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This is a good read and it should provoke thought. Because it is funny how some can tie the past to today in all kinds of instances, quote lines from long dead people, or clamor for a return to some past society; yet if the same past is mentioned relative to how things were for anyone not white, then it is wrong to talk about the past, because a person should not live in the past.
Memory and justice are intricately linked. To adequately address historical wrongs, contemporary liberal democra- cies must engage the past. Historical memory provides a connective tissue between past wrongs and present injus- tices. Without the agony of historical memory, liberal societies slide into a politics of national forgetting, where the innocence of the present is affirmed through a dis- avowal of the past.
We might think of the politics of memory in terms of a two-step process. The first step involves acknowl- edging the existence of past injustices as well as their causal connection to the present. The second step, in turn, involves paying attention to the narrative practices by which past injustices are given collective meaning. Put differently, the first step might be understood as the ques- tion of whether we remember historical injustices or instead slide into the “politics of forgetting” or a condi- tion of “national amnesia” (Behdad 2005; Wolin 1990, 32–46). 1 Once a collectivity has actually acknowledged the past, the second step involves the question of how we remember historical injustice, which in turn affects how we conduct politics in the present.
Hopefully you guys take the time to read the 10 pages at some point and don't come with the usual stuff. But...
Memory and justice are intricately linked. To adequately address historical wrongs, contemporary liberal democra- cies must engage the past. Historical memory provides a connective tissue between past wrongs and present injus- tices. Without the agony of historical memory, liberal societies slide into a politics of national forgetting, where the innocence of the present is affirmed through a dis- avowal of the past.
We might think of the politics of memory in terms of a two-step process. The first step involves acknowl- edging the existence of past injustices as well as their causal connection to the present. The second step, in turn, involves paying attention to the narrative practices by which past injustices are given collective meaning. Put differently, the first step might be understood as the ques- tion of whether we remember historical injustices or instead slide into the “politics of forgetting” or a condi- tion of “national amnesia” (Behdad 2005; Wolin 1990, 32–46). 1 Once a collectivity has actually acknowledged the past, the second step involves the question of how we remember historical injustice, which in turn affects how we conduct politics in the present.
Narrating Historical Injustice: Political Responsibility and the Politics of Memory
Memory and justice are intricately linked. In order to adequately address historical wrongs liberal democracies must engage the past. Historical memory provides a connective tissue between past wrongs and present injustices. Yet the question that
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Hopefully you guys take the time to read the 10 pages at some point and don't come with the usual stuff. But...
