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Goodreads helps you The Ethics of Memory track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. The Ethics of Memory by Avishai Margalit. Much of the intense current interest in collective memory concerns the politics of memory. In a book that asks, "Is there an ethics of memory? The idea he pursues is The Ethics of Memory the past, connecting people to each other, makes possible the kinds of "thick" relations we can call truly ethical. Thick rel Much of the intense current interest in collective memory concerns the politics of memory. Thick relations, he argues, are those that we have with family and friends, lovers and neighbors, our tribe and our nation--and they are all dependent on shared memories. But we The Ethics of Memory have "thin" relations with total strangers, people with whom we have nothing in common except our common humanity. A central idea of the ethics of memory is that when radical evil The Ethics of Memory our shared humanity, we ought as human beings to remember the victims. Margalit's work offers a philosophy for our time, when, in the wake of overwhelming atrocities, memory can seem more crippling than liberating, a force more for revenge than for The Ethics of Memory. Morally powerful, deeply learned, and elegantly written, The Ethics of Memory draws on the resources of millennia of Western philosophy and religion to provide us with healing ideas that will engage all of us The Ethics of Memory care about the nature of our relations to others. Get A The Ethics of Memory. Paperbackpages. Published March 15th by Harvard University Press first published More Details Original Title. Other Editions 4. Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about The Ethics of Memoryplease sign up. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of The Ethics of Memory. Feb 20, Catherine Roehl rated it it was amazing. The book's main idea is that human beings have an ethical obligation to remember past persons and events. Margalit maintains that the source of this obligation to remember comes from the effort of radical evil forces to undermine morality by rewriting the past The Ethics of Memory controlling collective memory. Margalit argues that it is necessary for community to have collective memories in order to achieve a level of repentance and reconciliation. The text suggest that this ethical communal memory can not be u The book's main idea is that human beings have an ethical obligation to remember past persons and events. The text suggest that this ethical communal memory can not be universalized because it is contingent on the notion of caring. In forming a universal moral as opposed to ethical community, humanity, at large, becomes capable of remembering moral atrocities such as the radical evils and crimes committed by the Nazis. The text explicates the important difference between ethics and morality: ethics are concerned with caring and loyalty towards those we are closest to an optional good ; where as morality is concerned with respect toward the whole of humanity a required good. Some topics that I found of particular value were: shared memory, collective memory The Ethics of Memory myth, how democracy relies on memory for ex. Margalit draws from the writings of Plato, Freud specifically his theory of memory as a guarded prisonImmanuel Kant, Milton, Ecclesiastes and his theories on forgettingand David Hume. Aug 08, Bryan Kibbe rated it really liked it. Recently I visited Powell's bookstore in Portland, Oregon. Succinctly put, Powell's is a book lovers paradise. Part of what make it so interesting and wonderful is the endless opportunities for serendipitous discoveries of new books. The Ethics of Memory was one such serendipitous discovery as I trawled through the expansive philosophy section. I am glad I found this little book as it has added clarity to both m Recently I visited Powell's bookstore in Portland, Oregon. I am glad I found this little book as it has added clarity to both my thinking The Ethics of Memory the practice and explication of philosophical insight as well as illumination into the fascinating topic of memory. In particular, as the title alludes, the book is focused on the ethics of memory and centers on the questions: Is there an ethics of memory, and if so what does it consist in? Do we have obligations to remember certain things? Do we have an obligation to forget certain things? There is much to glean from Margalit's treatment of these questions, owing especially to Margalit's direct and precise writing style which yields a delicious collection of helpful distinctions. At times, I found Margalit's choice of sub-topics to be a little scattershot, and might have benefitted from some tighter transitions, but nonetheless I found the book enjoyable and thought provoking. While Margalit is certainly writing from the vantage point The Ethics of Memory a philosopher, this book is very accessible to a more general audience, and has much to interest all those that are sometimes reflective about the past and its import for the present and future. Feb 27, Katie Stafford rated it it was amazing. I enjoyed The Ethics of Memory book very much. If you are looking for a The Ethics of Memory book of moral philosophy that is relevant, clear, engaging and well written this book is for you. Margalit The Ethics of Memory morality from ethics by The Ethics of Memory ethics with "thick relations" and morality with "thin relations. Ultimately, the book leads to the importance of human forgiveness as covering up rather than blo I enjoyed this book very much. Ultimately, the book leads to the importance of human forgiveness as covering up rather than blotting out. Feb 28, Tim and Popie Stafford rated it liked it. I like his writing He's respectful of religion, and uses many religious scriptural examples, but it's an attempt at a purely humanistic ethics. I'm not sure how successful that is. Jul 29, CM rated it it was ok Shelves: philosophy. As stated in the preface, this small book is a collection of lectures a format I always have problem with with an approach stressed on examples and light on principles a bit like Zizek, not really my The Ethics of Memory. A reader more in tune with this style may give it a higher rating. I would recommend chapter 1 on remembering a name and the role of memory in caringchapter 2 on collective memory and the social obligation to remember The Ethics of Memory chapter 6 on the relationship between forgetting and forg As stated in the preface, this small The Ethics of Memory is a The Ethics of Memory of lectures a format I always have problem with with an approach stressed on examples and light on principles a bit like Zizek, not really my favorite. I would recommend chapter 1 on remembering a name and the role of memory in caringchapter 2 on collective memory and the social obligation to remember and chapter 6 on the relationship between forgetting and forgiveness. The remaining three chapters may seem either niche for a special audience or less structured. Sometimes ideas are underdeveloped but this right mix of intellectual rigour and cultural references can The Ethics of Memory enough to keep a curious reader going. Please be noted that Mr Margalit often makes use of biblical references. Feb 04, Taka rated it it was amazing Shelves: 2-nonfiction-you-must- read, philosophy-general. That alone tells me there's no justice at all to this business of book popularity. Lucidly written, accessible, yet erudite, fascinating, and so convincingly argued deserves a much, much wider audience than the Amazon reviews indicate. It's a rich philosophical work that's actually relevant to all of us—in the way John Gray's books are—and I've learned so much about forgiveness, ethics vs. Very, very happy I came across this book—and right on the tail of my discovery of John Gray at that! Will be reading the rest of Margalit's works for sure. Highly, highly recommended The Ethics of Memory anyone who's interested in contemporary philosophy at its best. Jul 15, Casey Smith rated it it was amazing. Great book! May 18, mh rated it really liked it. I enjoyed it. Well written, and something new to think about. Sep 15, Meryll Levine Page rated it really liked it. This book is rich and thoughtful but needs to be read in small bursts of concentration. May 10, Dave Peticolas The Ethics of Memory it liked it. A philosopher explores our obligation to remember the past. Mike rated it really liked it Apr 13, Danu Poyner rated it really liked it Oct 29, Rodolfo Buccico rated it liked it May 21, Nathaniel rated it liked it Mar 28, The Ethics of Memory by Avishai Margalit

What is memory? What remembrance do we owe people we have lost and how is that reflected in the monuments we create to memorialize them? Why do different groups of people interpret the same event differently—even when the facts are not disputed? In The Ethics of Memory, we will discuss these questions and more by exploring personal memory, collective memory and memorial culture, and conflicts of memory. We begin early in the 20th century—the century of critical engagement with memory—when personal memory was plumbed as the basis of psychoanalysis and as a theme in the poetry and prose of World War I. Then we look at the ways in which a The Ethics of Memory, collectively, choose to memorialize those lost to war, injustice, or tragedy. Finally, we explore memory as a site of struggle, where the way we see ourselves currently implicated by a memory may depend on our group identity, such as in the case for The Ethics of Memory for slavery in the United States. Throughout, we will share our own perspectives on personal and collective memory and wrestle with questions of ethical responsibility for remembrance and ownership of the narrative of a memory. Receive an instructor-signed certificate with the institution's logo to verify your achievement and increase your job prospects. Add the certificate to your CV or resume, The Ethics of Memory post it directly on LinkedIn. Give yourself an additional incentive to complete the course. EdX, a non-profit, relies The Ethics of Memory verified certificates to help fund free education for everyone globally. Video Transcript:. Course Type:. Share this course Share this course on facebook Share this course on twitter Share this course on linkedin Share this course The Ethics of Memory email. Prerequisites None. About this course Skip About this course. In this course, we will: Discover in the writing of Freud how the exploration of memory gave birth to psychoanalysis, and in Proust how such exploration was elevated to an art form; The Ethics of Memory poetry from WWI and the Harlem Renaissance that demonstrates the relevance of literature as a framework for understanding the ethics of memory; Reflect on examples of the many ways we collectively memorialize our losses; and Share examples of personal and public monuments to memory in order to reflect on the ethical responsibility that memorializing confers on us now. What you'll learn Skip What you'll learn. Examine how memory was explored in 20th century literature, law, psychoanalysis, and pop culture. Explore why we should The Ethics of Memory about the ethical component of memory. Distinguish history from memory and explore ways in which we memorialize history. Discover and interpret monuments to memory that surround you. Meet your instructors Brown University. Ravit Reichman Associate Professor of English. The Ethics of Erasing a Bad Memory - TIME

What's in a name. A great deal. Or so I shall argue. My case rests on the most meager memory of a person: remembering her name. Or rather on the horror lest the name be forgotten. Why do we care about that? The memory of a person's name is all we need to get our The Ethics of Memory question going: Is there room for an ethics of memory? The modern man's daily prayer, says Hegel, is reading the daily newspaper. In one of my own daily prayers I came across a report concerning the speedy and problematic career of a certain army colonel. The colonel was interviewed about a publicly known incident in his past, when he was the commander of a small unit. One of the soldiers under his command had been killed by so-called friendly fire. It turned out The Ethics of Memory the colonel did not remember The Ethics of Memory soldier's name. There followed a flood of outrage directed at the officer who did not remember. Why wasn't the name of this fallen soldier "scorched in iron letters" on his commander's heart? I was struck by the moral wrath heaped on this officer simply for not remembering something, and it led me to think about the officer's obligation to remember-and if indeed he has an obligation. Let us stay for a while with our little story, as a first crack The Ethics of Memory the larger issue of obligation to remember in general. Is it really of special importance that the officer did not remember his dead soldier's name? Are there special obligations to remember people's names, or at least some names in certain situations? On the The Ethics of Memory of it, asking about remembering the name of the soldier is just a metonym for asking about remembering the young soldier himself. In much the same way, Joseph Brodsky questions the Soviet marshal Zhukov in his poem "On the death of Zhukov": "Did he weep for his men? As he lay dying, did he recall them? It seems that the least the officer could, and should, remember is the soldier's name. But had the officer recalled some definite description of the soldier, he would have done just as well-he would have shown that he actually remembered the young man himself. So on the face of it, remembering the name is remembering the soldier, but the obligation, if it is an obligation, is to remember the soldier and not necessarily to remember his name. This The Ethics of Memory should be hedged right away. Not just any definite description will do. The required description would present the soldier in a good light or at least in a neutral light. If the description is insulting in some way, it will not work. It will just add insult to injury. He had a huge red dripping nose" is not a good answer. Discounting negative descriptions, we are still left with the impression that what the officer was accused of is not The Ethics of Memory the soldier rather than not remembering the name. I think that as far as the case of the officer is concerned, this is true. But then again, I believe there is a powerful picture with respect to remembering personal names that molds our The Ethics of Memory of memory as an ethical and, I hasten to say, as a religious subject. David Edgar's play Pentecost tells a story of children on their way to a concentration camp. They are squeezed into a cattle truck, so hungry that they eat the cardboard nametags tied to their necks. It is clear that no trace of the The Ethics of Memory and no trace of their names will be left after they perish. What is so terrifying in this play is not just the knowledge that the children are on their way to be murdered but that they are going to be murdered twice, both in body and in name. This The Ethics of Memory of the double murder is, I believe, at the core of our attitude toward memory in general, and in particular toward the memory of personal names as referring to the essence of human beings in The Ethics of Memory way nothing else does. The Bible is a rich source for this double murder or double killing image. The biblical expression "to blot out the name" captures both: "And the lord shall blot out his name from under the heaven" Deut. There is no doctrine of the immortality of the soul in the Hebrew Bible, but there is, I believe, a distinct idea of the survival of the name as the predominant vehicle for carrying the memory of the dead. The best bearer of a man's name, and the The Ethics of Memory guarantor of its survival, is the dead man's sons and, by extension, his "seed" his sons and daughters and their descendants. Absalom, King David's rebellious son, erects a monument in his own name, saying "I have no son to keep my name in remembrance" 2 Sam. It is not clear that there is an etymological connection in Biblical Hebrew between Zekher memory and Zakhar maleand even less clear that there is any etymological connection between Isha woman, wife and Neshia forgetfulness, oblivion. Still, there is a strong suggestive association between the words of the first pair, and not merely a phonetic association. The memorial sanctuary for the Holocaust victims in Jerusalem is famously called Yad Vashem. In September Mordechai Shenhabi, a member of a secular kibbutz, suggested The Ethics of Memory up a memorial under the name Yad Vashem for the Jews murdered in Europe. At the time he made this suggestion, most of the people who were to become victims were still alive. The name Yad Vashem is based on the verse in Isaiah which promises a memorial even to the pious eunuch or castrated The Ethics of Memorywho is a "dry tree" in the sense that no one will carry his name after his death. The eunuch here stands for all those who, without intervention, would leave no trace. By calling the memorial for the Holocaust victims Yad Vashem the idea is expressed that the Jewish victims in Europe are like the eunuchs who leave no trace, and that there will be a national depository for their names, on the model mentioned in Isaiah. My claim is that in the Bible one's name is not just a convenient tool for preserving one's memory but is taken as intimately related to one's essence. If the name survives, the essence somehow survives as well. A The Ethics of Memory name has the semantic property of designating the same person in The Ethics of Memory and every possible situation. A personal name is what Saul Kripke calls a rigid designator. He coined it as a term of art, but his expression made it to the Oxford English Dictionary. A rigid designator refers to the person's essence. That is, it refers to that specific person in all "possible worlds. A personal name is also perceived in magical thinking not just as expressing but also affecting one's essence. I believe that the peculiar semantics of names is responsible for the magic of names, harming and benefiting by the use of the name. At any rate, the two, semantics and magic, are related. The idea that the essence of a person is referred to and expressed by a personal name gives the name a particular role in memory. And I believe that the quasi-magical thought of the survival of the name, as the The Ethics of Memory of the essence, is what lies behind the doctrine of the double killing: The Ethics of Memory the body and killing the name. Thus the biblical metaphors threatening to "destroy" the name Deut. What name is remembered may vary with history and culture. Clifford Geertz tells us of the peculiar use of personal names in the Balinese culture. Each person has a unique, private name made of nonsense syllables, so that there is an unlimited supply of non-repeated names. This name is rarely used and is usually known only to one's elders and peer group, not to younger people. When a person dies, his personal name pretty much dies with him. But The Ethics of Memory are other means of reference, which for all intents and purposes are just like a personal name-for The Ethics of Memory, the use of teknonymous labels "the father of so and so". So the Balinese remember one not by a personal name but by means akin to The Ethics of Memory personal name. What makes a label akin to a personal name, whether it is a nickname, a definite description, or some other device of that kind, is the fact that the label is without content. Of course some first names The Ethics of Memory lexical meaning, such as Grace or Gore, and with last names it occurs even more. Think of Green, Good, Gold. The sense in which these names are without content, in my account, means that the meanings of those names in the language do not determine their reference. Young will be called Young even in old age, and Mrs. Small can be very tall and still referred to by that name. Someone named Gay may not be gay. And so it is with nicknames. Its emptiness in terms of content, The Ethics of Memory not in terms of reference, is what makes personal names and their cognates the last barrier from the abyss of oblivion. The Ethics of Memory us conduct a little thought experiment. If I ask you which you prefer: that a momentous work of yours will survive after your death, but only anonymously, or that your name will survive but none of your works will as happened to the legendary Dedalushow would you answer? Miguel de Unamuno, the Spanish philosopher, knew his preference, and believed that he knew yours. He believed that you, as he, would opt for the survival of your name rather than the survival of your work. I don't share his preference, and I don't know your preference. Yet the mere fact that I do not know your preference is enough to underline Unamuno's point: how strong the desire is for even such an insubstantial immortality as that of a name. It is this strong desire for immortality that religion expresses so forcefully. The source of the wish for The Ethics of Memory immortal name is not mere vanity. Nor is it merely the desire The Ethics of Memory "make a name for yourself" in the sense of achieving glory. It is rather a horror of extinction and utter oblivion. The human project of memory, i. Benedict Anderson asks a striking question: Why do we not erect monuments for the unknown social democrat or for the unknown liberal, as well as for the unknown soldier? The answer surely has to do with the fact that The Ethics of Memory these labels we do not find "natural" communities of memory, because such ideologies are not engaged in the businesses of immortality, in whatever form. That is both their strength and their weakness. But nations, like religious communities, do. Secular groups, perhaps more than religious groups, face the problem of who will remember the "unheroic dead" Siegfried Sassoon. It is no accident The Ethics of Memory Anna Akhmatova blurs the distinction between the secular and the religious by calling her great poem of the Red Terror "Requiem. She writes: "I want to name the name of all that host, but they snatched up the list and now it is lost. In Edward Albee's The Play about a Babyone of the protagonists tells the audience, in a rather cheerful tone, the following chilling story.