Elifcan Karacan
Chapter 2: Theories of Memory
However, the King was not convinced by what Theuth told him about his 'great' invention, and he replied, “what you have discovered is a recipe not for memory, but for reminding. And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but only its semblance, for by telling them about many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much, while for the most part they will know nothing, and as men filled, not with wisdom, but with the conceit of wisdom, they will be a burden to their fellows.”
The institutionalization of memory in the discipline of history was not only due to the invention and wide usage of print technology, and to humanity's interest in recording past events. It was also a result of the fact that the rise of the need to construct a national identity for the new nation states in Europe…
Memory became used as a political tool to legitimate the nation state by simply constructing national identity through myths, commemorations and rituals.
Storing the knowledge of past events and experiences was necessary for progress in the future. The need for museums, libraries and archives is generated by a fear of forgetting in modern societies.
On the other hand, unlike oral traditions where story tellers circulate the stories of the past, with the modern understanding of history, historians and official history institutions which claim to be objective in providing 'true' memory appear to have the power to interpret the past, sometimes to legitimate the existence of a nation, or to defend the interests of elites or dominant classes.
History, in contrast to memory, is not dynamic and open to reconstruction in the present time; neither is it “open to the dialectic of remembering and forgetting” (Nora 1989: 8-9).
There is an interaction between history and memory. We tend to remember things related to historical events, and mark our own individual memories with dates, events and names that appear in the history of groups that we belong to, such as families, nations, religions and social classes. Historical memory gives us the basis for reconstructing our group memories and continuity in time, which is crucial to identity.
The family is a group that individuals find themselves members of with or without their own will, and which has already its own established system of rules, customs, notions and traditions. It is also the group where we begin to learn and adopt the notions of other social constructions.
According to Halbwachs' theory of collective memory, to provide solidarity and continuity, groups modify the memory of the past according to the necessities of the present.
Hirsch considers that it is necessary to name this second-generation remembrance with a new term, since it has a character distinct to the memories of the first generation that experienced the traumatic past directly. Postmemory is a transmitted memory which is imagined, perceived and internalized in the memories of the later generation.
