Democracy in America III

In his section about the "administrative instability in the US" de Tocqueville talks about how newspapers are the only records which people can learn about the past from.  He even says "I have no doubt that in fifty years' times it will be harder to collect authentic documents about the details of social life in modern America than about French medieval administration..." (pg. 207).  In this case I think he's referring less to the possibility of better technology and more to the fact that society seems to have the tendency to care less and less about history and the past events of their country and care more and more about the future and looking ahead rather than behind.  He states "Nobody bothers about what was done before his time" (pg. 208).  I agree, but also disagree with de Tocqueville here.  For once I feel like something he's saying is actually somewhat wrong.  I feel like we've, as a society, become more and more aware of the past and what we can learn from it, especially the past of the United States.  The fact that we're reading de Tocqueville's book in 2011 and examining which parts of it are still relevant today is an example of the way we strive to be aware and conscious of the past while learning from the mistakes of other human beings.  I think that's really important to think about and constantly be doing today when it's so easy to dream for the future.  Not that dreaming is bad, but our present is also the future place of someone else's dream.
This section of de Tocqueville's also made me think about how everything is recorded when it comes to the government today.  Like do we have every congressional session on file somewhere?  It'd be interesting to see just how much work goes into the simple task of recording the present for those in the future.  De Tocqueville would certainly be surprised if he could see the technology we have today and how easy it actually would be to find information both about "social life in modern America" and "French medieval administration."