The Culture of Short-term Memory Loss

How the current media landscape has led to widespread political and cultural amnesia, and what that means for people's general ability to orient themselves and their thinking in the wider world.

The internet, social media, and the endless, super-fast flow of information have created a splintered and fractured information landscape. An environment constructed from the never-ending presentation and performance of any and all aspects of culture, life experiences, and history, creating a stultifying, machine-gun-fire drumbeat of impressions that bombard our senses. We have become accustomed to the constant expectation, and increasingly, the obligatory ritual, of taking a stance or forming an opinion on everything, and that everything, even the smallest utterance or opinion, necessarily reflects on our entire being and value system. The pressure this has, along with the incessant barrage of input, has led to a numbness and disorientation. When looking through various social media and the inevitable rancor and idiocy in the comments, it becomes clear that a phenomenon of short-term memory loss has crept in, where many fail to remember major historical markers, even fairly recent ones, or are unable to make basic connections between events and cultural phenomena that were once considered obvious. This lack of orientation within the fabric of society, culture, and time necessarily leads to an insufficient understanding of how to navigate reality with purposeful agency and is therefore more easily exploited by malicious actors.

The last 15-odd years saw the steady growth of the internet as the marketplace of ideas, with what is deemed as “old news media” currently on its last legs. Digital platforms are now inhabiting the space as the main source of historical and cultural information and reference, and what was once a marketplace is quite clearly now a battleground. This complete digitalization of the information landscape, and its current, permanent state of overload, has far-reaching consequences as it necessarily shapes how knowledge flows and is received. We now exist in an ever-repeating present where only the newest and most recent impression is the most pertinent, and armies of actors vie for this temporary position of importance, presenting their opinions on history as fact and relitigating and reinterpreting causes and effects, often with an eye on some contemporary, short-term regional political gain. This has led to the dissolution of people’s ability to make and maintain connections, whereupon they should be able to build further knowledge and critical thinking. Right now, we exist in a permanent moment of “gotcha” and vibes – and we are all the worse off for it.

Scroll through social media on any given day, and you will inevitably stumble across accounts posting about historical, geopolitical, and cultural events, presenting background information about them, and situating or elaborating on their ramifications – sometimes to a lesser, sometimes to a larger degree. This comes in many guises and runs the gamut from pure comedy (though based on historical fact) to real attempts at highlighting specific events and cultural currents. The problem, though, is that there is no differentiation between the two, nor are there any distinctions made between pages, blogs, or sites run by actual academics versus those run by enthusiasts of history, art, music, or [fill in the blank of whatever people obsess about, aka anything]. The results of this should be known to everyone because we live in a world that is mercilessly shaped by this information ecosystem. What social media cultivated, the podcast environment turned into weaponizable fact-adjacent opinion, or “takes” as they’re known.

The effects of these takes are doubly negative. Firstly, and given a large enough audience, an observation or reinterpretation of events by a random individual can have the impact of generational truth and be the grounds upon which certain perspectives are accepted at face value or their reason for existence questioned. Secondly, a legitimate piece of scholarship can always be dismissed as just another take, or simply the opinion of a biased or slighted academic. The flattening of the informational landscape, or democratization as Silicon Valley likes to call it, creates oceans out of which billions of people seek to understand the world. Multiply this by all the academics in the world, all the enthusiasts, and all the regular people musing out loud, expressing opinions, or passing on anecdotes, combined with the fact that this happens 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and you have today’s cultural-historical cacophonous maelstrom.

An individual wading into this mess, armed with whatever educational structure and tradition they were raised with, is then relentlessly bombarded by this. The daily turbulence of information, re-introducing, reframing, re-platforming – sometimes out of genuine interest or love of the subject matter; often with the express intention of muddying waters, sowing dissent towards an accepted narrative, or pushing a more fundamental ideology – then triggers a renewed discourse, a constant rehashing and outlining and putting forward of people’s various perspectives. Historically related events, cultural milestones, or movements are discussed ad nauseam, with consensus increasingly slipping away, save for those people who agree because of a common ideology or cultural background. This has created a political amnesia, where we forget or reframe events, ideas, and figures to better suit our contemporary anxieties. As these events and people then get turned into free-floating talking points, untethered from a historical reality, we become trapped in an ever-present now, rediscovering the same histories, cultural artifacts, arguing over the same points, knowing less and less about context and causes. These culturally aggregated and flattened products (social media content being a product) mean that the existence of deeper, and extremely pertinent, connections and relationships between histories and cultures is forgotten or overlooked, contributing to a loss of epistemological depth.

In the past, certain agreed, though disputed, narratives stood at the center of societal discourse. Monolithic media was a guarded space, talking points were vetted and controlled, and the consensus was harder to breach. At the same time, it provided a larger target around which to rally an opposition and create alliances. A narrative considered false could be challenged in an organized way, disputed, and, perhaps after a lengthy battle, overturned. Now, over time, the feedback loop of continuous rehashing of historical certainties and the stagnation of culture has chipped away at certain fundamental societal narratives, and we have arrived at a moment where seemingly “anything goes,” which, unfortunately, is also the playground of authoritarianism. The amnesia that we currently suffer from means we lack a necessary comprehension of historical, political, economic, and cultural causes and effects. People now gravitate to the explanations that best suit their worldview, and with them, the events and ideas they see as the truly relevant and feasible. If you do not have a proper grasp on which events in the past were at the root of similar phenomena, you might not fully understand the full scale of the dynamics at play. As such, it will be hard to even agree on the reasons for a problem, making agreeing on a solution essentially inconceivable, and forging alliances near impossible.

The most glaringly obvious of these disputations at the current moment are the attempts by an increasing number of actors to relitigate the legacies of Nazi Germany as well as that of the transatlantic slave trade. These are two of the most dumbfounding examples, but there are dozens more. Banking on the fact that the internet is open to literally anyone, actors retell histories with an eye on swaying the official accounts further away from these narratives. Whether generational or geographical, people’s distance from the events makes it easier to argue against once-established perspectives. So, in countries with former dictatorships that were never subjected to large-scale warfare, the extent to which these regimes tortured and killed can be downplayed as the generations who lived through them slowly age and die. For a case such as Germany, where the effects of war cannot be ignored since every city had to be built anew after 1945, the narrative can be challenged in terms of just how evil or widespread Nazism actually was, or by highlighting the causes of its rise or the plight of regular German people during and after the war. The line of argumentation that seeks to downplay “how bad” any one event or system was, or to highlight certain perceived benefits that parts of a population might have had, is used repeatedly, applied to slavery, colonial rule, genocides, massacres, and the entire spectrum of totalitarian systems. Over and over again, people “discover” some fact that is upheld in isolation and magnified to give the impression that it has somehow been buried by some mysterious cabal. Beyond the fact that this fosters doubt in the most basic of truths, it also erodes trust in any overarching consensus. It leaves people unable to move beyond the bare knowing of facts, meaning that they are stripped of the basic skills of comprehension, analysis, categorization, and the subsequent integration of information into a body of knowledge that exists beyond their initial knee-jerk emotional response. People are thereby encouraged to cobble together their personal interpretation of regional, national, and global histories – these inevitably become the ones they feel most comfortable with. Every other piece of new information is then contrasted with this worldview and included or attacked accordingly. Any individual can then reinterpret the world as they wish and apply this to their current personal politics.

Culturally, the clamor of millions of voices, images, and pieces of art, crying out for attention every second, has flattened all creative lineages and any deeper meaning. The endless void of content into which everything spills is untethered from influences, trajectories, or the interconnectedness between approaches. These can, of course, be known and studied, and continue to be, but they do not present themselves to the world in the way they once did. Without centralized, agreed-upon nodes of communication, culture becomes content that is spread thin and retread on millions of different channels. Everything continues to bubble up and be rediscovered as if completely new. While democratizing to a certain degree and ignoring the blatantly exploitative nature of the platforms these channels exist on, the disorientation this engenders structures an environment that slowly saps integral aspects of meaning from the various creative pursuits. Being able to dip in and out of culture, try it on for size, wear it as an accessory to one’s individualized brand presented on social media, means less personal investment, less inclination to be wed to the histories and reasons for phenomena being the way they are. This does not make today’s culture lesser as such, but it does make it very much different. Existing solely in the now, without the connotations, means forgoing aspects of the intended meaning – aspects that can be crucial in understanding why things were created in the first place. This is the cultural amnesia we live with today. Taking these things on and incorporating them into further creativity without understanding their actual nature then becomes an act of mere remixing, lacking a true connection to the humanity these things can, and do, represent. It may sound like gatekeeping, but understanding what inspired certain art, music, or even traditions can be essential to comprehending their place in the world as well as our own.

Not knowing why certain artistic schools, musical genres, or architectural styles appear as they do means not fully understanding their positioning in the society of their day, their influences, which in turn means having no feel for the specific politics and cultural trends of the time and region that led to these creative pursuits emerging as they did. Everything we see in our societies is awash with cultural signifiers that are entirely dependent on historical, cultural, and societal references. Not being able to see this means not fully understanding the creative intent of the people involved and a potential complete lack or misinterpretation of meaning. Stumbling onto a piece of art, music, or local tradition without context does not necessarily mean a lack of appreciation, but it does mean a limited range of appreciation beyond how it relates to you and your tastes now. It’s another aesthetic to be added to one’s collection, or a collectible with which to signal one’s own sophistication. Contrast this to approaching culture on its own terms, having to understand its history, its place, and you are made to enter another world, as opposed to simply plugging it into yours. You can then learn the connections that led to its existence, you can understand the pressures that are reflected in it, and the symbols and languages it carries and embodies. Making full sense of it necessitates a growth of understanding and knowledge on your part and expands the potential for making connections and moving beyond one’s own limited experience of the world and the present moment. Overall, not understanding the depth of culture, which often includes humor, social critique, and insight into the human condition over the millennia, has major consequences for a population’s media literacy. Not being able to make these connections means not being able to use this inheritance fully, to engage with a wider world without the full arsenal of previous generations at your disposal.

The downsides to a lack of cultural and political literacy or memory should be fairly apparent. We seem to be steering towards a stultifying dead-end, the negative consequences of which include the neutering effect it has on our overall intellect. Our current culture is based on our goldfish memory and knee-jerk reaction to any positive or negative new input. Continuously having to rehash and discuss what came before means never moving beyond the moment. Monolithic media institutions are obviously not the answer, but a healthy consensus, as well as a challenge thereof, is part of a functioning society. Just as much as it is to call bullshit when it arises, and, unfortunately for our time, to call batshit on what are truly insane opinions and attempts to destabilize. The digital and new technologies don’t necessarily need to be the enemy, but can just as easily be another tool to be incorporated. It would be wise to step away from the all-or-nothing of torching everything that has come before and going all in on whatever the newest technology, critical approach, or phenomenon is. It is always necessary to understand the interconnectedness of things, not just in terms of politics or culture. Building and expanding knowledge structures with the best and most appropriate tools and structures available means stabilizing and strengthening oneself for the battles ahead.