Constant information - and nothing remembered by Neal Gabler

Santayana probably wouldn’t be surprised by a society that hasn’t learned from its past. That was, after all, the point of his quotation. But one wonders what he would make of a society that can’t even remember its past - a society that thinks every problem suddenly springs up anew and has no memory to tell it how it used to cope. That society is déjà vu all over again. And that society is ours.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/11/26/constant_information___and_nothing_remembered/

via Marc

Also see this quote from Tony Judt about the idea "that the past has nothing of interest to teach us. Ours, we insist, is a new world; its risk and opportunities are without precedent."