Forgetting and remembering alienation theory

Alienation theory has acted as the stimulus for a great deal of research and writing in the history of sociology. It has formed the basis of many sociological "classics" focused on the workplace and the experiences of workers, and has also been mobilized to chart wider social malaise and individual troubles. Alienation theory usage has, however, declined significantly since its heyday of the 1960s and 1970s. Here, the reasons why alienation theory was "forgotten" and what can be gained by "remembering" alienation theory are explored. to realize this ambition this article proceeds by (1) briefly visiting differing definitions of alienation theory, before charting its high point, and the various debates and tensions of the time, during the 1960s and 1970s; (2) analysing the reasons why alienation theory fell from grace from the 1980s onwards; (3) elaborating how and why alienation theory is still relevant for sociology and the wider social sciences today.     

Nietzsche on Memory and Active Forgetting

This article explores Nietzsche’s approach to the fundamental question of “how to live one’s life”, and more specifically his view of the role of the past in seeking an answer to this question. By discussing Nietzsche’s views of how different nations and cultures relate to their history, I suggest some comparisons with how individuals might do so. Common to both is the relationship between the past as a resource and as a burden: the burden of single events or periods and the burden of the abundance of facts. Key to Nietzsche’s thinking on these questions is his account of the relationship between remembering, promising, and forgetting. He considers “active forgetting” paradoxically as both a form of forgetting and a way of taking full responsibility for the past.     

Constructing the Past

Ronald L. Grimes. Symbol and Conquest: Public Ritual and Drama in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1976. 281 pp. $16.50.     

Typologies of Memory and Forgetting among the Expatriates of Rabaul

In recent years considerable attention has been directed to memory and the relationships between memory and history, the past and the present. However, the related issue of forgetting remains misunderstood. The oral testimonies of three current and former expatriates in Rabaul--Julian Murphy, John Beagley and Jean Bourke--provide us with an opportunity to rethink some of the dilemmas of memory by focusing our attention on such issues as nostalgia, the passage of time, sensory memories, and place. Much of the research on memory in the social sciences is defined by a lack of engagement with medical writings on similar themes. Yet the possibilities for mutual interaction and exchange between the social and physical sciences are endless, enabling more in-depth studies and analysis of memory and forgetting.     

Evidence for the Past

Book reviewed in this article:
The What and the Why of History: Philosophical Essays By Leon J. Goldstein     

Struggling with the Past

Many postprocessual archaeologists have argued that active individuals make history. The apotheosis of the individual has been achieved under the rubric identity, the most pervasive theoretical term of the last few years. This focus obscures the fundamental idea that individuals do not exist in isolation. The relational concept of struggle will help us past this theoretical impasse. This concept has many components including real struggles in the past, our struggles to know the past, and using the past to struggle in the present. Our goal is to struggle past identity politics and the individual by focusing on peoples' real struggles in real cases.     

草原往事

生命,像一首悠扬的歌,每一个音符都是一个细节;又像一条蜿蜒的河,每一朵浪花都是一个故事;更像一棵婆娑的树,每一枚落叶都是一段往事。尽管,我的人生算不上精彩和丰盈,但也有一些经历弥足珍贵,至今记忆犹新。     

Memory,Forgetting and the New Tribes Mission in West New Britain

In this paper, I use ethnography from the Kaliai area to explore the social and political relationships which underpin memory and forgetting. I analyse the relationships of hegemony and resistance which are inscribed and articulated in a context of missionising where villagers and missionaries enter into an uneasy alliance to control what should be remembered so that people emerge as particular kinds of subjects. In exploring the social and political organisation of memory, this paper does not treat memory and forgetting as opposites, for people are also taught how to forget. Indeed they are caught in the paradox of always needing to remember that they have to always try to forget. Here the need to forget has the paradoxical effect of keeping alive the content of what must be forgotten. In a strange sort of way the need to forget sustains the need to remember what must be forgotten. I explore the political implications of these paradoxes and ambiguities for sustaining a place outside European hegemony whilst still inscribed in it.     

Approaches to the Recent Past

These five books address the evolution of cognition and consciousness, the two topics no longer considered synonymous but separate though related inquiries. Two books focus on consciousness as revealed in art and artifacts from prehistoric sites of anatomically modern humans; one evaluates the intelligence of anthropoid apes through ecological, ethological, behavioral, and anatomical studies of living and fossil apes; one concerns intelligence as revealed in fossil brains and skulls; and the fifth is an essay using many types of data and imaginative scenarios to comment on the mind.     

When the Past becomes the Present

L'oracle pour les Recabites (Jr 35,18-19 TM // 42,18-19 LXX) presente quelques differences notables suivant qu'on le lit dans sa version massoretique ou dans la LXX. Il s'agit essentiellement du changement de locuteur et de destinataire, de la construction differente des personnages, ainsi que d'insistances differentes d'une version a l'autre. De la sorte, ce texte se revele etre un bon terrain pour verifier a petite echelle que les differences entre les narrations paralleles des deux versions connues du livre de Jeremie impliquent une strategie narrative differente, ce qui a un impact sur le sens du recit lui-meme pour le lecteur. L'article entend montrer tout l'interet qu'il y a a prendre au serieux separement le TM et la LXX, de sorte qu'apparaisse la specificite de chaque texte dans sa confrontation a l'autre. De la comparaison ressortiront des indications quant a la qualite eraire de chaque texte, mais aussi sans doute l'un ou l'autre indice concernant l'histoire textuelle de ce livre biblique.