Why We Should Remember

...Traditionalists of every stripe will be taken with Margalit's approach, since they put a premium on loyalty to the past...

...Can they be persuaded to ponder the idea of the ethics of memory...

...philosophers-illustrators and explicators.'· The explicators "trust, first and foremost, definitions and general principles," the illustrators rely on "striking examples [to] make a philosophical point or to highlight philosophical distinctions...

...Margalit is a Zionist living in Israel...

...Because it encompasses all humanity," Margalit contends, "morality is long on geography and short on memory...

...Because he illuminates the "suffering inflicted by an unmitigated evil regime," Margalit claims, the moral witness is "invested with special moral authority akin to that of the religious witness or the martyr...

...In any event, Margalit holds, the sheer difficulty of the dilemma is an indication of "how strong the desire is for even such an insubstantial immortality as that of a name...

...Part of what motivates him is the hope that "in another place or another time there exists, or will exist, a moral community that will listen to [his] testimony...

...He discusses two possible ways of achieving this-"blotting out" and "covering up...

...Israelis are obsessed with collective memory, in relation to both the Holocaust and the saga of the creation of the Jewish state...

...Appropriately, Margalit remembers that his interest in the subject at hand was triggered by a Jerusalem newspaper story about an Israeli Army officer who could not recall the name of a soldier killed under his command: "I was struck by the moral wrath heaped on this officer simply for not remembering something, and it led me to think about the officer's obligation to remember-and if indeed he has an obligation...

...Blotting out an insult means "forgetting it absolutely...

...In the author's view, ethics operates in the sphere of "thick relations," which involve those who are "near and dear," e.g...

...and his knowledge was entirely by description") A fictional moral witness is likewise impossible...

...how would you answer...

...By contrast, morality functions in the context of "thin relations," which connect strangers...

...Names play a special role because they stand for "the essence of human beings in a way nothing else does...

...A self-declared humanist, Margalit casts his overall thesis in universal terms...

...His expressed hope, however, is to address liberals who are firmly oriented to the future and tend to regard the past as so much spilt milk...

...Reviewed by David Singer Co-Editor, "American Jewish Year Book" This is a small book with a large reach...

...Margalit also tell us what a moral witness is not...

...Can a war correspondent be a moral witness...

...When examples are apt, they are illuminations, not just didactic illustrations...

...No matter how strongly Franz Werfel [author of a 1933 novel about the Armenian genocide] identifies with the Armenians, and how concretely he was able to depict the evil inflicted on them, he is no witness...

...Avishai Margalit, a philosophy professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, examines the concept of having a duty to remember...

...Therefore, forgiveness, which is voluntary, should not be tied to forgetting, which is involuntary...

...One has to have some knowledge by acquaintance...

...Unamuno is convinced everyone will choose the second option...

...He sets the stage by posing a series of questions applicable to individuals and to groups: "Are we obligated to remember people and events from the past...

...Short of this, memory has its sway exclusively in the ethical realm...

...Margalit posits forcefully that the covering-up model best describes what happens when we pardon someone...

...a "parent, friend, lover, fellow countryman...

...The reason for this, he maintains, is the "horror of extinction and utter oblivion...

...Just reporting on evil because it is interesting and makes a good story, even if the reporting is risky, is to report with no moral purpose...

...Margalit then focuses on the figure of the "moral witness" (he mentions Nadezhda Mandelstam and Primo Levi), who is the "special agent of collective memory...

...Topping the list is his theory of why recollecting the names of the dead looms so large...

...Are remembering and forgetting proper subjects of moral praise or blame...

...Margalit observes in his Preface that there are "e.g...

...The book's central contention is that "while there is an ethics of memory, there is very little morality of memory...

...Are there special obligations to remember people's names, or at least some names in certain situations...

...Margalit's discussion is solid throughout, but his treatment of a number of issues is particularly strong...

...He sees it as "conceptually, psychologically and morally preferable to the picture of blotting ouf': "Forgiveness is first and foremost a policy: a policy of adopting an exclusionary reason [a reason against acting] with regard to someone who has wronged us...

...covering one up means "disregarding it without forgetting it...

...The Ethics of Memory is consequently studded with telling cases in point taken from history, literature, current affairs, and other domains...

...Under a charitable account, Wilkomirski underwent a spiritual act of identification, but he did not experience a personal encounter") One last aspect of Margalit's examination that I want to single out is his analysis of the ethics of forgetting...

...To further illustrate this, he presents the reader with a thought experiment propounded by Miguel de Unamuno: "If I ask you which you prefer: that a momentous work of yours will survive after your death, but only anonymously, or that your name will survive but none of your works will...

...That remains to be seen...

...Next, he considers the "notion of shared memory and its correlative notion, a community of memory...

...Turning his attention to the accompanying sensibilities and feelings, he argues that "reliving the past" always entails "remembering emotions with respect to the events and the people remembered...

...The Holocaust is the paradigm here...

...If the aim is overcoming angry and vengeful feelings toward those who have wronged us, he replies, the answer is yes...

...Writing with disarming modesty, the author offers potential answers in six thought-provoking chapters that are a delight to read...

...This view is compatible with the covering-up picture rather than with the blotting-out picture...

...If we are, what is the nature of this obligation...

...From this tiny kernel-a wonderful instance of an enlightening illustrationMargalit mounts his full-scale inquiry...

...This statement, distinguishing two words commonly thought to be synonymous, needs to be unpacked...

...Judaism is a religion built on recollection, and this echoes on every page of The Ethics of Memory...

...A mere act of identification with the children of the Holocaust [in Binjamin Wilkomirski's fake memoir, Fragments] does not establish identity as one of them...

...Who are the 'we' who may be obligated...

...With that in mind, it is interesting to recall that the madeleine of Margalit's investigation into memory was an article about an Israeli military officer in a Jerusalem newspaper...

...philosophers and i.e...

...Finally, the "ethics of forgetting" is considered as it relates to the process of forgiveness...

...Both approaches have their dangers, he notes, and avers: "I believe that style in philosophy matters greatly...

...He begins with the "implications of remembering personal names [and] persons from our past...

...Indeed, he believes moral memory has applicability only in the unique case of "gross crimes against humanity [that] attack...

...He puts forth a simple question: "Are there things that we ought to forget...

...To disregard is a decision, to forget is not...

...Still, the attentive reader cannot help noticing the distinctly Jewish flavor of his discourse...

...Small wonder that so many of Margalit's examples are drawn from the Bible, Jewish history and the Holocaust...

...Another highlight is his profile of the moral witness, who brings word of "events from the past that should be landmarks in our collective moral consciousness...

...it refers to that specific person in all 'possible worlds.'" Therefore, to the degree that "the name survives, the essence somehow survives as well...

...Memory," he says, "is the cement that holds thick relations together, [and thus] becomes an obvious concern of ethics...

...The author shrewdly points out that "a personal name has the semantic property of designating the same person in each and every possible situation...

...But, he "ascribes intrinsic value to his testimony, no matter what the instrumental consequences of it are going to be...

...the very notion of shared humanity...

...A writer cannot be one by proxy, either...