Are we losing our collective memory?

YouTuber Mark Dice takes his microphone and camera to places like college campuses or the beach and asks questions like, "who did the U.S. fight in the Revolutionary War?" Or "what century was WWII in?" The answers are hilarious and show a total lack of knowledge of American History. But a few years ago, he asked a question that unfortunately was more sad than funny!

He and his camera went to a local beach and asked people on the street, "what were we celebrating on Memorial Day?" The answers were embarrassing, everything from surfers in Hawaii to we don't celebrate that holiday in Chicago. Another surprising aspect of this was that some of the people replied, "they really didn't care what the holiday was about." It wasn't important enough for them to even want to know.

There are a lot of obvious dangers here. There have been over 1 million Americans who gave their lives since, and including, our Revolutionary War. If our collective memory is losing this fact, how can we depend on the next generation to defend the values that make our Country great?

George Santayana once said, "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." We tend to make the same mistakes over and over again as individuals, and our track record isn't any better as individual nations. But add to this a total lack of knowledge of who we are and how we've gotten here. Is it important for us to know our collective experience as a nation and our trials and tribulations in this crazy world? Most definitely, and there is a price to pay if we lose our collective memory!

Marty Pay is a contributing writer for The Loop newspaper. He can be reached at Marty Pay Farmers Insurance (661) 822-3737.