How do the memories of different groups .in-tersect?
Throughout reading these passages, I was also wondering how memories intersect throughout cultures and people in general. For example, Veterans day can be a celebration for many people but for some others, it can be a reminder of their traumatic experiences when they were active duty. It is an interesting question to think about.
and its enunciation has thereby gone beyond language. Vansina (1985) showed how much
I love this statement. Memories in a lot of cultures are preserved with rituals and other cultural demonstrations which are all incredibly beautiful.
Memory exists in the world rather than in a person's head, and so is embodied in different cultural forms
The way that different cultures celebrate and materialize memories and events from their past is very cool. They all have different celebrations for their different events which makes all cultures so diverse. It creates a better world with more things to experience.
very '!act of fighting a .~ar becomes some-thing like an un:witting. act of conserva-• tive memory,
Discussing war in this way is very interesting. Not knowing you're doing something when you are presently doing it and then calling it "conserving memory" is a fascinating idea.
How is the past made to matter?
We give meaning to events that strike something in us, whether it be good or bad. The past being "made to matter" is an idea that can be applied to any event. We make things matter when we attach an emotion to it and I think thats powerful.
remembering helps com-munities stick togetheT in certain ways and break apart in others
This is a very compelling ideology. The Confederacy's actions and views have been long broken down by those who have been directly or indirectly affected by it. Remembering their actions against African Americans can help a community rise up against another. Now, many people think of The Confederacy with a negative connotation. This is just one example of how one communities remembering can have an effect on another community in a negative way.
None of these rec-ollections was a wholly accurate, or valid, representation of the past
When we recall past events, we don't truly think about the specifics of the event that have been lost in translation over the years. This means that an event cannot be remembered wholly as it happened which is interesting to think about.
they were able to provide a more complete construction of what happened.
The notion that collective memories are more reliable than a single individual's memory is very interesting, and an idea that I had not thought about. It is also odd to think about the fact that some people would not believe a one single person's experiences, but when a group of people come together to create a larger idea, they are more likely to be believed. Especially in historical events like Stonewall, where many did not want to believe the reality of what took place.
Abraham Lincoln has been re-membered differently by subsequent generations of Americans
This statement is extremely true. In present times, many people see Lincoln as the president who abolished slavery, which he did, but some fail to acknowledge that he was also a slave owner and did his fair share of awful things to undeserving people.
Collective memory is not necessarily lin-ear, logical, or rational.
I agree with this statement. I think we chose to remember a certain event the way we want to remember it. Cutting out small details or replacing one detail with another are definitely ways that we can alter memories. Certain events can also alter those memories depending on what happened.
Forgetting refl~ts a choice to put aside; for whatever reason, what no longer matters
I slightly disagree with this statement because I don't think that we forget things that are unimportant to us. I think as humans our mind is consistently running in circles and if in a stressful moment we were not able to remember something, I don't think that it would solely be because it was unimportant.
Through commemoration, collec-tive memory "receives an anchor from which it cannot easily drift.
Commemoration and celebration of the past allow us to fully immerse ourselves in the memories of those who were active participants in a given event. On Martin Luther King Jr. day we are able to celebrate the great things he did and recollect those memories of the past. I think and anchor is a beautiful metaphor for history and memory.
CoMective memory thrives on remaking the residue of past decades into mate.rial with contempo-rary resonance;
I think this statement is very powerful. The idea that many people try to "alter" memories to correspond with that they want and turn it into a material thing is extremely interesting to think about.
have long argued that memory consti-tutes the most authentic version of the past.
I would agree with this statement that Vansia made. The only reason we know most history is because of those who were there and experienced it. We use their memories to shape our past.
It acted as a meeting-ground between past and present,
I like this way of looking at the process of remembering something. You are able to be present while also exploring your past experiences/memories. It is an interesting and thoughtful way to describe remembrance.