The Task of Memory

(saturday afternoon, Philospher's Cafe on Knowledge & Memory, hosted by Dr. Karyn Ball (UA English) at the Stanley Milner Public Library)

I want to be a good person, but this is not my specialty. My question is, are there constructive ways of remembering?

it is indisputable that history repeats itself. Then why remember history, why study history? For our curiousity? For remembering the dead souls of the past who have apparently sacrificed themselves for us, while doing nothing for the welfare of present and future souls?

Certainly, we have learned from history, we now know, perhaps, how better to rescue people when planes crash into their buildings. We now know to tighten border regulations, and improve national security. but these actions only warrant history to repeat itself.

Therefore, I ask this question on a cultural level. How can we achieve memory constructively? What are some examples of constructive memory? On a popular level, I can only list destructive or ineffectual results of remembering:

1) Rmbrance Day is a day to rmbr WWII veterans who have sacrificed themselves for the freedom and liberty of all the world. we respect and rmbr those who have died and those who have suffered. We are told to rmbr the Holocaust, the one event which highlights as the gravest atrocity of the war.

2) We rmbr Nanking, for all the innocent Chinese and the treacherous Japanese. We remember, and our memory has lead to economic and technological aid from the Japanese to the Chinese. Our memory has also continued to harbour tension between the Chinese and the Japanese. Dare I say, that perhaps, the Japanese choice to forget, is not half-unwise.

3) We commemorate 9-11, because it is important to be compassionate to the dead souls of the innocent victims. But is that merely wasted energy, when we could be doing so much more for the live souls of the world. Perhaps rmbring is solely for the comfort for those who are living post 9-11. But let me tell you, we have a war at hand, and it's because we rmbr.

It's just that I feel that we've twisted the purpose of memory. I ask these questions out of an ignorance, that calls for much research to come. I am looking for what good possibly could have emerged from the ashes of violence.