Political Forgetting

Collective memory is often taken to be central to the political and epistemic duties of citizens; remembering salient historical events or political labels is essential for understanding ongoing political issues and coming to form our beliefs responsibly. But sometimes—usually in the immediate aftermath of a deep conflict—we are faced with calls to forget aspects of our shared civic life. This article aims to provide a conceptualization and set of justificatory conditions that apply to such cases of political forgetting. I suggest that we should conceive of political forgetting as a coordinated reduction in the salience of particular issues in our civic affairs undertaken by the public in its capacity as the constituting people. I suggest that this is a more effective way of characterizing political forgetting than alternative models—namely, what I call the belief-centered model and the prohibition model. I then outline a set of demanding justificatory conditions that apply to political forgetting: (1) the transformation of the terms of political reality does not obscure issues or events that continue to structure society to the unjust disadvantage of any particular group; (2) that transformation is endorsed by all relevant social groups; and (3) the “forgotten” terms or events can be resurrected by agents in certain conditions.