Historical amnesia and the Great Depression

I was born in 1936, too late to have any memory of the Great Depression, but my thinking has been shaped by my parents’ stories of life in the 1930s.  Very few Americans have living memories of that era, and the number is dwindling of those who, like me, have second-hand memories.

It is lack of historical memory that makes our President and Congress so willing to dispense with the firewalls and safety nets that were created in the 1930s and 1940s to buffer against another Great Depression.   It is lack of historical memory that makes we the people so undisturbed by the recreation of the conditions that led up to the Great Depression—irresponsible financial speculation, rising debt, concentration of wealth in a few hands.

I don’t think there will be another Great Depression exactly like the first.  But there is a saying attributed to the philosopher Hegel:  Whatever has happened, can happen.  The Great Depression happened.  There is nothing to stop another one from happening except human action.

Tags: Great Depression, Historical amnesia