Solemn ceremonies in honor of memorable dates, an endless return to the events of the past, memorials … The collective memory, which modern society so insists on, without which it cannot imagine itself, actually complicates our lives, causes a feeling of suffocation, psychoanalyst Simon-Daniel Kipman is convinced (Simon-Daniel Kipman).
Forgetfulness is healing. The more we forget, the more we open up to the future, the more we are ready to be surprised and come up with something new.
Psychologies: Why do we need to forget?
Simon Daniel Kipman: What is the process of reflection for? The process of digestion? We cannot forbid them. You can’t fight oblivion. You can’t live without it, perhaps it’s just a vital necessity. I often think: why do we waste time and get angry at ourselves and others for forgetting? What is moralizing? After all, in fact, we forget, on average, a thousand times more things than are stored in our memory. I think it is unfair that this natural mechanism is always viewed from a negative angle. After all, in the end, it is he who determines our essence — as well as what we remember.
How does he define us? Does our personality develop, relying not on memory?
S.-D. TO.: Of course yes. We deal with fragments, with disparate moments of our existence, and in this way we create our personal history. , fashion your image. Through and through oblivion, we sift, select, and create our own legend.
But we forget against our will. You explained that in order to remember something for sure, it is enough to want to forget it at any cost. How does it happen, why do we forget some events, while others are not?
S.-D. TO.: The process of recall is based on the association between an event and the emotion that we experienced in connection with it. We can have two reasons to forget an event: either what is happening did not cause us any feelings (or caused us to feel too weak), or, on the contrary, our emotion was too strong. With the latter option, we stop thinking, our brain freezes, we plunge into a state of shock, which ultimately leads to the separation of the emotion from the object that caused it. When they stop connecting, oblivion sets in.
Is this what Freud called the process of repression?
S.-D. TO.: No. Forgetting is not limited to repression. It would be too easy. To forget is to lose consciousness, figuratively, of course, but also literally, as I just said. We erase from our brain what happened to us, and we cannot remember it unless we receive an impulse from the outside. So, for example, people who fell under a mountain avalanche erased it from their memory, and those who watched TV reports about it and then approached them with questions and emotions could resurrect the event in the minds of its victims. Then it is very likely to transform into trauma. After all, resurrecting something in memory is sometimes much more dangerous than forgetting.
You are now saying the opposite of what we are used to: we were taught that it is forgetfulness that can lead to injuries, behavioral deviations, and somatic symptoms.
S.-D. TO.: Yes, but in oblivion our life force is also manifested. So the body is protected from internal conflict, from external aggression or from too strong emotions. Forgetfulness can also free us from an anxiety state that is dangerous because it can provoke memories that the psyche cannot cope with. In psychoanalysis, we greatly appreciate the mechanisms of protection against anxiety, because it can overwhelm us, bring the psyche into a state of disintegration, cause panic attacks …
Are there any other positive aspects to forgetfulness?
S.-D. TO.: By forgetting, we get the opportunity to avoid manic states, excessive thinking, procrastination. When we forget, everything happens anew, everything is fresh. After all, we spend our lives in the daily repetition of the same movements and gestures: after breakfast we brush our teeth, come to work, turn on the computer … Forgetfulness saves us from routine. After all, if we acted only on the basis of memory, we would spend all the time repeating what has already happened to us. The more you repeat, the less you think. Conversely, the more we forget, the more we invent. Forgetfulness frees us, makes us more open to the unknown, ready to be surprised, able to perceive the new.
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Do you think happiness lies in oblivion?
S.-D. TO.: I believe that part of the happiness depends on the ability and ability to forget, so it will be more accurate. According to Freud, there are only two things to be forgotten. Two things from which one must endlessly free oneself and tear oneself away are sex and death. In addition, forgetfulness is a powerful sedative for mental pain and the bitterness of loss. It’s not about erasing loved ones from our memory, but about learning to live with them differently. But it would be nice to forget about the cruel, harsh side of death. In In Search of Lost Time, Marcel Proust writes that «forgetting is a powerful tool for adapting to reality, because it gradually destroys in us the persisting past, which is in constant conflict with the present.»
You are critical of the «debt of memory» which, as you put it, «has been buzzing on our ears.» Why?
S.-D. TO.: Because it has become an instrument of politics. Today, the state acts as a custodian of memory, magnificently celebrating various memorable dates, creating museums and memorials. They are driving this wave of collective memory at us in order to hide their current actions behind it, but these memorable celebrations in honor of the tragic events do not at all protect us from the possibility of repeating atrocities and cruelties. Even vice versa. They desensitize us, act like an anesthetic, drowning our personal memory in a group mess. Remembrance ceases to be an intimate, inner affair. It becomes ostentatious, «global», «carrying morality», it inspires us with a sense of guilt.
I am convinced that from the moment when the memory thus becomes general, acquires an official character, it loses its significance for the individual. No, we do not forget the event itself. But we forget what we felt when it shook us in our personal lives. For example, my grandmother woke up at night from her scream, because she dreamed of the Ravensbrück concentration camp, through which she passed. So the glorification of memory inherent in today’s society leads us to a dead end. Conversely, if we treat oblivion as an opportunity for rebirth, it will allow us to open doors to the future.