Forgive and Forget

For the human condition, forgetting is at least as important as remembering – sometimes more so. Without it, we are all bound to lead the miserable life of A. R. Luria’s patient Solomon Shereshevsky, who was crippled by his boundless, indelible memory, or his fictional counterpart, Jorge Luis Borges’s Funes. No forgetting implies no generalisation, no real present time, no amelioration of trauma, and no weaving of meaningful life narratives.

More on the nature of memory in the digital era with a review of two books. Total Recall is a utopian view of a not-too-future world where nothing is forgotten, thus fulfilling a desire for eternal life, according to the reviewer.

Delete (the subject of the quotation) suggests that we need to build technologies that will put ‘expiration dates’ on past data, to allow us to better grow as human beings.

I find it interesting that both books, and the reviewer, imagine that we, as individuals, will be empowered one way or the other. A less optimistic view, one I’ve mentioned earlier, is that it will be third parties – governments and corporations – that make the decisions regarding our memorabilia, and consequently, our memories.