Do You Know Who I Feel Sorry For? / He Do the Policemen in Different Voices

I am thinking of historians who will have to document this time period--perhaps 100 or 200 years in the future. Despite the fact that digital archiving is improving at break-neck speeds, I can't imagine the difficulty of trying to construct a narrative from sifting through the words of a society who is being crushed under massive, enforced documentation. As I read earlier in a lecture given by Margaret Thatcher in 1968:

"Consider our relations with government departments. We start as a birth certificate, attract a maternity grant, give rise to a tax allowance and possibly a family allowance, receive a national health number when registered with a doctor, go to one or more schools where educational records are kept, apply for an educational grant, get a job, start paying national insurance and tax, take out a television and a driving license, buy a house with a mortgage, pay rates, buy a few premium bonds, take out life assurance, purchase some shares, get married, start the whole thing over again, receive a pension and become a death certificate and death grant, and the subject of a file in the Estate Duty Office! Every one of these incidents will require a form or give rise to some questions, or be recorded in some local or national government office. The amount of information collected in the various departments must be fabulous. Small wonder that life really does seem like 'one damned form after another.'"

Not only that, but so many people can and do choose to air or at least write down their thoughts, feelings, and everything else. From the trivial to the momentous, from the sacred to the profane--we save so much. They will probably look at it and say (in whatever language they're on), "Quantity over quality."

In my own project right now, I face some subjects who had no reason or inclination to speak, or were not allowed, or did not seem to warrant mention from others. While that presents its own set of challenges, imagining the sheer number of journals fraught with personal fears, e-mail about imminent evenings, and pointless blog entries (rather like this one!) that are part of the archival materials of our generation, I feel much more warmly than I once did to my corner of eighteenth century England.