Against remembrance. Must we deform the past in order to preserve it? -- What is collective memory actually good for? -- The victory of memory over history -- Forgiveness and forgetting -- The memory of wounds and other safe harbors -- Amor fati -- Against remembrance.
Summary:
"The conventional wisdom about historical memory is summed up in George Santayanás celebrated phrase, ́Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.́ Today, the consensus that it is moral to remember, immoral to forget, is nearly absolute. And yet is this right? David Rieff, an independent writer who has reported on bloody conflicts in Africa, the Balkans, and Central Asia, insists that things are not so simple. He poses hard questions about whether remembrance ever truly has, or indeed ever could, ́inoculaté the present against repeating the crimes of the past. He argues that rubbing raw historical woundśwhether self-inflicted or imposed by outside forceśneither remedies injustice nor confers reconciliation. If he is right, then historical memory is not a moral imperative but rather a moral optiońsometimes called for, sometimes not. Collective remembrance can be toxic. Sometimes, Rieff concludes, it may be more moral to forget. Ranging widely across some of the defining conflicts of modern timeśthe Irish Troubles and the Easter Uprising of 1916, the white settlement of Australia, the American Civil War, the Balkan wars, the Holocaust, and 9/11́Rieff presents a pellucid examination of the uses and abuses of historical memory. His contentious, brilliant, and elegant essay is an indispensable work of moral philosophy." -- publisher
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