Collective Memory: What is it?
A few basic ideas:
We make the past usable. That’s a vital part of being human. That usability is achieved through collective memory.
[The concept of collective memory was originated by the French Philosopher turned Sociologist, Maurice Halbwachs. In 1935 he was appointed to a chair at the Sorbonne. In the summer of 1944 he went to enquire after a relative taken by the Gestapo and was himself arrested. Sent to Buchenwald concentration camp, he died there in March
1945.]
For Halbwachs, remembering is a process of organising and structure not just a recall of detached ‘bits.’ This structuring is enabled by the structures created by social relationships. For example, we might remember a special toy from early childhood because it is associated with the safety, belonging, and familiarity of being home with mother. In other words, it is belonging to a group that determines what is memorable and how it will be remembered; in my example the nuclear
family is the group. Through socially created frameworks we locate memories that allow us to recollect them.
Location works in two ways: memories are situated in specific groups with ongoing customs and rules; and they are situated in specific places and times.
According to Halbwachs we order our memories in relationship to the epoch’s of our lives and the group/s that are dominant in each epoch. As an individual moves from one epoch to another memories change. For the group shared memories help
maintain both identity and boundaries. The close association of group and memories is demonstrated by the way when a group ceases to exist the memories it has engendered soon cease to be.
We might imagine that memories are all about private recall, whereas in fact, says Halbwachs, they are principally established by communication. The crucial consequence of this is the nature of the purpose memories achieve. For
Halbwachs, remembering always serves the current commitment, values and aspirations of the group concerned. Some of those who have followed Halbwachs have therefore adopted an absolutely presentist perspective, but that
isn’t the position he himself advocated:
"… society admits all traditions (even the most recent), provided that they are indeed traditions.
In the same way, society admits all ideas (even the most ancient),
provided that they are ideas, that is, that they have a place in its thought and
that they still interest present-day people who understand them. From this it follows
that social thought is essentially a memory and that its entire content consists only of collective
recollections or remembrances. But it also follows that, among them, only those
recollections subsist that in every period society, working within its present-day frameworks,
can reconstruct." ([1952] 1992:188)
According to Halbwachs, this insistence on social memory changing so as to serve the needs of the present is especially problematic applied to an historical religious faith like Christianity – In Christianity the memory of its founding history is authoritative and can’t be changed. Consciously or unconsciously ‘steering’ the memory as society changes isn’t acceptable.
Halbwachs reconciles social stability and social change through a dynamic of recollection and forgetting, but Christianity can’t countenance forgetfulness of its own tradition.
In Christianity recollection is a dominical mandate. Whether that recollection is socially serviceable is immaterial.
According to Halbwachs, primitive Christianity did two things with Christian memory – reframing as a continuation of Hebraic faith e.g. Paul’s use of his Jewish heritage, and innovation as a remembering of an ever-present Christ rather than a dead person.
"Christ is not only a ‘knower’ or a saint; he is a god. He does not limit himself to indicating the road to salvation to us; yet no Christian can attain salvation without the intervention and the efficacious action of this God. After his death and resurrection Christ did not lose contact with humankind, but rather remains perpetually within the bosom of his Church. There is no ceremony of the cult from which he is absent; there is no prayer and act of adoration which does not reach up to him. The sacrifice through which he has given us his body and his blood did not take place a single time. It is integrally renewed
every time believers are assembled to receive the Eucharist. What is more, the successive sacrifices - celebrated at distinct moments and in distinct places - are but one and the same sacrifice." ([1952] 1992:90)
Memory becomes eternal and immutable. Repetition and preservation of that memory the sole purpose of the Church, and the clergy become the enforcement officers to make sure that happens!
Dogmas can’t retain memories alone, so they are assisted by rites. These two work together –usually! But there is a
constant struggle within the Church to control memory that veers between two aspects – dogmatic and mystic.
Both streams have such a strong commitment to the authority of the original tradition that any ‘new’ elements must be linked to
that tradition. Indeed such is the authority of origin memory that it is impossible for new data to be acknowledged as really new. It is always either a rediscovery or a yet more authentic expression of the original tradition.
To sum up, Halbwachs says
"… … although religious memory attempts to isolate
itself from temporal society, it obeys the same laws as every collective memory:
it does not preserve the past but reconstructs it with the aid of the material traces,
rites, texts, and traditions left behind by that past, and with the aid moreover of
recent psychological and social data, that is to say, with the present." ([1952]
1992:119)
Be clear that for Halbwachs actual remembering is situated in individuals. What the social dimension does is locate memory in time and place so it can be actual memory. We remember a good deal of what we haven’t experienced because something is important to the group to which we belong. Halbwachs, however, insisted that the processes involved are constantly changing and make for a high degree of provisionality in collective memory.
Participation essential to the maintenance of collective memory. What does decline in religious observance mean for that? Halbwachs’emphasis on boundary maintenance has special significance. If church should be more self-consciously separate how does the memory it holds connect with those outside?
Communication the essential component in creating and maintaining social memory. Here Halbwachs meant face to face sociability– “it is others who spur me on: their memory comes to the aid of mine and mine relies on theirs.” Can this work with a highly privatised notion of religion? If it can’t, can the memory possibly be preserved?
[The concept of collective memory was originated by the French Philosopher turned Sociologist, Maurice Halbwachs. In 1935 he was appointed to a chair at the Sorbonne. In the summer of 1944 he went to enquire after a relative taken by the Gestapo and was himself arrested. Sent to Buchenwald concentration camp, he died there in March
1945.]
For Halbwachs, remembering is a process of organising and structure not just a recall of detached ‘bits.’ This structuring is enabled by the structures created by social relationships. For example, we might remember a special toy from early childhood because it is associated with the safety, belonging, and familiarity of being home with mother. In other words, it is belonging to a group that determines what is memorable and how it will be remembered; in my example the nuclear
family is the group. Through socially created frameworks we locate memories that allow us to recollect them.
Location works in two ways: memories are situated in specific groups with ongoing customs and rules; and they are situated in specific places and times.
According to Halbwachs we order our memories in relationship to the epoch’s of our lives and the group/s that are dominant in each epoch. As an individual moves from one epoch to another memories change. For the group shared memories help
maintain both identity and boundaries. The close association of group and memories is demonstrated by the way when a group ceases to exist the memories it has engendered soon cease to be.
We might imagine that memories are all about private recall, whereas in fact, says Halbwachs, they are principally established by communication. The crucial consequence of this is the nature of the purpose memories achieve. For
Halbwachs, remembering always serves the current commitment, values and aspirations of the group concerned. Some of those who have followed Halbwachs have therefore adopted an absolutely presentist perspective, but that
isn’t the position he himself advocated:
"… society admits all traditions (even the most recent), provided that they are indeed traditions.
In the same way, society admits all ideas (even the most ancient),
provided that they are ideas, that is, that they have a place in its thought and
that they still interest present-day people who understand them. From this it follows
that social thought is essentially a memory and that its entire content consists only of collective
recollections or remembrances. But it also follows that, among them, only those
recollections subsist that in every period society, working within its present-day frameworks,
can reconstruct." ([1952] 1992:188)
According to Halbwachs, this insistence on social memory changing so as to serve the needs of the present is especially problematic applied to an historical religious faith like Christianity – In Christianity the memory of its founding history is authoritative and can’t be changed. Consciously or unconsciously ‘steering’ the memory as society changes isn’t acceptable.
Halbwachs reconciles social stability and social change through a dynamic of recollection and forgetting, but Christianity can’t countenance forgetfulness of its own tradition.
In Christianity recollection is a dominical mandate. Whether that recollection is socially serviceable is immaterial.
According to Halbwachs, primitive Christianity did two things with Christian memory – reframing as a continuation of Hebraic faith e.g. Paul’s use of his Jewish heritage, and innovation as a remembering of an ever-present Christ rather than a dead person.
"Christ is not only a ‘knower’ or a saint; he is a god. He does not limit himself to indicating the road to salvation to us; yet no Christian can attain salvation without the intervention and the efficacious action of this God. After his death and resurrection Christ did not lose contact with humankind, but rather remains perpetually within the bosom of his Church. There is no ceremony of the cult from which he is absent; there is no prayer and act of adoration which does not reach up to him. The sacrifice through which he has given us his body and his blood did not take place a single time. It is integrally renewed
every time believers are assembled to receive the Eucharist. What is more, the successive sacrifices - celebrated at distinct moments and in distinct places - are but one and the same sacrifice." ([1952] 1992:90)
Memory becomes eternal and immutable. Repetition and preservation of that memory the sole purpose of the Church, and the clergy become the enforcement officers to make sure that happens!
Dogmas can’t retain memories alone, so they are assisted by rites. These two work together –usually! But there is a
constant struggle within the Church to control memory that veers between two aspects – dogmatic and mystic.
Both streams have such a strong commitment to the authority of the original tradition that any ‘new’ elements must be linked to
that tradition. Indeed such is the authority of origin memory that it is impossible for new data to be acknowledged as really new. It is always either a rediscovery or a yet more authentic expression of the original tradition.
To sum up, Halbwachs says
"… … although religious memory attempts to isolate
itself from temporal society, it obeys the same laws as every collective memory:
it does not preserve the past but reconstructs it with the aid of the material traces,
rites, texts, and traditions left behind by that past, and with the aid moreover of
recent psychological and social data, that is to say, with the present." ([1952]
1992:119)
Be clear that for Halbwachs actual remembering is situated in individuals. What the social dimension does is locate memory in time and place so it can be actual memory. We remember a good deal of what we haven’t experienced because something is important to the group to which we belong. Halbwachs, however, insisted that the processes involved are constantly changing and make for a high degree of provisionality in collective memory.
Participation essential to the maintenance of collective memory. What does decline in religious observance mean for that? Halbwachs’emphasis on boundary maintenance has special significance. If church should be more self-consciously separate how does the memory it holds connect with those outside?
Communication the essential component in creating and maintaining social memory. Here Halbwachs meant face to face sociability– “it is others who spur me on: their memory comes to the aid of mine and mine relies on theirs.” Can this work with a highly privatised notion of religion? If it can’t, can the memory possibly be preserved?