Loss of historical memory harms groups the way amnesia harms individuals

Evidence

Let me begin with a defense against neglect, against disuse. Here I can do no more than offer the usual apologia for my craft and that of my colleagues: the need for memory, the dangers of deprivation of memory—in the individual with no memory, am­ nesia, with distorted memories, neurosis. The group, no less than the individual, needs some form of collective memory and record. Even running a business or selling a commodity requires the keeping of records, preferably accurate. A balance-sheet, for example, is a historical narrative. If it is missing or inaccurate, the enterprise faces grave dangers; if it is fraudulent, those dangers include indictment. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1821

Categorization

• XREF: The individual/group memory analogy grounds why collective memory matters — connects to debates about historical silencing and who gets written out of the record. — connects to: Postindustrial and postconflict labels erase harms that continue across generations — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 32; Toxicity erases a community’s pretoxic past along with individuals’ human histories — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 144