Contra Santayana

The American experiment has been at its best when it has failed to be condemned by the past.

Understanding history is vital for progress, but it has a dark side. I would like to propose that: People who cannot forget the past are condemned to be trapped by it.

This is a point Jonah Goldberg has made. Any society that can remember ancient as well as not-so-ancient roots may have a problem not forgetting the wrongs of the past. These range from relatively minor slights to full-blown and horrific atrocities. The people of these societies then carry this burden with them letting it shape their thinking and restrain their growth both economically and morally.

There are two versions this: inward reflection and outward observation. Thinking about one’s “own past” has the risk of an original-sin complex whereby we take on guilt for things others did that were indeed truly bad but that we ourselves did not do. By bearing this guilt we never reach a point of healthy reconciliation. To be sure fruits of ill-gotten gains should not be enjoyed, but there is much nuance in determining what is actually an ill-gotten gain. There are statutes of limitation for good reason, and these are for those who are at least potentially actually guilty. At some point the complexities of human action require that we move on with a state of the world as it is seeking justice only from that point forward and considering just the past when we can draw direct lines between then and now—yes, there is much room for honest debate in ascertaining those lines.

America is at its best when it fully acknowledges past wrongs, seeks to correct those still correctable, works toward preventing a repeat of those wrongs (a nod here toward Santayana), and moves forward letting the past be the past.

This is true as well in the second version, outward observation. America is a young society. Hence, it is not burdened with painful histories from long ago—think millennia, not decades—passed down through oral histories with all the common problems associated with those games of long-distance telephone. Still there are many examples where American autonomy has been violated. Unsurprisingly, it usually takes a generation or two to move passed hatred into grudge into letting go. But it is a better track record than most and I am optimistic the cycle is getting shorter.

It is certainly quite sensible to want to remember and preserve the memories of those who make sacrifices, especially the ultimate sacrifice, for good causes or for what they at least believed were good causes. Yet it is quite easy to slip from that into remembering if not dwelling on the cause itself and the anger associated with it.

Asking “how do we move forward?” is constructive and unifying. Demanding satisfaction invites continued conflict and destructive stagnation. Forgive and forget is an essential part of social psychological progress and a reasonable one when those we are forgiving are long gone and we are only forgetting to hold on to hate.