Remember Remember

This is an interesting passage from Alan Bennett's History Boys about the purpose of memorial day. I am not sure of the degree to which I agree with Irwin, but Irwin would appreciate his lesson taken as a thought exercise and not the truth.

Scripps: But it’s all true.

Irwin: What has that got to do with it? What has that got to do with anything? Let’s go back to 1914 and I’ll put you a different case. Try this for size. Germany does not want war and if there is an arms race it is Britain who is leading it. Though there’s no reason why we should want war. Nothing in it for us. Better stand back and let Germany and Russia fight it out while we take the imperial pickings. These are facts. Why do we not care to acknowledge them? The cattle, the body count. We still don’t like to admit the war was even partly our fault because so many of our people died. A photograph on every mantelpiece. And all this mourning has veiled the truth. It’s not so much lest we forget, as lest we remember. Because you should realise that so far as the Cenotaph and the Last Post and all that stuff is concerned, there’s no better way of forgetting something that by commemorating it.