Sadly, you might be on to something. My biggest fear is that here we are 800 years later, living in what appears to be a constitutional republic, led by a few hundred "representatives."
What happens in the next few decades when our schools stop teaching the foundational elements of our society? What happens when kids no longer read anything older than 20th century literature? What happens when the parts of society who now espouse ideas such as, "Jesus Christ was alive SO long ago, he can't POSSIBLY be relevant anymore" or "the First Amendment only guaranteed freedom to make newspapers, not freedom on the Internet?"
We're circling the drain folks, and without a colossal shift in the way society functions, we're going to wind up a dogear in the history books.
I was in Argosy Books in NY and overheard the lady in charge of old prints (aged 50) express surprise bordering on shock when informed by a graduate student clerk (aged 25) that people still read and discussed Adam Smith. To this woman, someone who lived and wrote so long ago couldn’t be relevant today. (The young graduate student was incredulous at this woman’s reaction, which I took as a good sign.)
All nations do.