CHEWING THE PAST TOO MUCH
Nowadays Americans seem afflicted with hardening of the arteries. How else explain this senescent preoccupation with the largely meaningless detritus of the past? This morbid interest in the long ago is reflected in the steady stream of anniversary stories with which the press routinely stuffs us… All this looking back is the characteristic of a country in old age. We have in the past quarter-century started treating the past as cud, chewing and re-chewing it. Not that it nourishes us much, except in amusement and melancholy. In fact, we have re-chewed the history of World War II so exhaustively that, as Paul Fussell says in his new book, Wartime, we have turned its horror into jolly good fun. Young people look ahead to Saturday night. Anniversaries go with nodding by the fire. Russell Baker in his syndicated column of September 2, 1989
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