INDIVIDUAL MEMORY, COLLECTIVE MEMORY, NATIONAL MEMORY
Alfredo Siedl (2020)
Summary:
INTRODUCTION
Human memory has been the source of the first written texts that came down to us from various places, such as the songs of The
Iliad or The Odyssey, the biblical Genesis and the Popol Vuh. These texts are compilations of oral traditions of ancient peoples.
Since the fifth century B.C., memory has been the object of philosophical reflection. In Plato's Phaedrus, Socrates relates an allegory
about the relationship between writing and memory, where Teut attempts to convince King Tamus of the value of writing in
strengthening the collective memory of the Egyptians, while Tamus expresses concern about the forgetfulness it could cause in
souls by relying on written characters to preserve memories.
This work on memories describes in its First Part various schools and approaches to the social aspects of memories. The difficulties
of psychology in considering memory as a social practice are addressed, privileging the analysis of individual memory. The influence
of Maurice Halbwachs, a sociologist, in the study of community memory stands out, proposing a typology that encompasses
individual, active, pathological, collective, or social, national, and historical memories.
Part Two explores how diverse types of memory have been established at different historical moments and social practices,
suggesting that forms of social organization and technological changes in the preservation of words, images, and signs have shaped
these types of memory and forms of individuation.
The Third Part discusses the problems arising from the political use of memory, such as the role of the State in the political
instrumentalization of remembrance and forgetting, the rewritings of national memory, manipulation, denialism, and the
ideologization of history. Cultural consumption, images, memory artifacts and cinema are also examined in this context.
PART ONE
INITIAL LINES OF RESEARCH
Individual memory has been a topic of scientific interest in psychology since the nineteenth century, as it was accessible to
experimental studies of the time. Initially, it was considered a higher psychic process related to learning and intelligence. Frederick
Bartlett, an English psychologist, switched from memorizing numbers to visualizing military drawings in the 1930s, observing that
subjects remembered the opinion associated with the images rather than the objective details. Bartlett broadened the focus by
considering memory as an affective and meaningful activity, linked to the subject's narration.
Maurice Halbwachs, a French sociologist, postulated that individual memory is influenced by collective frames of reference,
reconstructing the past through selection and interpretation. Lev Vygotsky and others held a socio-historical theory where culture
determines higher psychic processes. Vygotsky phylogenetically compared the memory of primitive and civilized humans,
highlighting how material and symbolic progress makes these processes more efficient. The acquisition of the sign system of
written language expands the mnemonic capacity, and technological advances, such as writing, correlate with the expansion of
memory through text supports. Ontogeny reflects phylogeny, and at the end of the process, two types of memory coexist: a simple
one, based on sensory perceptions, and a higher one, conscious and voluntary, influenced by shared language and culture.
PSYCHOLOGY'S LACK OF INTEREST IN MEMORY AS A SOCIAL PRACTICE
In their work "Shared Memory: The Social Nature of Memory and Forgetting", psychologists David Middleton and Derek Edwards
criticize the predominant approach of psychology in the study of individual memory, relegating the social to a secondary role as a
contextual influence. According to them, the study of shared memories and social memories has been more developed in fields
such as communication, history, sociology, and anthropology, rather than in psychology. Middleton and Edwards stress that
cognitive processes should be examined within a broader framework that encompasses these adjacent disciplines, suggesting a
deeper integration of memory studies into social and political contexts.
MEMORY AS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION
Middleton and Edwards investigate how shared memories among students who have seen the film "Spielberg's E.T." are organized
collaboratively in a classroom context. Their study, presented in "Conversational Memory, a Sociopsychological Approach" (1992,
1
Made by MatyBuda
, pp. 39-61), reveals that these memories are constructed through collaborative inferences, predetermined discursive frameworks,
and metacognitions.
They use a social constructionist approach to argue that reality, including identity and memory, both individual and group, emerges
from interactions and discursive strategies in conversations. According to this approach, the rhetoric and pragmatics of
communication are crucial in determining which aspects are worth remembering or forgetting in each specific social context.
Conversational analysis, ethnomethodological studies, and discourse analysis are key tools that allow us to understand how social
memory is structured within human groups. These methodologies reveal how groups preserve and negotiate their social practices
through shared memory, influencing which narratives are perpetuated and how memories are collectively constructed.
INDIVIDUAL MEMORY
Individual memory is a fundamental psychic process that each person considers as their own since it organizes and maintains a
temporal continuity of experiences. Traditionally it has been seen as movable property: "I have a good memory" is a common
statement that defines a singular characteristic. According to the Royal Spanish Academy, it is the psychic faculty to retain and
remember the past, including both the ability to retain and the contents of rememberable consciousness.
From a cognitive perspective, the human mind can be compared to a processor that organizes and retains data. David Wechsler, in
1939, integrated a "digit retention" scale into his intelligence test to assess this ability, based on previous research such as that of
Ebbinghaus, who studied the memorization of lists of syllables and established the forgetting curve. According to this premise,
memory, along with other mental functions such as attention, perception, thinking, and language, improves the individual's
intellectual competence.
Although the metaphor of the computer helps to understand human memory, it is crucial to recognize that humans must manage
both retention and forgetting in complementary ways for optimal intellectual functioning.
ACTIVE MEMORY
In Aristotle (1993), two forms of memory are distinguished: mnemé, which is the passive or evoked memory of a present object,
and anamnesis, which involves an active search or exercise of memory, with a pragmatic dimension. Bergson (2010) adds to this
distinction with his concept of memory-habit, where time is incorporated into the present without being marked as past, and
memory-remembrance, where the past is explicitly recognized. According to Bergson, the memory that repeats is contrasted with
the memory that imagines, where evoking the past implies abstracting from the present and valuing the impractical. Anamnesis,
or active memory, is equivalent to memory effort according to Bergson and Freud's work of remembrance, integrating pragmatic
and cognitive approaches.
THE DIALECTIC OF MEMORY AND OBLIVION
In the practice of remembering, we evoke specific contents of awareness based on context, such as studying a material or making
a shopping list, discarding irrelevant information. This pragmatic capacity of memory depends on forgetting to function efficiently.
Jorge Luis Borges, in his short story "Funes el memorioso", presents a man incapable of forgetting anything, who cannot select
what to remember and what to omit, which prevents him from thinking and discerning between significant and trivial experiences.
FORGETTING IS HEALTHY
In the construction of our personal identity, memory and forgetting play variable but essential roles. According to Nietzsche,
remembering also implies having the ability to inhibit the persistent return of the past so as not to dominate the present. It
proposes an active forgetting of offenses and complaints as a means of achieving happiness and the ability to promise, thus freeing
oneself from resentment and guilt that could hinder the human will. On the other hand, George Mead suggests that adopting an
objective attitude towards our personal pain allows us to reduce the associated suffering. Forgiving, for Mead, requires not only
letting go of resentment, but also forgetting painful memories in order to move toward deeper understanding and forgiveness.
REMEMBERING IS HEALTHY
In psychoanalysis, the concept of reworking is fundamental to understanding how we actively reflect on our past. For
psychoanalysis, time can be complex, especially in trauma where it seems to repeat itself and not pass, manifesting itself in
2
Made by MatyBuda
Alfredo Siedl (2020)
Summary:
INTRODUCTION
Human memory has been the source of the first written texts that came down to us from various places, such as the songs of The
Iliad or The Odyssey, the biblical Genesis and the Popol Vuh. These texts are compilations of oral traditions of ancient peoples.
Since the fifth century B.C., memory has been the object of philosophical reflection. In Plato's Phaedrus, Socrates relates an allegory
about the relationship between writing and memory, where Teut attempts to convince King Tamus of the value of writing in
strengthening the collective memory of the Egyptians, while Tamus expresses concern about the forgetfulness it could cause in
souls by relying on written characters to preserve memories.
This work on memories describes in its First Part various schools and approaches to the social aspects of memories. The difficulties
of psychology in considering memory as a social practice are addressed, privileging the analysis of individual memory. The influence
of Maurice Halbwachs, a sociologist, in the study of community memory stands out, proposing a typology that encompasses
individual, active, pathological, collective, or social, national, and historical memories.
Part Two explores how diverse types of memory have been established at different historical moments and social practices,
suggesting that forms of social organization and technological changes in the preservation of words, images, and signs have shaped
these types of memory and forms of individuation.
The Third Part discusses the problems arising from the political use of memory, such as the role of the State in the political
instrumentalization of remembrance and forgetting, the rewritings of national memory, manipulation, denialism, and the
ideologization of history. Cultural consumption, images, memory artifacts and cinema are also examined in this context.
PART ONE
INITIAL LINES OF RESEARCH
Individual memory has been a topic of scientific interest in psychology since the nineteenth century, as it was accessible to
experimental studies of the time. Initially, it was considered a higher psychic process related to learning and intelligence. Frederick
Bartlett, an English psychologist, switched from memorizing numbers to visualizing military drawings in the 1930s, observing that
subjects remembered the opinion associated with the images rather than the objective details. Bartlett broadened the focus by
considering memory as an affective and meaningful activity, linked to the subject's narration.
Maurice Halbwachs, a French sociologist, postulated that individual memory is influenced by collective frames of reference,
reconstructing the past through selection and interpretation. Lev Vygotsky and others held a socio-historical theory where culture
determines higher psychic processes. Vygotsky phylogenetically compared the memory of primitive and civilized humans,
highlighting how material and symbolic progress makes these processes more efficient. The acquisition of the sign system of
written language expands the mnemonic capacity, and technological advances, such as writing, correlate with the expansion of
memory through text supports. Ontogeny reflects phylogeny, and at the end of the process, two types of memory coexist: a simple
one, based on sensory perceptions, and a higher one, conscious and voluntary, influenced by shared language and culture.
PSYCHOLOGY'S LACK OF INTEREST IN MEMORY AS A SOCIAL PRACTICE
In their work "Shared Memory: The Social Nature of Memory and Forgetting", psychologists David Middleton and Derek Edwards
criticize the predominant approach of psychology in the study of individual memory, relegating the social to a secondary role as a
contextual influence. According to them, the study of shared memories and social memories has been more developed in fields
such as communication, history, sociology, and anthropology, rather than in psychology. Middleton and Edwards stress that
cognitive processes should be examined within a broader framework that encompasses these adjacent disciplines, suggesting a
deeper integration of memory studies into social and political contexts.
MEMORY AS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION
Middleton and Edwards investigate how shared memories among students who have seen the film "Spielberg's E.T." are organized
collaboratively in a classroom context. Their study, presented in "Conversational Memory, a Sociopsychological Approach" (1992,
1
Made by MatyBuda
, pp. 39-61), reveals that these memories are constructed through collaborative inferences, predetermined discursive frameworks,
and metacognitions.
They use a social constructionist approach to argue that reality, including identity and memory, both individual and group, emerges
from interactions and discursive strategies in conversations. According to this approach, the rhetoric and pragmatics of
communication are crucial in determining which aspects are worth remembering or forgetting in each specific social context.
Conversational analysis, ethnomethodological studies, and discourse analysis are key tools that allow us to understand how social
memory is structured within human groups. These methodologies reveal how groups preserve and negotiate their social practices
through shared memory, influencing which narratives are perpetuated and how memories are collectively constructed.
INDIVIDUAL MEMORY
Individual memory is a fundamental psychic process that each person considers as their own since it organizes and maintains a
temporal continuity of experiences. Traditionally it has been seen as movable property: "I have a good memory" is a common
statement that defines a singular characteristic. According to the Royal Spanish Academy, it is the psychic faculty to retain and
remember the past, including both the ability to retain and the contents of rememberable consciousness.
From a cognitive perspective, the human mind can be compared to a processor that organizes and retains data. David Wechsler, in
1939, integrated a "digit retention" scale into his intelligence test to assess this ability, based on previous research such as that of
Ebbinghaus, who studied the memorization of lists of syllables and established the forgetting curve. According to this premise,
memory, along with other mental functions such as attention, perception, thinking, and language, improves the individual's
intellectual competence.
Although the metaphor of the computer helps to understand human memory, it is crucial to recognize that humans must manage
both retention and forgetting in complementary ways for optimal intellectual functioning.
ACTIVE MEMORY
In Aristotle (1993), two forms of memory are distinguished: mnemé, which is the passive or evoked memory of a present object,
and anamnesis, which involves an active search or exercise of memory, with a pragmatic dimension. Bergson (2010) adds to this
distinction with his concept of memory-habit, where time is incorporated into the present without being marked as past, and
memory-remembrance, where the past is explicitly recognized. According to Bergson, the memory that repeats is contrasted with
the memory that imagines, where evoking the past implies abstracting from the present and valuing the impractical. Anamnesis,
or active memory, is equivalent to memory effort according to Bergson and Freud's work of remembrance, integrating pragmatic
and cognitive approaches.
THE DIALECTIC OF MEMORY AND OBLIVION
In the practice of remembering, we evoke specific contents of awareness based on context, such as studying a material or making
a shopping list, discarding irrelevant information. This pragmatic capacity of memory depends on forgetting to function efficiently.
Jorge Luis Borges, in his short story "Funes el memorioso", presents a man incapable of forgetting anything, who cannot select
what to remember and what to omit, which prevents him from thinking and discerning between significant and trivial experiences.
FORGETTING IS HEALTHY
In the construction of our personal identity, memory and forgetting play variable but essential roles. According to Nietzsche,
remembering also implies having the ability to inhibit the persistent return of the past so as not to dominate the present. It
proposes an active forgetting of offenses and complaints as a means of achieving happiness and the ability to promise, thus freeing
oneself from resentment and guilt that could hinder the human will. On the other hand, George Mead suggests that adopting an
objective attitude towards our personal pain allows us to reduce the associated suffering. Forgiving, for Mead, requires not only
letting go of resentment, but also forgetting painful memories in order to move toward deeper understanding and forgiveness.
REMEMBERING IS HEALTHY
In psychoanalysis, the concept of reworking is fundamental to understanding how we actively reflect on our past. For
psychoanalysis, time can be complex, especially in trauma where it seems to repeat itself and not pass, manifesting itself in
2
Made by MatyBuda
