything and were, well - home.

WE choose to forget the background for many of the scenes enacted on the stage of history. Some whole countries and nations of peoples choose to forget how permission given to the Jews, remnants of the Holocaust, to establish a nation for the first time in over two thousand years. They choose to forget how peoples surrounding “Palestine” used the “Palestinians” as excuses to try to eradicate Israel as a nation and Jews as a people.  They forget Hitler. They forget World Wars.

WE choose not to see the hungry and the homeless.  WE choose to love the pictures of cute animals and children featured in the media, for these things make us smile and forget the dross and the uncomfortable. WE have COLLECTIVE AMNESIA instead of choosing to remember.