The Past

What does it take to iterate a quality or characteristic out of a nation?

How long would/did it take to take away the politeness from the British?
What would it take to extract the infidelity from France or the
corruption from Italy?
How long did it take gritty soaps and reality TV to turn us into
baiting slobs.. to feed us a diet of distress and voyeurism? 10 years?
20?
And is there really anywhere to go from here in "reality" that is still legal?

What would it take to take the taste of war from a generation - five
years - 50, maybe a couple of generations of peace would do it, enough
for memories to die or deny, enough to allow history to repeat. What
does it take to forget? And when it is not something you have
personally remembered, is forget even the right word?

When do we sit back and resolve who we actually are, what we actually
want of the new, and what we sufficiently respect and admire in the
old to try to remember, relearn, or reincorporate?