Politics of the past: the use and abuse of history - Socialists ...

Memory Wars
81
Krzysztof Pomian
Politics is not about the past but about the future. However, one
cannot shape the future without taking the past into account, because
the past is present. Even the remote and the very remote
past are always with us to some extent in landscapes, inscribed
into books and written records, visible in paintings and works of
art, commemorated with monuments. But, first and foremost, the
past is reflected by human beings: in their unconscious reflexes,
emotions, gestures, mimics, in their behaviour, in the language they
use, in their opinions and their expectations. People are to an important
degree programmed by the past. Politicians must be aware
of that. One could draw up a long list of measures that were either
ineffective or, even worse, produced effects contrary to those
expected, because of the neglect of or even deliberate opposition
to the past to which people felt strongly attached.
On the conscious level, there are two principal attitudes to the past:
memory and history. Memory is based on identification with the
past. For a person who remembers, the past he recalls, is his past.
Conversely, if one identifies oneself with some past figures or feels
oneself involved in some past events, we can say that for him they
are objects of memory. History, on the contrary, is based on distance
with respect to the past, on its treatment as an external object
and not as a part of the self. I cannot describe here all differences
between the two which, moreover, changed in the course of time.
Suffice it to say that memory, being based on identification, is always
incurably egocentric. History tries, with variable effect, to
adopt, with respect to the past it studies, a stance, which is supposed
to produce results with universal validity. I must add
immediately, however, that the difference between memory and history
is not clear cut, that they are not placed in watertight
Krzysztof Pomian, philosopher and historian, is Research Director
emeritus at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. He is
Scientific Director of the Museum of Europe, Brussels. His particular
interests are the history of history and the history of collections
and museums. He started his career at the University of Warsaw but
was dismissed in 1986 because of his political views and emigrated
later to France.