Ron Eyerman - The Past in the Present: Culture and the Transmission of Memory

On History and Memory.

Cultural Trauma

  • “…cultural trauma refers to a dramatic loss of identity and meaning, a tear in the social fabric, affecting a group of people who have achieved some degree of cohesion.” (160)

    • “…traumatic meaning must be established and accepted, a process which requires time, as well as mediation and representation.”

  • Collective identity formation → is linked with collective memory (meaning it can be grounded in loss, crisis, triumph, etc.)

Collective Memory/Collective Identity

  • “Memory provides individuals and collectives with a cognitive map, helping orient who they are, why they are here and where they are going.” → therefore it is central to individual/collective identity (161)

    • “It is the collective memory which orients a group, providing the temporal and cognitive map mentioned above.” (161)

    • “Collective memory unifies the group through time and over space by providing a narrative frame, a collective story, which locates the individual and his and her biography within it, and which, because it can be represented as narrative and as text, attains mobility.” (161)

The Present as an Unfolding of the Past

  • “The past becomes present through symbolic interactions, through narrative and discourse, with memory itself being a product of both.” (162)

Cycle of Generational Memory

  • 4 factors in the generational cycle of memory:

    • Existence of necessary psychological distance that is required for a traumatic event

    • The necessary accumulation of social resources in order to undergo the commemoration activities

    • The progressive aging and the selective remembering/forgetting of those involved

    • Effects of this aging process on socio-political repression.

The Memory

  • Two main aspects of identity formation to be noted in the case of the emergence of the notion of African American

    • creation of a collective subject

    • shift of collective identity

  • Du Bois (“Du-Boys") notes its possible to be “both African and American, loyal to a nation, but not to its racist culture” (164)

    • “…providing a culture and personality and a distinctive racial mission”

    • “Slavery was, in their view, a stepping-stone to racial progress.”

  • Progressive narrative

    • “…which takes slavery as a starting-point for progressive development and eventual inclusion in the modern society” (165)

    • “The progressive narratives takes on many attributes of a discourse in this period, framing the acceptable terms of representation.” (165)

  • ULTIMATELY:

    • The representations of a collective → progressive and redemptive narrative → in a sense, fought for the support among American black individuals → mass media had a large role

    • Author thinks Martin Luther King Jr and Malcom X only “performed as well” because of the “camera as before. alive audience”

Conclusion

  • Main point → outline a theory of cultural trauma with reference to the meaning and place of slavery in the formation of African American identity

    • Collective memory is linked to collective identity formation

      • Memory is a signifying practice and a cornerstone of group identity (166)

    • With this in mind, the author argues that slavery, “not so much as experience, but as a forma of memory, was the focal point of reference in this process.” (166)

    • History and memory clash → often those in power can manipulate history—as lived experience—to fit their interests → we see this in the dominant white society re-interpreting the war, resulting in a crisis of identity and identification for African Americans

    • Progressive narrative → implies a “long-term strategy of social integration in that it aimed at overcoming social marginalization.” (167)

    • Redemptive narrative → “…called upon a strategy of withdrawal and separation.” (167)