Historical memory is the chief counterforce to functionalized one-dimensional thought

Evidence

If the progressing rationality of advanced industrial society tends to liquidate, as an “irrational rest,” the disturbing elements of Time and Memory, it also tends to liquidate the disturbing rationality contained in this irrational rest. Recognition and relation to the past as present counteracts the functionalization of thought by and in the established reality. It militates against the closing of the universe of discourse and behavior; it renders possible the development of concepts which de-stabilize and transcend the closed universe by comprehending it as historical universe. Confronted with the given society as object of its reflection, critical thought becomes historical consciousness; as such, it is essentially judgment. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 409

Categorization

• XREF: Builds on the earlier chapters’ thesis of one-dimensionality; connects to the reader’s attention-economy interest — forgetting as a designed feature of distraction. — connects to: One-dimensionality works by assimilating the subject into objective structures — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 38; Calls for a shared reconciliatory memory intensify, not end, memory conflicts — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 1248
• SEED: Angle: ‘Memory as infrastructure’ — critical thought requires historical storage; the attention economy erases it for profit.