Chances are if you’ve been anywhere near a newsstand in the past month you’ve already seen approximately 14,000 articles reminiscing about the last decade.

Even though we as a society still haven’t settled on a name for the past 10 years (my vote goes for either the “naughties” or the “zilches”), we’re still obsessed with pouring over them with a fine-toothed comb.

It’s not exactly a huge surprise when the wave of these articles come out every year — top 10 retrospective lists, like new year’s resolutions, are just a natural part of late December and early January.

While this may be seen as a good thing — after all, those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it — I can’t help but wonder if we’re just paying lip service to the events of the past decade without learning any of its lessons. And if there’s any decade we should be learning lessons from, it’s the most recent one.

We saw several notable examples of terrorism across the globe, a recession the West is still reeling from, countless scientific and technological advancements, and that’s only scratching the surface.

Even though it’s hard to tell just how important some of these events will be once we’re able to examine them in a historical context, the chances of events such as 9/11 or the war in Afghanistan not having far-reaching implications in the future is minimal.

However, the vast majority of retrospective lists have glossed over these momentous events. Instead of an examination of what it will mean for Canada if the Conservative party chooses to prorogue Parliament every year, we get articles like Maclean’s “Top 10 Political Gaffes of the Decade.” South of the border, the New York Times simplifies the past decade even further — putting together a minimalist chart which lists the torture of prisoners at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison alongside the emersion of the buzzword “meh” and the release of Wii.

One would hope with an entire decade to cover, media publications could devote some space into examining how events 10 years ago have translated into current affairs, but for the most part publications feature shallow commentary.

Our society has been heading in this direction for quite some time now. The attention-deficient manner by which we consume our media and live our lives often avoids any opportunity for critical thought. Our fondness for soundbites and multitasking means events often aren’t analyzed in larger contexts. If society chooses to only give its past mistakes a cursory examination, then how will it progress? It may be easier to watch a 20-second video clip than read a comprehensive article, but that clip won’t be able to provide any critical analysis.

Unfortunately, there isn’t exactly a clear means to solve this problem. Most of the behaviours that result in this aversion to details are so deeply ingrained in broader society it would be hard to change things. As it stands, the current system of skimming the surface of daily events only leads to apathy, a state that carries its own dangers.

Hopefully in the new decade our society will start to swing back in the other direction. The tremendous upheaval felt across the globe over the events of the last 10 years may indeed translate into a population more interested in the long-term effects of their actions and, as a result, an increased literacy in current events and their place in the world’s broader history.