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About this quote

What does it mean?
Vidal suggests that the American public forgets history, allowing leaders to act without consequence.
In plain terms
He says we do not learn from the past because we do not remember it.
What can you take from it?
Collective amnesia enables poor leadership.

Where it applies

  • critiques of public ignorance
  • historical analysis
  • political commentary

Putting it to work

  • study historical cycles
  • promote civic education
  • critique media narratives

Questions to consider

  • Why do societies forget history?
  • How does memory affect politics?

Another view

Many people do remember history, but it is often ignored by leaders.

More from Gore Vidal

  1. Congress no longer declares war or makes budgets. So that's the end of the constitution as a working machine.

    Permalink to quote #41
  2. We have ceased to be a nation under law but instead a homeland where the withered Bill of Rights, like a dead trumpet vine, clings to our pseudo-Roman columns.

    Permalink to quote #43
  3. The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is monotheism. From a barbaric Bronze Age text known as the Old Testament, three anti-human religions…

    Permalink to quote #40

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