The ethics of memory

2 September 2015

Quiz of the day

1. Can we forgive on somebody else’s behalf? If they died for us and our freedom, should we forgive those who killed them, either with guns or with their silent mechanisms of persistent oppression?

2. Which is more important – to forgive, or to keep the memory of what happened alive?

“Remembering is an ethical act, has ethical value in and of itself” (Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others).

3. How else can we respond to such earth-shattering historical events, as a revolution? Forgive but not forget? Honor that hard-won freedom – how? Can we respond to anything without listening first? And is this that kind of ‘clinical’ type of listening that Nietzsche spoke of, aimed at identifying symptoms of hidden illnesses?