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In Praise of Forgetting: Historical Memory and Its Ironies
A leading contrarian thinker explores the ethical paradox at the heart of history's wounds
The conventional wisdom about historical memory is summed up in George Santayana’s 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, “inoculate” the present against repeating the crimes of the past. He argues that rubbing raw historical wounds—whether self-inflicted or imposed by outside forces—neither remedies injustice nor confers reconciliation. If he is right, then historical memory is not a moral imperative but rather a moral option—sometimes 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 times—the Irish Troubles and the Easter Uprising of 1916, the white settlement of Australia, the American Civil War, the Balkan wars, the Holocaust, and 9/11—Rieff 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.
The conventional wisdom about historical memory is summed up in George Santayana’s 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, “inoculate” the present against repeating the crimes of the past. He argues that rubbing raw historical wounds—whether self-inflicted or imposed by outside forces—neither remedies injustice nor confers reconciliation. If he is right, then historical memory is not a moral imperative but rather a moral option—sometimes 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 times—the Irish Troubles and the Easter Uprising of 1916, the white settlement of Australia, the American Civil War, the Balkan wars, the Holocaust, and 9/11—Rieff 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.
160 pages, Paperback
First published May 24, 2016
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About the author
David Rieff
47 books39 followersDavid Rieff is an American polemicist and pundit. His books have focused on issues of immigration, international conflict, and humanitarianism.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
September 28, 2022
این ارزیابی مربوط می‌شود به ترجمه‌ی فجیعانه‌ی نشر نگاه معاصر، نه خود کتاب. نسخه‌ی ترجمه ضمنا ملوث است به مقدمه‌ای نوشته‌ی یکی از عملجات ج ا که در پوشش "استاد" در یکی از کالج‌های برتر آمریکا مشغول به کار است. پرونده‌ی این مزدور الان در کنگره‌ی آمریکا در دست بررسی است
October 22, 2016
Essentially a literature review of standard writings on social and collective memory. The palimpsest of quotations, names and locations moves quickly from one thing to another, and as a consequence remains mostly at surface-level. When Rieff finally makes a concentrated feint at an argument, in his own words to boot, it is only in the concluding chapter. The preceeding tour d'horizon though has little structure and has not built strongly towards anything; as a result his wispy conclusions feel unsupported and unenlightening.
Much of the the final chapter is presented in a slightly modified format in Rieff's essay in The Guardian, The cult of memory: when history does more harm than good. It is perhaps even a little clearer than the book, so I quote it to present the crux of his argument which, at least to most observers of a realist bent, would seem pretty uncontroversial:
While there are surely great books to be written on this topic, I cannot say I found this to be one of them.
Much of the the final chapter is presented in a slightly modified format in Rieff's essay in The Guardian, The cult of memory: when history does more harm than good. It is perhaps even a little clearer than the book, so I quote it to present the crux of his argument which, at least to most observers of a realist bent, would seem pretty uncontroversial:
But what if [the memorialising of collective historical memory as a high moral obligation] is wrong, if not always, then at least part of the time? What if collective historical memory, as it is actually employed by communities and nations, has led far too often to war rather than peace, to rancour and resentment rather than reconciliation, and the determination to exact revenge for injuries both real and imagined, rather than to commit to the hard work of forgiveness?
While there are surely great books to be written on this topic, I cannot say I found this to be one of them.
January 13, 2018
The title of David Rieff's latest book, "In Praise of Forgetting" perhaps obscures his measured and judicious consideration of history, historical remembrance, historical memory, and forgetting. Rieff does not so much advocate forgetting history's atrocities, but makes, as the New York Times reviewer put it, a "pugnacious" argument for why not everything should be remembered. Reading "In Praise of Forgetting" was very much like listening to David Rieff at the dinner table (full disclosure: he and my husband are friends): frighteningly smart and completely unafraid to confront sacred cows, particularly those that favor revisionism at the expense of accuracy and romanticism over hard and often unpopular truths.
Although "In Praise of Forgetting" meanders a bit, and the opening pages are a cacophony of names and references, Rieff successfully shores up solid examples of why historical memory is a shambles. One is that of Hubert Butler, a member of the Irish Republic's Protestant minority who was excoriated for suggesting that the Catholic bishop of Zagreb had been complicit in forcible conversions to Catholicism. Butler, for telling the truth, was forced into "internal exile."
Rieff also confronts the difficult issue of whether only partial justice in the wake of military dictatorships is justifiable in the context of history. The example is Chile and whether, in 1990, when Pinochet stepped down, it wasn't better to grant him immunity on the grounds that more Chileans wanted a return to democracy, even if it came at a cost, i.e., immunity from prosecution for Pinochet and the military, than did those who were willing to risk that in the name of justice and trials for gross human rights violations. There are certainly many Latin Americanists, scholars and activists, and the relatives of the victims, who are deeply offended by this suggestion, claiming that no country can truly go forward until it has "remembered" the past, which includes justice. The sad truth is that Rieff is at least in part correct. Although my experience is limited to Guatemala, there is no country that today more exemplifies every single hot button issue that history and historical memory represent. While the relatives of victims have successfully pushed for trials for the military, what compelled more Guatemalans to take to the streets and ultimately successfully demand that their president -- a former military officer who was a base commander in the town that later became the focus of a genocide trial -- step down was not human rights violations from thirty years ago, but a vast network of graft and corruption that touched a nerve with millions of Guatemalans.
Rieff and I were at an conference in April on "Storytelling the Revolution," namely, a band of journalists who had worked in Latin America from the 1980s on. When Rieff spoke, he said that historical memory was about "solidarity" and "agenda." The words are tough love, but I cannot help acknowledging that Rieff speaks the truth.
Although "In Praise of Forgetting" meanders a bit, and the opening pages are a cacophony of names and references, Rieff successfully shores up solid examples of why historical memory is a shambles. One is that of Hubert Butler, a member of the Irish Republic's Protestant minority who was excoriated for suggesting that the Catholic bishop of Zagreb had been complicit in forcible conversions to Catholicism. Butler, for telling the truth, was forced into "internal exile."
Rieff also confronts the difficult issue of whether only partial justice in the wake of military dictatorships is justifiable in the context of history. The example is Chile and whether, in 1990, when Pinochet stepped down, it wasn't better to grant him immunity on the grounds that more Chileans wanted a return to democracy, even if it came at a cost, i.e., immunity from prosecution for Pinochet and the military, than did those who were willing to risk that in the name of justice and trials for gross human rights violations. There are certainly many Latin Americanists, scholars and activists, and the relatives of the victims, who are deeply offended by this suggestion, claiming that no country can truly go forward until it has "remembered" the past, which includes justice. The sad truth is that Rieff is at least in part correct. Although my experience is limited to Guatemala, there is no country that today more exemplifies every single hot button issue that history and historical memory represent. While the relatives of victims have successfully pushed for trials for the military, what compelled more Guatemalans to take to the streets and ultimately successfully demand that their president -- a former military officer who was a base commander in the town that later became the focus of a genocide trial -- step down was not human rights violations from thirty years ago, but a vast network of graft and corruption that touched a nerve with millions of Guatemalans.
Rieff and I were at an conference in April on "Storytelling the Revolution," namely, a band of journalists who had worked in Latin America from the 1980s on. When Rieff spoke, he said that historical memory was about "solidarity" and "agenda." The words are tough love, but I cannot help acknowledging that Rieff speaks the truth.
January 7, 2017
This would have made a great essay in the Times magazine. The author assumes a lot of prior knowledge. Also, it was, in my opinion - and since this is my review, it's my opinion - that the author could have done with a good editor (because good editors help) to make some of the run-on sentences readable.
September 16, 2024
The concepts weren't as hard as the writings made them to be. Rieff used explanatory sentences in the middle of an already long sentence which made everything maddening and difficult to understand also there were so many quotes by so many people. All of that created a mess in which the Author's original ideas were somehow suffocated if there were any.
December 1, 2016
As a historian, the premise from which I work is that history--the past--matters. And it matters not in some antiquarian sense of preserving that which is behind us, but in a critical sense of grappling with the past--of tracing historical continuities and ruptures--to tease out perspectives that can help us better navigate the dilemmas of our times.
Reiff sets out to challenge that very premise, and I figured it was worth testing my case. I left with my assumptions intact. Why? Because Reiff, while doing a fine job of challenging the productivity, utility, and moral soundness of collective memory, does not in fact make a concrete case for forgetting.
I'm also not sure that his case is a new one. Memory studies scholars that Reiff points to throughout the text have already done the work of casting doubt on and citing grave concerns with the ways in which groups of people elect to remember, commemorate, or narrate the past. Reiff does explain that, in some cases, the choice to actively forget or re-write these narratives is more morally sound than the longstanding efforts to preserve them. But he also appears leery of any attempt to place importance or significance on the past, which I find troubling.
Reiff sets out to challenge that very premise, and I figured it was worth testing my case. I left with my assumptions intact. Why? Because Reiff, while doing a fine job of challenging the productivity, utility, and moral soundness of collective memory, does not in fact make a concrete case for forgetting.
I'm also not sure that his case is a new one. Memory studies scholars that Reiff points to throughout the text have already done the work of casting doubt on and citing grave concerns with the ways in which groups of people elect to remember, commemorate, or narrate the past. Reiff does explain that, in some cases, the choice to actively forget or re-write these narratives is more morally sound than the longstanding efforts to preserve them. But he also appears leery of any attempt to place importance or significance on the past, which I find troubling.
January 14, 2021
2/5*
Essentially a review of what seems to be all the literature David Rieff has ever read. The narrative is meandering, circling his elementary argument without adequately arguing it.
The concept was interesting, the execution was lackluster. Basically, he states that remembering is not a moral imperative, nothing can be remembered forever, and maybe remembering is not always in society's best interest.
I do not recommend this book.
Essentially a review of what seems to be all the literature David Rieff has ever read. The narrative is meandering, circling his elementary argument without adequately arguing it.
The concept was interesting, the execution was lackluster. Basically, he states that remembering is not a moral imperative, nothing can be remembered forever, and maybe remembering is not always in society's best interest.
I do not recommend this book.
August 7, 2017
David Rieff has read a lot of books. This volume is just bursting with erudition, and although I disagree with a lot of his points (which, to be honest, I found hard to discern, as he seems to draw ellipses in avoidance of actually endorsing forgetting) it is a good collection of references towards scholars who work with history, memory and trauma. Yosef Yerushalmi, I have been waiting for you for a *very* long time.
December 24, 2019
Puede que uno no esté de acuerdo con todos los argumentos de Rieff, pero es un libro que plantea la importancia del olvido. Muy bueno para entender la historia presente de Colombia.
June 1, 2022
Crucial for HAP. Stylistically, though, he needs a good editor to smooth the ride out a bit. The sentences can be too long and some words are reused with odd frequency (prophylactic, specious, sine qua non). Also, he seriously assumes some prior knowledge of all history ever (but seb you're right, I guess, in saying that he needs to in order to keep it short and sweet). But those don't really detract. Still good and something I would recommend.
June 21, 2016
An interesting look at the price we pay to remember the past. Book is a great read and Rieff wonderfully organizes a ton of material.
The dust jacket includes this little intro - "The conventional wisdom about historical memory is summed up in George Santayana’s 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?"
At the end of it, I am not sure which side I am on. There are issues I wish I could forget. There are some I will never. But looking at the past and considering this is a great topic for a book and was an enjoyable read.
Love the closing of the book with the points Rieff made when quoting Borges - "I do not speak either of vengeance or of forgiveness. Forgetting is the only vengeance and the only forgiveness." I agree with Rieff that Borges "went too far. But without at least the option of forgetting, we would be wounded monsters, unforgiving and unforgiven ... and assuming that we have been paying attention, inconsolable."
The dust jacket includes this little intro - "The conventional wisdom about historical memory is summed up in George Santayana’s 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?"
At the end of it, I am not sure which side I am on. There are issues I wish I could forget. There are some I will never. But looking at the past and considering this is a great topic for a book and was an enjoyable read.
Love the closing of the book with the points Rieff made when quoting Borges - "I do not speak either of vengeance or of forgiveness. Forgetting is the only vengeance and the only forgiveness." I agree with Rieff that Borges "went too far. But without at least the option of forgetting, we would be wounded monsters, unforgiving and unforgiven ... and assuming that we have been paying attention, inconsolable."
January 19, 2017
Couldn't stand reading this book... it is so terribly written. It's the book version of that annoying guy you avoid at parties because all he does is name drop to make himself look cool. Same concept, except quoting famous philosophers and such, so you really know how well read the author is. Blech.
July 23, 2018
An insightful exploration on interpretations of historical memory and its implications. My only complaint is that it's very Western-focused. Didnt explore collective memories in places like India or post-colonial Africa in great detail. Though that does party stem from the other authors' theories explored in the book.
March 29, 2017
Only a cursory reading, and I cherry-picked the more interesting bits for reference purposes.
I wouldn't call it "terrible" writing, but it definitely needs a tightening up. Too many run-on sentences.
I wouldn't call it "terrible" writing, but it definitely needs a tightening up. Too many run-on sentences.
December 3, 2017
Interesting
Densely written. Straightforward ideas. Communal remembering overrated, leads to violence. Author advocates for active forgetting. Not an easy read, author writes like Kant’s little brother.
Densely written. Straightforward ideas. Communal remembering overrated, leads to violence. Author advocates for active forgetting. Not an easy read, author writes like Kant’s little brother.
January 28, 2021
A pretty intriguing subject but probably the worst writing style possible for it. He just comes across as really snobbish and pedantic, seeming totally incapable of giving any personal opinions without quoting Freud or Nietzsche. A couple better books making similar arguments are The New Dark Age and The Virtues of Ignorance. Antifragile kind of does too but I'm not a huge fan of that one either. There's also Miles Olson's Unlearn, Rewild, which comes at this subject from an angle closer to my own (basically that our information infrastructure is just totally unsustainable so we have to figure out how to live without all this written history and electronic data anyway). It actually makes a lot less sense to advocate these ideas without challenging modernity since such a complex world can't really function properly without keeping track of everything. And how the hell would selective "forgetting" even be enforced anyway? Most of this stuff is just overly thought out word games that only sound nice if you don't actually think about it. I've read some other stuff that argues nearly the complete opposite of this too, like Learning From the Germans and James Loewen's Lies books, which put a ton of emphasis on the importance of monuments. They make some decent points but their overall analysis isn't much less annoying. I seriously wonder sometimes if humans are stupid enough to keep going with this until the entire planet is converted into one big graveyard and everyone starves to death because no land is allowed to be used for food production. And I wonder if they'll still be arguing over the veracity of ancient politicians' sex scandals instead of why there isn't enough food to eat. Pretty sure something else will wipe us out before we ever get to that point though. Anyway, I kind of like that this book got me thinking about weird shit like this, and I didn't hate everything he said but I did find this one pretty irritating for the most part.
June 9, 2021
While I appreciated certain aspects of Rieff’s argument I was not fully convinced. I think one reason for this was his method used to support that argument. It seemed to be written with a specific audience in mind, one familiar with a broad array of historical and contemporary struggles. Rieff referenced one after the other while only briefly and vaguely explaining them, but as someone who knows very little of these events it ineffectively supported his argument. If he provided more context without assuming his readership was fully aware of the events mentioned it would not only strengthen his case but make it more accessible. It came off as a bit half-baked.
(However, one benefit of Rieff’s approach is that I was quickly introduced to a lot of philosophers, historians, and writers who had thought-provoking ideas quoted in the reading. I underlined quite a few!)
While there are many good points made that gets the reader thinking about collective memory and the justification of forgetting, I just couldn’t fully get behind his argument because it felt excessively pessimistic and nihilistic in nature.
It’s a short read so I would still recommend it to anyone interested in collective memory, historical preservation, and philosophy. Additionally, it could be a useful jumping off point for anyone interested in more books concerned with commemoration and memory.
(However, one benefit of Rieff’s approach is that I was quickly introduced to a lot of philosophers, historians, and writers who had thought-provoking ideas quoted in the reading. I underlined quite a few!)
While there are many good points made that gets the reader thinking about collective memory and the justification of forgetting, I just couldn’t fully get behind his argument because it felt excessively pessimistic and nihilistic in nature.
It’s a short read so I would still recommend it to anyone interested in collective memory, historical preservation, and philosophy. Additionally, it could be a useful jumping off point for anyone interested in more books concerned with commemoration and memory.
November 26, 2017
El libro es una colección de pequeños ensayos muy provocadores sobre la naturaleza, proposito y utilidad de la memoria colectiva. ¿conocer el pasado, seguirlo recordando asegura que los errores del pasado no se repitan? es la pregunta que guía parte del argumento de los ensayos. Por otro lado el argumento también gira en torno a como la memoria colectiva en muchos casos puede terminar siendo una fuente de nuevas tragedias como el caso de Kosovo Polje en el siglo XIV y el rol que su recuerdo jugo en las guerras de la ex Yugoslavia hace 20 años.
En general el libro ofrece una idea radical, el olvido como una especie de necesidad para seguir adelante. Es una lectura muy fácil (por estar muy bien escrita) que invita a la reflexión. Muy recomendable.
En general el libro ofrece una idea radical, el olvido como una especie de necesidad para seguir adelante. Es una lectura muy fácil (por estar muy bien escrita) que invita a la reflexión. Muy recomendable.
December 23, 2020
As a history and philosophy major back in the day, historical/collective memory is honestly a favorite topic of mine. Unfortunately, this book never really leaves the realm of a literature review. If I hadn't already had a foundation in the literature I probably would have set this aside before finishing it. It put me to sleep more than once, and I found myself re-reading whole pages to try to follow the train of thought. It's a short, small, book, but most pages include extensive quotations, making it difficult to tell where a quote ended and Rieff's thesis began. The argument for forgetting is hard to follow, and not well supported. There are occasionally glimmers of where the argument is going, and I wish they'd been developed, because I think there is validity to his thesis.
January 17, 2022
This book was recommended to me as a way to present the other side of the historical lessons are important, forgetting is more important argument which rages on. Unfortunately it fails to really lay a hand on those arguments. It dense and hard to read at places due to the long sentence structure and presumptions that the reader is familiar with the works cited and their positions. I thought I would re read it to see if I could tease out more insight but after finishing it I was too disappointed to try again.
I gave it 3 stars mostly for the effort but the writing style and sentence construction do nothing to convey the message.
I gave it 3 stars mostly for the effort but the writing style and sentence construction do nothing to convey the message.
January 21, 2024
Muy buen libro sobre grises y contra el fanatismo de la amnesia y la memoria!!
No sólo mezcla el lado místico y más literario de la idea del olvido con su parte más política y anclada en ejemplos históricos (como Bosnia o Irlanda), si no que dibuja de manera excelente los límites de la memoria colectiva para construir la paz.
Un par de citas que me parece encapsulan bien su idea principal son:
"Sólo en el estúpido marco de la eternidad la rememoración es un sinsentido"
"En la política y la guerra el hombre responde ante la certeza"
Y una cita que ha colado de Borges: "El olvido es la única venganza y el único perdón".
No sólo mezcla el lado místico y más literario de la idea del olvido con su parte más política y anclada en ejemplos históricos (como Bosnia o Irlanda), si no que dibuja de manera excelente los límites de la memoria colectiva para construir la paz.
Un par de citas que me parece encapsulan bien su idea principal son:
"Sólo en el estúpido marco de la eternidad la rememoración es un sinsentido"
"En la política y la guerra el hombre responde ante la certeza"
Y una cita que ha colado de Borges: "El olvido es la única venganza y el único perdón".
September 12, 2020
It's hard to make out what exactly Reiff's point is here, as there are just a large chain of facts and other facts that have been distorted, and the facts that have been distorted and on and on, without much analysis. Or I should say, the analysis that is here is pithy and trite, conclusions that anyone would have come to with this widely known stories and historical happenings. I'd say read the essay that got him the contract for this largely dispensable and disposable bit of "moral philosophy".
Grade: D
Grade: D
January 31, 2023
Starting this book because it was short and I was in the middle of a reading slump was a huge mistake. HUGE. This book was mostly a literature review. The language is opaque and academic and the author clearly expects you to already know the subject. It's also mostly philosophical, which is my least favorite kind of political text.
This was given to me by my graduate school advisor, and of course it was just like the graduate program she ran: too short, too full of itself, and ended right as I started understanding what the fuck was going on.
This was given to me by my graduate school advisor, and of course it was just like the graduate program she ran: too short, too full of itself, and ended right as I started understanding what the fuck was going on.
October 24, 2018
In Praise of Forgetting was a somewhat difficult read due to his writing style that guaranteed name drops so often it often felt like a Tolstoy novel. I'm talking about quotes inside of quotes level of name dropping. However, after getting accustomed to that, it made for an interesting read with challenging questions and few answers. The book is packed with such powerful food for thought that I will definitely be returning to in the future.
December 17, 2020
Para aquellos a los que les guste la filosofía política y comerse la cabeza, puede llegar a ser un libro fantástico. En ciertos aspectos cuenta hechos que pueden llegar a ser de interés, pero eso son solo dos páginas de las cinto setenta que tiene. Ha sido una lectura obligatoria que se ha llevado por delante mie estabilidad mental. Ha sido realmente tedioso y no he podido llegar a finalizarlo.
February 27, 2017
Interesting but wrong. The author bases its thinking upon a fallacy: historic manipulation equals abuse of memory. In order to prevent manipulation he prescribes forgetfulness. Time to distinguish concepts.
July 10, 2017
Lucid, cogent, thoughtful, and provocative.
January 15, 2018
A fascinating read on an essential topic. Rieff’s perspective is challenging and well articulated.
August 16, 2019
The only irony here is that Reiff clearly forgot to hire an editor. I'll leave it to posterity to decide if that's praiseworthy.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews