Past as Present: Examining the Social & Political Nature of Culture Memories

As 2020 comes to a close and a new year dawns some of you may be reflecting on the past in various ways, or you may be looking forward to begin anew.  These actions are normal and expected within American and many Western cultures that demarcate time in this way, and today’s blog post is dedicated to understanding the intricate ways that the past is not only remembered but used as a political and social tool.  This will be explored through the discussion of cultural memory, specifically what it is and what purposes it serves.

 

Cultural memory is a procedure by which the past is remembered by a collective group of people.  These memories could have been directly experienced by cultural group members or just known and understood through the educational materials (e.g., stories, writings, documents, artifacts, etc.) available to those who did not have the opportunity to experience the event(s).  Ultimately, cultural memories are part of the culture’s identity, making up a portion of who and what a specific cultural group was, is, and will be.  This is because the cultural memories carry the cultural values, beliefs, ideas, traditions, etc. that are relevant in the present day. 

 

Cultural memories are carried down through the generations, often changing either unintentionally or intentionally to meet the modern norms of the present-day society presenting the memory(ies).  As a result, cultural memories are political by nature since the most powerful individuals and social institutions within a cultural group decide which cultural memories are presented and how.  Ultimately, cultural memories can act in a number of ways, including but not limited to being moral tales, inspirational stories, or fabrications of history. 

 

As individuals we involve in this process regularly by retelling our own personal narratives and cultural memories from our own points of view.  If something we did in the past is no longer appropriate today or if that past event or action will provide us greater status then we will shift the retelling appropriately.  Common examples of these individual actions are often seen in the “big fish” story, in which each time a story about an accomplishment or event is told it changes to meet the needs and purpose of that specific retelling.  Specific story elements may be exaggerated, emphasized, or downplayed in order to elicit a specific reaction by the audience, but the story is never told the same twice.  This leads to ethical questions about the presentation of cultural memory, but it also informs modern cultural scholars, such as anthropologists, about cultural changes that have occurred and/or may be occurring at this very moment.  Cultural memory formation and presentation is in and of itself neither a bad nor good phenomenon, but it is an important tool in understanding group identity formation and maintenance.

 

As you reflect on your past consider how you viewed the event when it occurred versus how you view it today.  Consider what has changed and why it has changed.  Then consider why those changes occurred and what current cultural values affect those changes. From there you will begin to understand not only how cultural memories form, but you will also see how you have changed as a result of the cultural influences in your life.

 

References Cited

 

Assmann, Aleida. 1999. Erinnerungsraume: Formen und Wandlugen des kulturellen Gedachnisses. Munich: Beck.

Brundage, W. Fitzhugh. 2005. The Southern Past: A Clash of Race and Memory. President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Dickson, Keith D. 2011. Sustaining Southern Identity: Douglas Southall Freeman and Memory in the Modern South. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.

Halbwachs, Maurice. 1925. Les Cadres sociaux de la memoire. Paris: Alcan. 

Hewer, Christopher J, and Malgorzata Kut. 2010. "Historical legacy, social memory and representations of the past within a Polish community." Memory Studies 18-32.

Hodgkin, Katharine, and Susannah Radstone. 2003. Contested Pasts: The Politics of Memory. London: Routledge.

Kansteiner, Wulf. 2002. "Finding Meaning in Memory: A Methodological Critique of Collective Memory Studies." History and Theory 179-197.

Lewis, Bernard. 1975. History: Remembered, Recovered, Invented. . Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Olick, Jeffrey K, and Joyce Robbins. 1998. "Social Memory Studies: From "Collective Memory" to the Historical Sociology of Mnemonic Practices." Annual Review of Sociology 105-140.

Welzer, Harald. 2010. "Re-narrations: How pasts change in controversial remembering." Memory Studies 5-17.