THE MORAL AND POLITICAL BURDENS OF MEMORY

Author: Miller, Richard B.

Source: Journal of Religious Ethics, Volume 37, Number 3, September 2009 , pp. 533-564(32)

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Abstract:

Memory brings the past into the present. It is a feature of human temporality, contingency, and identity. Attention to memory's psychological and social importance suggests new vistas for work in religious ethics. This essay examines four recent works on memory's importance for self-interpretation, social criticism, and public justice. My focus will be on normative questions about memory. The works under review ask whether, and on what terms, we have an obligation to remember, whether memory is linked to neighbors near and distant, how memory is related to justice and forgiveness, and whether memory sits easily with the kind of relationships that allegedly characterize life in democratic public culture.

Keywords: memory; history; forgetting; forgiveness; repression; justice; religion; social criticism

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9795.2009.00399.x

Affiliations: 1: Department of Religious StudiesIndiana UniversitySycamore 230Bloomington, IN 47405812.855.3531, Email: miller3@indiana.edu

Publication date: 2009-09-01