Selective forgetting of negative events sustains national identity formation

Evidence

Since the nation is an imagined community (Anderson, 1991), the selective forgetting of negative events is part and parcel of the formation and maintenance of a national identity. Suspecting myself of being the victim of collective forgetting, I resorted to Wikipedia to find out whether Italy had concentration camps during World War II. It did. I never read about them in our history books, of course. In any case, in our books, Italy goes from being the victim of a dictator (Mussolini) to a heroic insurgent against the Nazis. Somehow, the remarkable cleansing operation of our very questionable history also worked well outside of our borders. To my delight, and horror, many of my American students think that Italy was an ally of the United States throughout World War II. We were the good guys! — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 2087

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: This is the inverse of my sacrifice piece’s point — nations forget their own morally questionable past to stay coherent; the cleansing operation runs on selective recall rather than reenactment.
• SEED: Angle: ‘we were the good guys’ — how a nation’s self-image as morally righteous requires systematic forgetting, and why history textbooks are the site of the war.