Thread by @dcpetterson

There was a unit of time used by the ancient Etruscans called the saeculum. It is the period from when an important event happens, until the last person who remembers it dies.

It's similar to the concept of "living memory."

We are nearing the end of the WW2 saeculum.

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Fascism could not again take hold until the people who clearly remember its horrors are no longer with us. That explains why Trump and Putin are world players today.

See the importance of the saeculum?

We need to bring this unit of time back into common thought.

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In WW2, Americans sacrificed food, fuel, consumer goods, even their lives to help a war effort thousands of miles away. Today, we whine over the price of gas. We've forgotten what sacrifice is.

This is the importance of forgetting the importance of things.

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Far-right propaganda has led a significant portion of Americans to believe wearing a piece of cloth on one's face to protect others from a deadly pandemic is an invasion of "freedom." They have no clue what it truly means to lose one's freedom.

Ukrainians do.

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It has been nearly as long since WW2 as the time between the Civil War and Pearl Harbor. It was only ten years longer from the American Revolution to the Civil War.

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The time separating these four events--the Revolution, the Civil War, WW2, and TrumPutinism--is, in each case, a saeculum. Living memory died. Horrors returned.

There's a reason we don't learn from history. Memory dies.

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PS The word "sacrifice" is from Latin, "sacri-" (sacred) + "-ifice" (to make). Something sacrificed is made sacred.

Whenever you give something up to help others, that is a sacred act.

Pay more for gas. Don't bitch about it.

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