national amnesia

noun

A nationwide loss of memories about an event, time or cultural phenomenon.

“The country seems to have a national amnesia about its past.”

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Meanings

noun
  1. A nationwide loss of memories about an event, time or cultural phenomenon.

    The country seems to have a national amnesia about its past.

    3 more examples

    […]I don't want to remember, black people don't want to remember, white people don't want to remember. I mean, it's national amnesia.

    1989, Toni Morrison, The Pain Of Being Black, Time

    Let us not suffer from a national amnesia that causes us to forget who and what we are.

    1996, Meir Kahane, Or hara'ayon = The Jewish idea, →OCLC

    […] for its subjects to be able to forget the history of bloody conquest and empire-building if they are to partake in a collective identity as members of such sovereignty. But such collective, national amnesia—at both the individual and the national levels—is precisely what Kundera takes issue with[…]

    2018, Vincent J. Cheng, Amnesia and the Nation: History, Forgetting, and James Joyce, Palgrave Macmillan, →ISBN, page 20
Cite this entry
APA

national amnesia. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/national%20amnesia

MLA

“national amnesia.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/national%20amnesia. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “national amnesia,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/national%20amnesia.

Source: national amnesia on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.