The Persistence of Memory

Georges Santayana, on the short list of best philosophers of the 20th Century, made the famous quote that "those who do not learn from the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them." The past is a rich place for lessons about how we live our lives, but we must be very careful, because learning from the past is not as simple as merely doing what we have always done, or in celebrating our past and trying to ignore or minimize our mistakes. The past is not dead, because the reprocussions of it live on long after the original actors are dead and done. Generations may go by, centuries even, but the past still lives because it still has something to say.

Even in our personal lives memory is a powerful and sometimes dangerous quality. What we remember, and how we remember it, says a lot about ourselves. What others forget and remember says a lot about them as well. We can choose to write false histories based only on the positive or only on the negative--both are lies, and both are worthy of condemnation. Rather, if we are to be honest and truthful, the truth is always nuanced, and always more complicated than we would like it. Most people (that is, non-intellectuals) like simple and easy answers, but such easy statements are almost invariably gross oversimplifications and distortions of the truth. They may be (at times) reasonably close approximations, but to treat them as exact representations of the truth is to be in error. Why is it that we do not wish to face the complexities of life? Why do we so easily lapse into simplistic lies about ourselves, our friends, our enemies, our past, and our future? Why is it so difficult for us to face the truth of the matter, the ambiguity, the admission of assumptions where it is necessary (and it is often necessary to come to any coherent thoughts about anything to assume a lot).

Whose memory is most important? This is most important in those occasions where offense is caused, whether intentionally or unintentionally. I am someone who is quite prickly when it comes to personal comments. This should be relatively obvious to all who know me (and anyone even knows me from my writings alone). Among the many exmaples I could choose from, here is one story of how I was offended by something that probably was not meant as offensive. In 1996, the President of UCG (at the time), a man by the name of David Hulme, came to Tampa and spoke at church. After church came the inevitable reception line where people waited to come and give some brief comments to the head honcho, who would usually give some kind of chummy reply. Well, his message was on ethnic origin (one of those Twelve Tribes in modern history kind of messages) and I made a rather humorous comment to him about my rather complicated ethnic origin (much more complicated than my freckled, rather Scot-Irish appearance would suggest). When I came through the line a second time, he commented to my mother and stepfather "So you're responsible for this?" when referring to me. He must have thought himself rather clever. I thought it rather rude.

I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this quality. I mean, I have an unusually good memory when it comes to offenses received, but it's always interesting to recall memories of situations where others received offense where no remote offense was meant. Another example on this is rather fruitful. One holy day when I was in Los Angeles for college, a friend of mine (who was also a close friend of my father's, and whose daughter was the first girl I ever kissed, and who is an Emmy award winning television film editor) drove me to services down in Orange County. Also a passenger in this vehicle was a middle aged and rather cranky person. During the somewhat lengthy drive, I was asked about my trip to Ghana. I replied in my usual upbeat and enthusiastic way, and made a comment that if any of them ever went to Ghana it would be good to know a few words, so I taught them the words for white man (o-bruni), welcome (akwaaba), and so forth, in Twi, the language of the Ashanti people of Kumasi. I thought it all rather innocent and light, but later on I ran into the cranky person and he lambasted me for speaking in tongues, thinking my Ashanti vocabulary as evidence of demon possession. If that doesn't make one feel uncomfortable, I don't know what would. Needless to say, we were not fast friends. He was of that narrow-minded, world stopped in 1986, anti-intellectual mindset anyway, but that certainly did not help matters.

These are all rather frivolous example, compared to the rather series sorts of issues I could easily say where differing memories, based largely on where we stand and our own personal history, shape our perception of occurrences in ways that may not be particularly friendly. I happen to have a rather unusual personal history, and one that is particularly hostile, and I write from that perspective. As a private citizen, my viewpoints are basically harmless, as I have only my power of persuasion (which I do not consider all that great) and my force of intellect to influence others. There are others whose viewpoints are of much greater importance, due to the power they possess, and whose memories are particularly faulty in rather important areas.

We all have somewhat faulty memories, so the lack of remembering specific details would not itself be important, except that it is an alarming tendancy of those with power and influence (and a natural, if unwise, interest in maintaining that position at all costs) to selectively forget what might be unfriendly to them. My memory, flawed or not, is rather evenhanded. I remember mistakes I have made (it's not like there is a shortage of those to choose from) as well as mistakes others have made towards me (ditto). For our memories to help us instead of hurt us, our memories have to be balanced.

What this means is that we have to remember that we are neither divine, accountable to no one, or beast. We are all sinners, and we are all sinned against. We should feel righteous indignation about those who abuse and offend others, but we must be careful to notice that we may do the same ourselves, even without realizing or intending it. We cannot construct victim ideologies for ourselves that whitewash our hands of any wrongdoing and claim that everything wrong in our lives is because of our enemies, be they human or spiritual. We are our own worst enemies--though we are not to blame for everything that goes wrong in our lives either.

So what does this mean? We must use our memories to help us see shortcomings in ourselves (and in those of other Christians--not for fault finding, though this is quite tempting sometimes, but for their own improvement as brethren in a spirit of mutual edifying). We must also use our memories to remember what God has done for us (this is especially important in times of great suffering, when blessings are hard to come by). We must also remember, honestly, who we are without God in our lives, as this can be rather instructive. If we do so, there will be no place for anyone, low or high, to boast about themselves, nor for anyone to feel too down on themselves, for we are all of great importance to God. So we should use our memories as a force for good, for improvement, for greater understanding and wisdom. Otherwise, as Mr. Santayana said, we will merely have more bad experiences repeating, with little point or purpose. Let not our past experiences occur in vain.