Steven Knapp

Collective Memory and the Actual Past Author(s): Steven Knapp Source: Representations, No.
26, Special Issue: Memory and Counter-Memory (Spring, 1989), pp. 123-149 Published by: University of California Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2928526 . Accessed: 22/11/2013 05:47
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STEVEN
KNAPP
Collective Memory and the Actual Past

that ethical and politicaldispositions NO ONE DOUBTS PROBABLY depend on narratives.'Having a sense of what ought to be done is inseparable, to certainpatternsof actionifit is even distinguishable, frombeing committed to forms.Whetherbeing committed thatis to say,to certainrepeatable narratives to some specific narrativea patternof action necessarily involvesa commitment for instance,to the narrated acts of a particularhero and notjust to a general question but not one I will pursue. It styleof heroic action-is an interesting seems clear that specificnarrativesat least sometimes play a role in shaping (ifithappens, forinstance,that whethertheydo so directly people's dispositions, a Christianis disposed to imitatesome particularact and notjust a typeof action of rightaction. And if imputed to Jesus) or by givingrise to vague stereotypes dispositions are at least sometimes connected with specific narratives,then sociallyshared dispositionsare likelyto be connected withnarrativespreserved by collective memory,for example by oral traditionor a canonical literature. the narrapeople's dispositions, Beyond the causal role theyplay in influencing role-that is, tives preserved by collectivememorysometimesplay a normative implicit or explicit,by whichcontemtheymay in various ways provide criteria, porarymodels of action can be shaped or corrected,or even bywhichparticular For convenience,I ethicalor politicalproposals can be authorized or criticized.2 willspeak of a narrativethatpossesses such normative statusas bearingcollective authority. if it The question thatconcerns me, then,is this: whyshould it ever matter, What is narrativecorrespond to historicalactuality? does, that an authoritative the relationbetweena narratedact'sparadigmatic authority and thatact'sactually havingtaken place at some specifiablemoment,or anymoment,in the past? The question sounds abstract,but in fact numerous concrete projects in various matters; actuality interpretive disciplinesseem to involvethe claim thathistorical for the role in the texts ought present by canonical political played that, instance, to be connected in some wayto an unmaskedor demystified account of the actual historicalconditions under which those texts were produced. Sometimes this claim findsexpression in an attemptto use the exposure of social origins as a prestige;in othercases, the means of emptyinga canonical textof itstraditional its authority, point is not simplyto reject the canonical narrativebut to transfer 123
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26 * Spring 1989 C) THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
desirable featuresof the has been exposed, to politically once itshistoricalfalsity an assumpor suppressed.Eitherway, actual past thatthetexthas eitherdistorted of femin a range visible tendencies, critical of current number tion implicitin a of treatments inist,Marxist,and what have come to be called "New Historicist" canonical texts,is that the truthabout the actual collectivepast has a necessary or intrinsicrelevance to ethical and politicalaction in the present. My aim in of thisassumption, what followswillbe to explore the grounds and implications by examining the role it plays in three recentproposals, two fromthe field first of secular canonical literature. and one from the criticism of biblical criticism mypurpose in considering of these proposals willbe critical, While mytreatment polemical; I willbe using theseexamples mainlyto suggest themis not primarily way,for an of accounting,in any very simple or straightforward the difficulty investmentin the actual collectivepast as such. Afterthat I will consider one namelyvia an analogy between possible way of understandingthis investment, personal and collectiverelationsto the actual past; the briefconcluding section will then turn fromthese somewhatskepticalexplorationsto a series of modest but more positivesuggestionsabout the ethicaland politicalrelevance of historical revisionism.
Historical Reconstruction and Scriptural Authority accounts of the Bible on a reconThe practice of basing revisionist of itsoriginsis not,of course, a recentdevelopment;formore than two struction minded biblicalscholarshave attemptedto recoverthe lost centuries,historically the stages of oral and written referentsof the biblical textsby reconstructing have them. Mainstreamthelie behind the texts as we to compositionsupposed bya successionof attempts has been characterized ology since the Enlightenment to or, more remarkably, eitherto neutralizethe corrosiveforceof such criticism of the Bible's historical inaccuraciesto positivetheological turnalleged discoveries earlier in thiscentury, associated and apologetic uses.3 One prominentstrategy was to and biblicaltheology, dialectical theology, with such terms as neo-orthodoxy, concede the historicalcontingencyof the Bible's origins, only to insist with of itstheologicalcontent(or at least its renewed vigor on the universalauthority existential resonance). Since the collapse twodecades ago of whathad seemed to has passed to many observers a neo-orthodox consensus, theological initiative of to the specificfindings politicaltheologies thatseem on the whole indifferent liberationtheologiansare Indeed, Third Worldand feminist historical criticism. critics,for making highlyselectiveand often reproached, even by sympathetic attractive episodes, such as uncriticaluse of the Bible-emphasizing politically fromtheirthrones, the Exodus or the Magnificat ("He has put down the mighty 124
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and exalted those of low degree; he has filledthe hungrywithgood things,and referents the rich he has sent emptyaway"),withoutconsideringtheirhistorical or theirprecise ideological functions. has seen the rise of a tendencywhose explicitaim Recentlybiblicalcriticism is to bridge the gap between criticalscholarshipand politicaltheology.Behind stand in the way of liberathis tendencyis a belief that two obstaclescurrently the elitistand androtionistattemptsto appropriate historicalcriticism:first, scholars;second, the ideological discentricbiases of the major historical-critical tortionsof social and politicalrealitiesintroducedinto the Bible by the biblical writersor redactors themselves.The only way to correct for such distortions, is throughthe rigorousappliaccording to proponentsof the currenttendency, of critical efforts away methods.Hence thecall fora shift cationof social-historical of the social confromanalyses of the biblical textand towarda reconstruction ditionspresumed to lie behind it. the methodsscholars My aim in thissectionwillnot be to endorse or criticize the Bible's social origins; I am neithera biblicalscholar are using to reconstruct nor a social historian.Nor am I concerned here withthe broader epistemological researchcan ever hope to reconquestion of whetherand in whatsense historical or,more the "actual" past. My interest impulseitself is in the reconstructive struct memoriesrecorded in canonical in the impulse to go behind the official precisely, to get at the social factsthose"memories"have allegtexts, religiousor otherwise, tendency The currentsociologicalor "materialist" edly suppressed or forgotten. in biblical criticism an especiallytellinginstanceof thisimpulse, not constitutes criticism or reconstructive (old-fashionedhistorical because itis revisionist simply already was that) but because the explicitturn fromtextto social realitymakes the break withtraditionalmemoryunusually stark.Afterall, theirfocus on litsupstagesof composition(forinstance,the oral traditions eraryor quasi-literary posed to have preceded the successive states of the text) enabled the older the as elaborating,ratherthan correcting, historical critics to thinkof themselves memorypreserved in the canonical texts.They could treatthe textsas memory continuouswiththe compositionalstages tracesthatwere at least metonymically reconstructed.Hence the great criticalscholar and biblical theologian criticism Gerhard von Rad could stillview the writingdown of an oral traditionnot as relationto its specifichistoricalfunction: abrogatingbut as preservinga story's down, it became fixedat a phase of its develop"When the materialwas written had alreadyoccurred,but when, mentin whicha certainreligioustransformation elementwas preservedundissipatedand withthe the historical notwithstanding, fullimportof uniqueness."4But sociologicalreconstruction-atleast as practiced in the salient examples I will consider-involves a conception of the canonical textsnot as partial memories but as formsof more or less willfulamnesia. My apt formypurexamples, the titlesof whichalone would make themirresistibly A Sociology of ofYahweh: poses, are Norman K. Gottwald'smassivestudyTheTribes and theActualPast Collective Memory 125
Israel,1250-1050 B.C.E. and ElisabethSchusslerFiorenza's the Religion ofLiberated Reconstruction Theological ofChristian Origins.5 In Memory ofHer: A Feminist Gottwald'ssubjectis the surprising emergenceof Israelitesocietyas an indedominated by oppressive confederacy"in an environment pendent "intertribal His main historicalthesisis not itselforiginalbut consistsin his encity-states. explanation of Israel's dorsementof the so-called "revoltmodel,"a hypothetical to the originsthatwas introducedbyGeorge E. Mendenhall in 1962.6In contrast or by views that Israel was establishedin Canaan eitherby gradual immigration conquest narrated in the Book of Joshua, the revoltmodel the direct military arose as a coalitionof oppressed and disaffected people suggeststhat Israel first PremonarchicIsrael is thus, or on the marginsof the Canaanite city-states. within conceivedas an eclecticcompositein accordingto Gottwald,"mostappropriately joined their diffused which various underclass and outlaw elements of society and interests, a singlemovethereby forming antifeudalexperiences,sentiments, ment that, through trial and error, became an effectiveautonomous social system"(TY, 491). Once again, the model is not itselforiginal; what is original, withwhich Gottwaldpursues Mendenapart fromthe methodologicaltenacity of the revolt model into a total hall's hypothesis,is Gottwald'stransformation Accordingto Gottwald,Israel's theotheology. explanation of Israel's distinctive as an egalitarian,"retriballogical uniqueness is an expression of its singularity ized" society,established through constant revolutionaryopposition to the fromwhichit emerged and thatconstantly hierarchicalstructures and interests threatenedto reabsorb it. The religionof Yahweh,though not a mere reflection of this egalitarian social order, is best conceived as a "symbolicprojection"or designed to promoteegalitariansocial relations.The sal"ideological formation" to use Gottwald's vation narrativethat formedthe core of Yahwismfunctioned, reinforcing and metaphors,as a kind of "feedbackloop" or "servomechanism," regulatingthe social practicesby which it was produced (TY, 646-47). Consebecomes fully quently-and it is here that the scope of Gottwald'srevisionism visible-all the major distinctive featuresof Israelite theologycan and must be Gottwaldwrites, translatedinto social terms."In brief," thechief ofYahwistic be socioeconomically "demythologized" as follows: faith may articles and sustain social "Yahweh" is thehistorically concretized, primordial powerto establish without in thefaceof counter-opposition from and against and nonprovincial equality from "The ChosenPeople"is thedistinctive tendencies within thesociety. selfegalitarian in theintertribal ofa society ofequalscreated orderand demarcated from consciousness world."Covenant" is thebonding of a primarily centralized and stratified surrounding ofequalscommitted tocooperation in a larger without decentralized socialgroups society ofsymbolizing thelocusofsovereignty insucha society and a way authoritarian leadership is thesustained of equals. "Eschatology," of fellow commitment or hope forthefuture, theconfidence and determination that this oflife tribesmen toa society ofequalswith way odds.(TY,692) can prevail environmental against great
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applies not onlyto theologicalconceptsbut to the narGottwald'sreconstruction rativesin which those concepts are imbedded: the earlybiblical narrativeparadigms,such as "Deliverance fromEgypt"and "Conquest of the Land," all possess, liberated . . : contemporary in his view,a single"proper and immediatereferent has fallenout of the collective and retribalizedIsrael in Canaan." If thisreferent continueto exercise memoryof the numerous societiesin whichthese narratives thatis because itwas largelysuppressed duringthe ethicaland politicalauthority, B.C.E.), when "liberation monarchicperiod (beginningin thelateeleventhcentury and in major respectscut shortbythe social was [sic]frustrated and retribalization evolution of Israel into a centralized state with internal social stratification," although the premonarchictendenciesto some extentpersisted,for instancein the propheticmovement(TY, 698). ways similarto GottSchussler Fiorenza's aims and findingsare in striking wald's; her book has the added advantage here of makingan explicitconnection and the notionsof collecreconstruction motivatedhistorical between politically originatedin thesisis thatChristianity tivememoryand amnesia. Her historical firstwithin an egalitarian"Jesusmovement" a sequence of twosocial movements: centuryPalestinianJudaism and a movementof Christiansproperlyso called death and spread rapidlyto Hellenthatemerged in the decades followingJesus' ized Jewishcommunitiesthroughoutthe Mediterraneanregion. Unfortunately, of these access to the social reality according to SchtisslerFiorenza, our primary was premovements is throughapologeticdocumentswhose ideological function ciselyto domesticatethe radical thrustof early Christianity-aboveall, to neuof posed to the patriarchalstructures tralizethe threatChristianegalitarianism Mediterranean societies,Jewishand Gentile alike. In Schussler Fiorenza's view, tendencyto the New Testament documents display a pervasive and systematic in regard to women, whose particularly suppress the evidence of egalitarianism memory. crucial leadership roles were all but erased fromthe Church's official forinstance, is obvious. Paul's letters, In some cases the evidence of distortion frequentlymention women as coworkers,with the same role and authorityas of the missionary Lucan history Paul himself(MH, 169). But in the later-written movement,the so-called "Actsof the Apostles,"leadership is concentratedin the to the roles figureof Paul and severalmale colleagues,whilewomenare restricted of either "auxiliary supporters or influentialopponents of Paul's mission" for the androcentric bias of the New Tes(MH, 161). In other cases, correcting tamentwritersand redactorsmeans using the full panoply of historical-critical need to be supplementedby "methodological though these strategies strategies, of suspicion"(MH, 108). But in everycase, the hermeneutics rules fora feminist is clear: it "seeks to move,"as she succinctly directionof Fiorenza's revisionism contexts"(MH, 29). puts it,"fromandrocentrictextsto patriarchal-historical Fiorenza'sapproach is her Perhaps the mostcompellingexample of Schtissler
and theActualPast Collective Memory
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ofHer. All treatmentof the Gospel episode that suggested her title,In Memory four Gospels include the storyof a woman who anointsJesus witha costlyointment.In two Gospels (Mark and Matthew)the woman anointsJesus'head; in the Fiorenza argues othertwoGospels (Luke and John)she anointshis feet.Schtissler of these versionsof the anointingis the earlierone, and she reconthatthe first original point accordingly:"Since the prophet in the Old Tesstructs the story's tamentanointed the head of theJewishking,the anointingof Jesus' head must have been understood immediatelyas the prophetic recognitionof Jesus, the itwas a woman who Anointed,the Messiah,the Christ.Accordingto the tradition this, SchiisslerFiorBut named Jesus byand throughher propheticsign-action." dangerous story"(MH, xiv). Its original point was enza notes, "was a politically consequentlysuppressed by the Gospel redactors,who sought,she reasons, "to make the storymore palatable to a patriarchalGreco-Roman audience" (MH, xiii). By the time the storyappears in Luke-in its most famous and dramatic version-the woman has been changed froma propheticdisciple into a sinner, who wetsJesus'feetwithher tearsand wipes themwithher "a woman of the city," hair (Luke 7.36-50). In Mark,the versionSchiisslerFiorenza considersclosestto the original,the unnamed woman is one of three disciples who play important and Peter, roles in the passion narrative.The other two are Judas, the betrayer, the denier ofJesus.When thewoman anointshim,Jesuspromisesthat"wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memoryof her" (Mark 14.9). To which Schussler Fiorenza pointedlyresponds: is "Whereverthe gospel is proclaimedand the eucharistcelebratedanotherstory told: the storyof the apostle who betrayedJesus. The name of the betrayeris because she was a discipleis forgotten remembered,but the name of the faithful woman" (MH, xiii). of biblical have forthe authority What consequences do such reconstructions forGottwaldand forSchtissler authority, It is obvious thatscriptural narratives? to thehistorical events(mainlycomplex fromthe textsthemselves Fiorenza, shifts and inconclusivesocial struggles)of whichthe textsare, once again, severelydisSchiissler Fiorenza especially is insistenton the need to torted reflections.7 a source of liberating authority. to make thetextsthemselves abandon all attempts Her opening chapter sharply criticizesthe "neo-orthodox model of feminist thatis, the attemptto isolate a special "canon withinthe canon," interpretation," liberationist set of such as a principlesexpressed byso-called"prophetic"themes and patterns(MH, 14-21). In contrastto thisapproach, her own model refuses revelationwiththe androcentrictext,but maintainsthat such reveto "identify ofJesus as well as in the discipleshipcomlation is found in the lifeand ministry called forthbyhim" (MH, 34). munity like Gottin such proposals is the wayrevisionists What may seem surprising stop short of wald and SchtisslerFiorenza, in relocatingthe Bible's authority, simplyrejectingit. On the face of it thismove may seem logicallyodd; forwhat 128
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sense does it make to cling to a tradition,the handing down of an ancient have been so drastically when thegrounds and contentof thatauthority authority, reconceived? I will returnto this problem in a later section; for now, I wish to the locus of the proposal to shift implication concentrateon a somewhatdifferent narrato a reconstructed from an officially remembered of scripturalauthority and SchiisslerFiorenza's reconquestion raised byGottwald's tive.The intriguing faithbut whysocial is not whetherit makes sense to revisea traditional structions eventsin the distantpast should matterto us at all-let alone claim the authority to a textthatone supposes of scripture.It's one thing,afterall, to grantauthority or indirectly, by God; on the assumptionthat God's mind directly was written, one reads the textto findout whatGod hasn'tchanged since the textwas written, (presently)wants. But the same thingcannot be said about historicaleventsmanipulated the eventsto produce unless one supposes that God providentially Doubtless this notion has tradiwriting. a kind of dramatic or moving-pictorial betweentextand event but it obviouslycollapses the distinction tional warrants, recommend, so completelythatturningfromone to the other,as the revisionists from shifting one's attentionfrom one fundamentally, would be no different, have alwaysdone. In any case, reading social passage to another,as interpreters can hardlybe what Gottwaldand Schuseventsas divinelyinspired hieroglyphs is reconstruction sler Fiorenza have in mind. A major point of social-historical in anything the notion that God intervenesin history presumablyto demystify Gottwaldin parlike the manner suggestedby the image of divine pictography. ticularis expresslyhostileto that sortof supernaturalism;in an essay reflecting he writesof having"carriedthrougha radical ofYahweh, on his workin TheTribes of early Israel withoutleaving deconstruction socioeconomic and religiocultural 'god theologybymeans of the ever-convenient any remainderto save traditional "8 who fillsthe gaps.' Where then, if not in their statusas signs of (unaltered) divine intentions, of ancient events?The locate the scripturalauthority does materialist criticism answer seems to lie in a peculiar combinationof two kinds of relationbetween the presentand the past: a combinationof, on one hand, the relationof analogy the present Specifically, and, on the other hand, sheer historicalcontinuity. of Israel's or of the Church'sactual social originsis presumed to derive authority from the intersectionof two relations: first,the perceived analogy between howeverremote,that ancientand modern social struggles;second, the influence, in the the ancient struggleshave exerted on the strugglesin which participants traditionare, or should be, presently engaged. while not explicitlynamed by The principles of analogy and continuity, in on the essentialrole her insistence combined SchusslerFiorenza, are implicitly struggles of feminist memory.Biblical contextsare relevantto presentfeminist of because theyprovide the "roots and beginnings"of the "continuoushistory" of God" (MH, 350). But what Schussler Fiorenza calls "women as the ekklesia Collective and theActualPast Memory 129
ancient strugglesare not merelyearly steps in a historicalsequence that evenThose strugglesare also similarto presentones, so tuates in modern feminism. and hopes of Christhat rememberingthem "not only keeps alive the suffering of sisterhoodwith tianwomen in the past but also allows fora universalsolidarity all women of the past,present,and futurewho followthe same vision"(MH, 31). which connects The crucial point, once again, is the coincidence of continuity, past and presentvia historicalsequence, and analogy,which connects past and presentvia a propertycommon to both-namely, the "vision"shared by ancient and modern feminists.9 thanSchUssler Fiorenza thatancient Gottwaldseems somewhatless confident and modern participantsin the biblical traditionshare "the same vision." The version of sociology Gottwald favors assumes that ideological products like "visions" are closely bound to the contextsfrom which they emerge. Hence, social according to Gottwald,"To purportto believe the same thingsin different and intellectualconditionsis in fact not to believe the same thingsat all" (TY, 704). In general Gottwaldseems less ready than SchiisslerFiorenza to suppose thatwe reallycan "continueto derive symbolic resourcesfromthe biblicaltraditions"(TY, 705). But if thisis possible,then the basis of the possibility turnsout Thus Israel's "powerful, once again to be a coincidenceof analogyand continuity. to strive"forliberatedlife of a evocativesymbolism" helped it,Gottwaldwrites, conditionspecusortrealizable under the socioeconomicand intellectual-cultural strugglesin great varietyhave liar to its time and place." Nevertheless,"similar thatconnects us withearlyIsrael" (TY, 705; emphasis punctuatedthe long history added). and connection or, again in my terms,analogy and continuity. Similarity of makingthese two relationscoinEverything seems to hinge on the possibility cide. Neither one by itselfseems sufficient tojustifya sense thatthe truthabout ancient strugglesis intrinsically relevantto presentones. If an event in the past one in the present, it may indeed provide us with "symbolic merely resembles so as to shape our presentvalues and intentions resources -ways of representing and motivate our presentactions.But in thatcase our sense of whatis symbolically usefulin the past willdepend on our presentsense of whatmatters, and thevalues representedby what we borrow fromthe past will only be the ones we already have. Aspects of the past thatfailto matchup withour presentdispositionswill When it comes to analogy,in other words, the lines necessarilyseem irrelevant. of authority run frompresentto past and not the otherwayaround. Another way to get at thispoint is to ask whetherit matters, except forconvenience, that the narrated events providing the symbolic resources should actuallyhave occurred in our own collectivepast-or, indeed, that theyshould ever have occurred at all. If the value of the analogy lies in the factthat some our ownjudgments and other situationprovidesopportunitiesforrepresenting nardesires,whynot turnto otherpeople's histories-or to fiction-for symbolic 130
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happens to provide? rativesas good as or betterthan the ones our own tradition Why aren't narrativesof events in our actual past simplyreplaceable by other relevance? thatmeet our criteriaof symbolic narratives There is one obvious reason, however,why other people's pasts-and fictional narratives-may strikeus as less useful than our own histories:theyare about our own origins; theyfail to provide our curiosity incapable of satisfying of how we gotwherewe are. When itcomes to explanation,in contrast explanations to analogy,the lines of forcethatmatterare indeed those thatrun frompast to a particularand irreplaceablecausal chain. But present,and thatdo so following relevance to the present why should the fact that a past event has explanatory endow it with ethical or political authorityover present agents-unless, once again, it happens to correspond to the values those agents already have? The for instance,that American historianEdmund S. Morgan argues convincingly, to an ideologythatarose in in part traced be can ideals of freedomand equality colonial Virginia,where the possession of even a fewslaves gave a modicum of independence and social prestigeto smalllandowners;"equality"thusmeant solamong slaveholders.'0If Morgan's explanationis correct,it is hard to see idarity affirmed of egalitarianvalues collectively how such causal "rootsand beginnings" promotingor in the present can functionusefullyas a means of symbolically reinforcingthose values. Certainlythe explanatory significanceof the social on that past does not confer any present authority realityMorgan reconstructs to advocate account, Morgan's after reading inclined, if one feels not as it's reality; (I willreturn slaveholdingas a wayof livingup to one's egalitariancommitments. to Morgan-and to the question of what kinds of relevancethe actual past may authority-in the last twosections.) have even if it lacks intrinsic is alwaysin the present; we As thisexample suggests,the locus of authority only those ethical and politicaldispositions, use, for promotingand reinforcing compels us. elementsof the past thatcorrespond to our sense of what presently or the inspired In fact,not even a belief in the divine manipulationof history fromthe present the locus of authority inerrancyof scripturewould reallyshift thatexpressed that the power assume believers simply to the past. Conservative reigns itselfin divinelyinspired textsor eventsis the same power thatpresently changed itsmind.Even over them-and thatthispowerhas not,in themeantime, for conservativebelievers,it is the supposed permanence of God's intentionslocated in the actual past as such-that keeps the past not a source of authority over the present. alive and gives it a derived authority If these pointsbynow seem obvious,itis crucialto recognizehow persistently they are obscured in current attempts to give revisionistinterpretationan intrinsicethical and political significance.The programmaticremarks I have what Fiorenza exemplify of Gottwaldand Schfissler excerpted fromthe writings I take to be a primarylogical mechanismbywhicha wide range of such attempts are sustained.For ifthe past is merelya source of analogies,particularpast events and theActualPast Collective Memory 131
may provide models forpresentactionbut are in principleexpendable; theycan or fromfiction.If all be replaced by analogies borrowed fromother traditions the past is merelya source of explanations,it may well be irreplaceable(there is no other way to explain how we got where we are), but ancestralractionsof the greatestexplanatoryinterestmay express values remote fromany we can now phenomena whose combination embrace. Hence the pressureto focuson historical of symbolicresonance and explanatoryuniqueness will make these two benefits seem mutuallydependent. But the fact that some events can functionboth as sources of authoritative images and as explanationsof a present situationdoes images amount to not mean thatseekingexplanationsand seekingauthoritative the same operation; itdoes not mean, in otherwords,thata special ethicalimporfromthe rememberedor theimaginedpast. tance attachesto theactual as distinct of particularrevisionist proIn the next sectionI willturnfromthe criticism grams to a conceptual analysisof (some featuresof) our relationto the actual it is worthpausing to notice thatthe impulse to bridge the logical past. But first gap between analogy and explanation is not confinedto biblical studies. In The FredricJamesonattackswhathe considersthe twinformsof Political Unconscious, criticism: the "antiquarian"approach of traditional decadence in currentliterary whichis,Jameson writes,"ultihistory and its "dialecticalcounterpart," literary I mean the tendencyof much contemporary theory matelyno more satisfactory; selected textsfromthe past in termsof itsown aestheticand, in particto rewrite conception of ular, in termsof a modernist(or more properlypost-modernist) language."' In the terms used above, what Jameson dislikesis the division of and analogy,betweenthe mere reconstruccriticalattentionbetween continuity tion of historicalsequences and the use of past textsto stand forpresentvalues. The dominationof literary for studiesbythesetwoopposing tendenciespresents, Jameson,an "unacceptableoption,or ideological double bind,betweenantiquarBut thisdilemmaonlytestifies ianismand modernizing'relevance'or projection." thatwillbe "capable of respecting to the lack of a "genuine philosophyof history" the specificity and radical difference of the social and cultural past while disof its polemics and passions, its forms,structures, expericlosing the solidarity of the In and with those the such a past present day" (PU, 18). struggles, ences, thinking; Jameson'scandidate philosophywas provided by Christiantypological fora modern replacementforChristianhermeneutics is Marxism.Only through Marxism,he writes, alternation canweglimpse thevital claims issues as theseasonal uponus ofsuchlong-dead ofa primitive oftheTrinity, oftheeconomy thepassionate aboutthenature disputes tribe, modelsof thepolisor theuniversal closerto us in theconflicting Empire, or,apparently nation thedusty andjournalistic ofthenineteenth-century polemics parliamentary time, ifthey their for us only within states. These matters canrecover areretold original urgency and symbolic a theunity of a singlegreatcollective story; onlyif,in however disguised
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form,theyare seen as sharinga single fundamentaltheme-for Marxism,the collective struggleto wresta realm of Freedom froma realm of Necessity;onlyif theyare grasped as vitalepisodes in a singlevastunfinished plot. (PU, 19-20)
scenariois not onlyrelatedbut I suggest The wishbehind thisextraordinary Fiorenza, and Jameidenticalto the wish thatmotivatesGottwaldand Schtissler the dilemmais heightson's programsuccumbsto the same dilemma.If anything worksas products ened by his rigorous insistenceon reading canonical literary of the dominantideologies in each period he analyzes.If the "singlegreatcollective story" Jameson envisionsis not in facta divinelyconstructednarrativebut merelya causally related sequence of disparate ideologies, then its relevance to the presentcan onlybe establishedbyone or anotherversionof the modernizing "projection" Jamesonattacks.Otherwiseitremainsunclearjustwhatsortof value a modern reader is supposed to derive froma work produced under radically different conditionsand in the serviceof someone else's ideology. thisquestion,whichhe recogIn his conclusion,Jameson takes up precisely nizes his book has so far leftunanswered: "How is it possible for a culturaltext
which fulfills a demonstrably ideological function . . . to resonate a universal
value inconsistentwith the narrowerlimitsof class privilegewhich informits more immediate ideological vocation?"(PU, 288). His surprisinganswer is that bythe sheer factthatit expresses whatsoever, the expression of any class interest can be said to stand fora classhowevervile or destructive, a collectivesolidarity, less Utopia. In this sense, according to Jameson,"all class consciousness-or in other words, all ideology in the strongestsense, including the most exclusive forms of ruling-classconsciousness just as much as that of oppositional or oppressed classes-is in itsverynatureUtopian" (PU, 289).Jameson'selaboration to the kind of "projection"he of this formulamakes unmistakableits proximity earlier rejected:
All class consciousness of whatevertypeis Utopian insofaras it expresses the unityof a collectivity; yetit mustbe added thatthispropositionis an allegoricalone. The achieved as much as oppressedor organic group of whateverkind-oppressors fully collectivity figures for are themselves is Utopian not in itself, but only insofaras all such collectivities Now we are in a better the ultimateconcretelifeof an achieved Utopian or classlesssociety. cultureand ideologyare Utopositionto understand how even hegemonicor ruling-class functionto secure and perpetuate class privilege pian, not in spite of theirinstrumental is also in and of itself the affirmation because thatfunction and power,but ratherprecisely of collectivesolidarity. (PU, 290-91)
workscan be read as embodyingthe same vision,the To say that all literary because theyare all equallytheproductsof collective same universalvalue, simply is to say thattheycan be read analogically:theycan all be used as syminterests, bols of presentMarxistvalues, providedonlythatwe focuson the pointof resemof solidarity) and ignore everything that gives blance (namely,some affirmation
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historical Once again, explanatory interest and ethical identity. themtheirspecific or politicalvalue come apart.Jameson'sprogramoscillatesbetweenexplanation and analogy or, in his own harsher terms,antiquarianismand projection,and thus remainsfixedin the "double bind" he deplores.
Collective Punishment So far myargumenthas shown the errorinvolvedin a certainway of construingthe presentrelevanceof eventsin the collectivepast-the error,that of as ifit were an identity is, of treatingthe coincidence of analogyand continuity those relations.The mere factthatsomethingin the past can stand in a relation antecedenceto presentvalues is notenough bothof resemblanceand of historical or ethical politicalimportance.But surelythe widespread to give it an intrinsic relevantto present action intuitionthat the actual collectivepast is intrinsically cannot be reduced to the abstracttermsin whichthe issue has been formulated one encountersthe so far.Afterall, even outside the sphere of academic criticism demand thatpeople be held accountablefortheirpasts,as wellas the expectation thattheywillproperlyexperience guilt,pride, regret,or a sense of obligationas a resultof certainactions theyonce performed.Given the ubiquityof our pracourselves-to whatwe thinkactually ticesof connectingpeople-and connecting thatthe past has ethicalclaims on occurred in the past, what can it mean to deny of an agent's the present?And ifitever makes sense to insiston the inescapability relationto her personal past, does it make equal sense to bind her to the past of the collectivitiesin which she participates?What, in short, is the difference past,and whyisn'tthelatterat leastas relevant betweena personal and a collective to presentaction as the former?'2 The following reflections are not intended as an elaboration of the polemic in the previous sectionbut as a new and largely independent attemptto address these questions. Consider,then,a social practicethat,perhaps more obviouslythanany other, relevanceto presentaction: the practice assumes thatpast eventshave an intrinsic of punishment.By selectingthis example, I do not mean to suggest that revisionistinterpreters though are committed to the value of collectivepunishment, some of themmaybe. Nor do I wishto attackor defend thenotionof punishment as such, let alone any specificuse of punishment, collectiveor otherwise.In one crucial respect,to which I will returnat the end of thissection,the example of misleading.Nevertheless,some of punishment's punishmentmay be positively peculiar logical featuresmayenable us to isolatethe sources of the broader intu13 I assume throughout itionthatthe past has an irreducibleclaimon the present. be applicable to other, that the resultsof this analysiswould, withadjustments, less dramatic ways of connectingpeople to the actual past, such as rewarding
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them for past deeds performedby them or theirancestors,or holding them to personal or collectivepromises. Referenceto the actual past seems builtinto the notionof punishmentfrom is intendedto count as ajust the start.(At least thisis the case where punishment response to a reprehensibleaction. Where punishmentis or ethically appropriate practicedwithoutregard tojustice and simplyas a means of inducingobedience, actual guilt-and consequentlyany connectionto actual past events-is plainly If the (ethical) point of punishingsomeone is not in some sense to irrelevant.)'4 repay the actual agent for some actual past act but merelyto discourage people in general from performing certainactions in the future,it would not seem to matter whether the punishment itself was actual. Actual war criminals, for faked peninstance,could be replaced byactorswho would then pay ingeniously alties,being replaced, perhaps, on the scaffoldor in theircells by mannequins. But someone who found out that the actual criminalswere stilllivinghappily The question is, would thisfeeling somewherewould no doubt feelunsatisfied.'5 motivatedpunishment of dissatisfaction be justifiedifit turnedout thatethically could have no other object but deterrence?If the aim of punishmentis only to influencepresentand futurebehavior,whyshould we care about anyone'sactual past behavior,given that it is obviouslyto late to deter an act that someone has already performed? presthen, punishmentinvolvesmore than merelyinfluencing Apparently, ent and futurebehavior; we seem to want to make certainthatthe actual agents are somehow affectedby theirpast crimes.What would bother us, if we discovered thatthe war criminalshad been replaced byactors,would be a visionof the theirheinous crimes.The point actual criminalslivinghappilyaftercommitting of our desire to punish them,on thisaccount,is thatpunishingthemis the only way to guarantee that they will experience the badness of their bad actions. Punishmentof the actual agent makes sense on thisaccount preciselybecause it is not a futileattemptto alter the past but is meant to produce a change in the she now experiencespleasure or insufficient pain in relation agent as shenowexists; to her bad action, and we want that experience replaced by somethingmore appropriate. Unfortunately, however, the apparent discoverythat what mattersis the question. For if what mattersis present state of the agent only raises a further in the agent as she now exists the presentstateof the agent-if havingan interest is the only way to make sense of doing somethingto her now-then whyshould Whyshouldn't it matterthatthe actionin questionis one she actuallyperformed? we be equally ready to punish someone who takespleasure in a crimeshe mistakOr someone who takes "remembers")she committed? enly believes (mistakenly pleasure in someone else'sbad action? Why isn't taking pleasure in bad action to warrantpunishment? And whystopeven there?Whynot say sufficient byitself
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thattakingpleasure in anything bad-for instance,naturaldisasters-is equally deservingof punishment?Whyshould the past occurrenceor nonoccurrenceof the act matterat all if what one is really interestedin is producing desirable changes in the presentstateof the person in question? in RobertNozick'sPhilosophConsider the defense of retributive punishment ical Explanations. is responsive to a According to Nozick, "An act of retribution a connectionof the wrongdoerwithcorrectvalues wrong act as wrong. It effects by being fullyresponsiveto his wrong act in itscharacteras a wrong act." Mere would be inadequate: rehabilitation to as wrong, To leave greatwrongdoing unresponded substituting insteada beneficial in itscontent, transformation of thewrongdoer unrelated to thewrong is to ignoreand to thissignificant be blind(in one'sactions) portion of moralreality. At stakein addition to thepunisher's to wrongness is thewrongdoer's response as wrongness Punresponse. ishment links thewrongdoer with correct values, and is a vehicle whereby thenature and has a correspondingly in hislife.'6 ofhisact'swrongness effect magnitude significant Nozick stops shortof asking,however, whythe magnitudeof the act'swrongness should have its effect on the lifeof the wrongdoer.Why shouldn'tit specifically effect on the lives of all who approve have an equally significant the wrongdoer's act, if all that mattersis that wrongnessbe appropriatelyresponded to? The correctvalues in Nozick'ssense; wrongdoeris not,afterall, nowactively "flouting" the factthat he nowtakes pleasure in the bad act, if in facthe does, in no way him fromanyone else who shares his reprehensibleattitude.Why, distinguishes then,should he be singled out forpunishment? Nozick'saccount seems to require a peculiarly strongnotionof personal idenTo make sense of Nozick's theory, one has to conceive the act itself-its tity.'7 actual performanceand notjust itshaving occurred-asa persistent featureof the in agent'sidentity; only thatcase would the agent'spresentrelationto his past act differ(in kind or degree of wrongness)fromthatof someone who did not perform the act but merely shared his attitude toward it. But this would mean of the agent as presently-if not eternally-performing thinking the act he once of the act (and not simplyits performed;in what otherway could theperforming havingbeen performed)remain a continuously significant featureof the agent's identity? The question,then,is whetherit makes sense to treata person existingin the present as stillthe appropriate object of attitudesappropriate to an action she thiscan onlymean thinking of her as still performedin the past. Taken seriously, performingthe act in question. For unless she is thoughtof as stillperforming the act, she may be in many respects the same person as the person who performedit,but she is in at least one crucialrespectnot identicalto thatperson (as she then existed), since she no longer has any controlover the act's occurringor notoccurring;shehas no more poweroveritthananyoneelse. Nor does itmatter, 136
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in thisconnection,whetherhaving such power is conceived in libertarianterms have "done otherones.'8 My point is not thatshe could not then or determinist wise" than she did; mypoint is ratherthather presentrelationto the act'soccurfromanyone else's relationto it.'9 to distinguish ringor not occurringis difficult What originallyset the agent apart from everyone else was her being in the But the person who now exists,even if momentof the act its actual performer. she remainsuniquelyidenticalto the person who performedthe act,has lost her unique relation to the act itself-unless, once again, she can be thoughtof as it.20 somehow stillperforming in precisely Now it seems clear that people do sometimesthinkof themselves thisway-for instance,whenevertheyfeelguiltor shame (or pride or satisfaction) in relation to some act theyonce performed.Probablyno one could have what in thisway withat least we mean by a self unless she were disposed to identify involvesa dissome featuresof her own past; havinga self,it seems, necessarily itself organismto identify position on the part of an appropriatelyconstituted withrememberedstatesand actions,perhaps also withstatesand actionsit does come to feel not rememberbut maybe convincedoccurred(as an amnesiac might reportedcrimes).Treatingmyself guiltover her own unrememberedbut reliably identical with the self that existed when "I" performedcertain past as literally But why should someone actions would appear to be a psychologicalnecessity. to with own inevitable my past acts as a warrantto else take my tendency identify reward or punish me for those acts? Why should someone else be justified in dispositions?Wouldn'tthatreveal a confusionbetween mypsychoactingout my and an objectivemetaphysical logicallynecessaryor inevitableself-identifications identity? my But the point of punishment,on thisaccount,would not be to objectify withmyown past. The pointinsteadwould be dispositionto identify preexisting to give me (that is, force me to have) such a dispositionin cases where I might my seem to lack it. For it is not clear that my dispositionin general to identify existingselfwiththe selfthatperformedcertainrememberedactions presently means thatI willalwaysin factadopt an appropriateattitudetowardmypast. For identicalwiththe person who performedsome instance,I mightconsider myself act but fail to treatthe act in question as bad; or, in some cases, I mightfailaltogetherto treatthe act as stillin any serious sense myown. This mightbe justified as a child. Or I mightbe a if,forinstance,the act is one I rememberperforming criminalwho fails to take his past crimes seriouslybecause he has successfully evaded theirconsequences. In short,the existenceof a necessarydispositionof presentselvesto identify withtheirpasts does not guaranteethattheywilldo so in wayswe consideruseful or appropriate. What if the point of punishmentis to forcethe criminalboth to withcertainof her past acts and to respond to themappropriately? Peridentify to "take responsimake an agent haps the main point of punishmentis precisely Collective and theActualPast Memory 137
for" (i.e., identify bility with)some past act withwhichthe agent failsto identify in the appropriate way.On thisview we don't punish people because we believe sense metaphysically identicalto the selfthatexisted theyare in some mysterious thinkof in the momentthe bad act occurred-because, forinstance,we literally themas eternally performing it. Instead, we punish themin order to make them theirtakingresponsibility for it. identify withthe act in a way thatwill constitute We do this in part because we thinkit is a good thing,in general, for people to identify withtheirpasts in wayswe deem appropriate; we wantthemto thinkof themselvesas havingresponsibleselves.We wantthemto identify withtheir(ethicallysignificant) past acts,to take theirpasts withwhatwe consider appropriate seriousness,eitherfortheirbenefitor forthatof othersor ourselves.And since we want them to become "responsible"in thissense, it matters how theyrespond to acts they actuallycommitted,since being responsible in this sense precisely withone's own actual past,to thinkof onemeanshaving a dispositionto identify self as inseparablybound to it, even as if one were presentlyperforming one's past acts and thereforeappropriatelyliable, in the present,to the experience of aversion that should have accompanied the bad ones or the experience of pleasure thatshould have accompanied the good ones. in Why,however,would it ever make sense to encourage people to identify thisway withtheirpast acts? In the case of punishment, presumablybecause we wantcertainactionsto be takenseriously, indeed withthe kindof seriousnessthat is only possible if the agents who contemplateperforming themexpect the guilt or shame appropriate to such acts to become a permanentpart of theirown selfidentification-thatis, of theirown attitudestoward the selves withwhich they We wantto cause people, in otherwords,to anticipate willlaterhave to identify.2' theiridentity withthe selves theyare when they that theywill be unable to deny commitwhatevercrimetheycontemplatecommitting.22 If the point of punishmentis to make people anticipate that they will be withthe selves theyare now, then we unable in the futureto avoid identifying motiveof deterrence.This time, end where we began: withthe consequentialist however,deterrencehas been elaborated in a waythatdefeatsthe initialcounterexample: we would not feel thatjustice had been done if an actor pretended to sufferthe punishmentowed a war criminalbecause what interestsus is deterrence thatproceeds not simplybyway of fearbut byway of each agent'sdisposition to take seriouslythe effect thather actionswill have on her futurerelation to herself. If thisanalysisof punishmentis plausible (and whetheror not it is sufficient tojustify any actual exercise of punishment-nothing said here, afterall, implies that the use of punishmentto forcean agent to identify withher past actions is then it seems to make sense in principleto fostersomeone's likelyto succeed),23 answerableforcertainevents dispositionto treatherselfin the presentas literally
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in the past-presumably forthose eventsthatcount as actionsperformedbythe organism she shares with the self that existed then. But if it makes sense to forpast acts performedbythe individual encourage people to take responsibility might italso make themselves, identify organismswithwhichtheymostintimately belong? to which they groups for the acts of sense to get themto take responsibility to get them to experience shame Why would it be any less rational,necessarily, or guilt,pride or pleasure, in relation to acts performedby other members of theirfamiliesor classes or nations?Whynot encourage them,forinstance,to feel liable in some degree or other to the penalties incurred by the crimes of their necessaryor inevare not psychologically ancestors?Perhaps such identifications withat least some eventsin one's personal past itable in the way thatidentifying of the dispositionthatcalled forintervenappears to be; but itwasn'tthe necessity punishmentseemed called for tion in the case of punishment.On the contrary, was notbeing made. Even if therewere preciselywhen a desirable identification oneselfwithanyactsperformedbysomeone dispositionto identify no preexisting such a dispositionin order else in a person's collectivepast, whynot tryto create obligations-with collective to forcepeople to takecollectiveguilt-and therefore toward attitudes whose to appropriate seriousness?Whynot try produce persons their presentlyexistingselves would in part be determined by their attitudes and whose toward the acts performedby other membersof theircollectivities, own actions mightthereforebe guided in part by a desire to alleviate the guilt occasioned bythe unjust acts of theirancestors? The trouble with punishing someone for an act committedby an ancestor relation to the acts of her metaphysical cannot be that she stands in a different ancestorsthan she does to her own past acts. In both cases the act-as well as the stateof the organismas itexistedin the momentof action-is no longer present; of punishmentcannot be metain both cases, in other words, the justification physicalbut can onlybe normative.But rememberthe main pointof using punwith their own actual past actions: we do so ishmentto make people identify certainacts, because we want people to anticipate,as theyconsider performing thatthe disapproval meritedbythose acts willbecome a permanentpart of their The own attitudestoward the selves withwhich theywill later have to identify. that can aim of punishment,on this account, is to enforce a sense of identity become (if not in the agent herselfthen in otherswho witnessher punishment) the basis of what mightbe called prolepticguilt.But thisrequiresthatthe act for which an agent is punished be an act that she mighthave avoided performing had she taken seriouslyenough itsconsequences forher laterrelationto herself. an Yet no amount of prolepticguiltcould have caused her to avoid performing act thatwas never hers to perform. Punishing someone for the acts of her ancestorsdoes not seem promising, then,as a means of givingsomeone a dispositionto feelprolepticguiltin relation
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on the contrary, to an act she contemplatesperforming; the verynotion of collectivepunishmentinvolvesa separation of accountability and action,since at least not the agents who performed some of those held accountable are bydefinition the reprehensible act. If anything,collectivepunishmentseems calculated to weakenan agent's disposition to connect her present actions with the self she expects to become. Suppose, however,thatwhat mattersin the case of collectivepunishmentis not first of all the agent'srelationto her own futureselfbut to the futureof her In thatcase a practiceof collectivepunishmentmightmake sense if collectivity. lines: we punish someone today for an act prerationalizedalong the following viouslyperformedbyother membersof a group to whichshe belongs. The punishmentforcesher (or otherswho witness it)to anticipate, notthateach individual willbe held accountable foracts she herselfperforms, but that,in general,memwill treatthemselves-as if bers of the group will be treated-more important, theactsonce performed theywere stillperforming byothermembersof the same group. Prospectivewrongdoersare thus encouraged to expect thattheiractions not to theirownself-identification will make a permanent difference but to the of otherswho belong to the same collectivity. self-identification in otherwords,is intendedto cause an agent Such a practiceof punishment, to anticipate,as she considersperforming certainacts,thatthe disapproval merited bythose acts willbecome a permanentpartof the wayothermembersof her group evaluate the selves withwhich theywill have to identify. The point is to make her anticipatenot her own guiltbut the guiltthatotherswillinheritif she actsbadly.Presumablythisexpectationwillserveas a deterrent onlyto the extent thatthe agent is inclinedto feel guilty about imposingguilton othermembersof her group. The logical structureof collectivepunishmentthus turnsout to be of individualpunishment, more complex than the structure since it involvestwo formsof guilt: the guiltthatan agent'sact willimpose on othersand the distinct guiltit willimpose on her by virtueof what it does to them. For thatreason, the likelihood of success in the case of collectivepunishmentmay well seem more remote (one mightsay,evenmore remote)than in the case of individualpunishment. Apart from such practical difficulties, there no doubt remain serious grounds for skepticism regardingthejustice of collectivepunishment;above all, the criteria(genetic? perhaps, it is hard to see how one mightgo aboutjustifying geographical?ideological?) bywhicha punishablecollectivity could be defined. I willreturnto thesedifficulties later; myaim in thissectionhas onlybeen to determine whetherthe logic of punishmentbears out the intuitedanalogy between individual and collectiverelationsto the actual past. The foregoinganalysissuggests that the answer is yes, and that the ethical relevance of the actual past in both the individualand thecollective cases derives,paradoxically, froman agent's imaginativerelationto the futureconsequences of some contemplatedaction. It and not a debt owed to the past is what we want her to imagine about the future, 140
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as such, thatjustifies,if anythingdoes, our sense thatan agent's presentethical about theactual contentof her own bydiscoveries statusmayproperlybe affected or a collectivepast. is the agent'srelationto an imagined thatwhatmatters Indeed, the discovery collectiveor otherwise, is finally beside the point. futureshows thatpunishment, Collectivepunishment,on the foregoingaccount, is an attemptto cause people witha collective to identify with a collectivefutureby forcingthem to identify orjustice offorcing formypurposes here,is notthe feasibility past. What matters, as such. witha collectivepast but the logic of the identification people to identify The centralpoint thathas emerged fromthissectionis thatthe ethicalrelevance withan of the actual collectivepast depends on an agent'sdispositionto identify imagined collectivefuture.
The Limits of Collective Identity At the beginningof thisessay I advanced the presumablyuncontrovrelated to narratives, ersial thesisthat ethical and politicalvalues are essentially and that shared values are likelyto be connected to the narrativespreservedby collectivememories,whetheror not such memoriesare embodied in a canonical literature.The question was whether the dependence of collectivevalues on relationto theactual (as opposed strong shared memoriesimpliedan equivalently to imagined or mistakenly remembered)eventsof the collectivepast. If so, then theactual social realitiessuppressedbythe idealized researchaimed at recovering itcould claim would have a powerfuljustification: of collectivememory narratives to play an irreplaceablerole in presentpoliticallife. The preceding sections have addressed this question in two verydifferent ways: first,by analyzing the rhetoricof certain programmaticstatementsby scholarsengaged in revisionist research; second, byexploringthe logic of a practicethatnecessarily depends on the assumptionthatpresentagentsare, or ought to be, inescapablybound to the actual past. Resultsso farhave been mixed. One way of establishingthe relevance of the actual collective past indeed proved untenable; the fact that a past phenomenon mightboth resemble and help to to give the past any intrinsic explain a present phenomenon proved insufficient claim on present action. On the other hand, the analysisof punishmentuncovto encourage people ered a wayin whichit mightmake sense,at leastin principle, the guiltor shame (or meritor obligations) to thinkof themselvesas inheriting created by what actuallyhappened in a collectivepast. What remains to be seen is how thissecond outcome bears on the chiefconcern of thisessay,namely,the ethicalor politicalrelevanceof revisionism. If the analysisof collectivepunishment was correct, thenitseems possible for a presentagent to standin the same relationto actionsperformedbyotheragents Collective and theActualPast Memory 141
as she stands in relationto actionsperformedbythe self"she" earlier was. Since for past actions is the self's what finallymattersin ascriptionsof responsibility withthe consequences of itsfutureactions,neitherorganic dispositionto identify of memory) (continuity of body) nor psychologicalidentity identity(continuity If this is true, there is no seems to be a necessarycondition of responsibility. reason to deny thatan agent mighthave the same kind of ethicalinterestin discoveriesabout her collectivepast as an amnesiac would have in discoveriesabout She might be morethancurious,wanting eventsin her personal history. forgotten deserves,or what forgotten to know what punishmentor rewardshe unwittingly Perhaps we should thinkof the readershipof reviobligationshe ought to fulfill. sionistinquiryas a collectionof amnesiacs,each awaitingthe nextdisclosurewith and dread. an appropriate mixtureof excitement associated withcollectivepunAt this point,however,the special difficulties of all, thatthe rationaleof Remember,first ishmentbegin to reassertthemselves. collectivepunishmentinvolvesa desire to make an agent consider what her own But this actionsmightdo to the ethicalstatusof othermembersof her collectivity. in the same waythatshe may futureidentity willonlyworkifshe cares about their be expected to care about her own. There is of course no guarantee thatshe will care verymuch about the futurein eithercase, but at least in the case of her own withthe past we can fall back on the factthatsometendencyto identify identity of human and futurestatesof one's own organismseems builtinto the structure to imaginethatan amnesiac agency.That maybe one reason whyitseemsdifficult while thereis to information about her past identity, mightbe simplyindifferent something slightlycomical about the image of a scholarlyreadership eagerly awaitingnew disclosuresabout crimesin the collectivepast. is not simply across time,however, The troublewithcollectiveidentifications felt with or than identifications be less made intimately that theymay inevitably lies in the factthat the organism'sown past and futurestates.Anotherdifficulty This problememerged earlierin the formof a questheyare fareasier to deny.24 tion about thejustice of collectivepunishmentgiventhe absence of clear criteria But its implicationsextend as to what should count as a punishable collectivity. beyond the perhaps anomalous case of collectivepunishmentto other,less pecuConsider,for example, the notion of liar expressions of collectiveresponsibility. defended by Alasdair MacIntyrein the course recently collectiveaccountability of an eloquent attackon the ideology of individualism.Afterobserving,inconas bearersof a particular that"we all approach our own circumstances trovertibly, MacIntyre makes the somewhat strongerclaim that "I inherit social identity," of debts,inherfromthe past of myfamily, mytribe,mynation,a variety mycity, he acknowledges, This thought," expectationsand obligations."" itances,rightful from thestandpoint ofmodern individualism. is likely toappearalienand evensurprising ifI I am whatI myself of individualism chooseto be. I can always, Fromthestandpoint socialfeatures of my whatare takentobe themerely contingent wishto,putin question 142
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son; but I cannot be held responsibleforwhat existence.I maybiologicallybe myfather's I may legally to assume such responsibility. he did unless I choose implicitly or explicitly be a citizen of a certain country;but I cannot be held responsiblefor what my country Such individualismis does or has done unless I choose . .. to assume such responsibility. for the effectsof expressed by those modern Americans who deny any responsibility slaveryupon black Americans,saying "I never owned any slaves." It is more subtlythe standpointof those other modern Americanswho accept a nicelycalculated responsibility for such effectsmeasured preciselyby the benefitstheythemselvesas individuals have indirectly received fromslavery. In both cases 'being an American'is not in itselftaken to of the individual.And of course thereis nothingpeculiar to be part of the moral identity modern Americans in thisattitude:the Englishmanwho says,"I never did any wrong to as thoughit had somethingto do withme?"or the Ireland; whybring up thatold history young German who believes thatbeing born after1945 means thatwhatNazis did toJews has no moral relevance to his relationshipto hisJewishcontemporaries, exhibitthe same attitude,that according to which the self is detachable fromits social and historicalroles
and statuses.25
MacIntyre's irony toward the liberal assumption that guilt for collective is no doubt justified. What interestsme at the crimes is somehow voluntary moment,however,is not the cogency of MacIntyre'sattackon liberalismbut a curious inconsistencyin his account of collective guilt. Modern Americans, for the effectsof according to MacIntyre, should acknowledge responsibility slaverynot when theyfeel so inclinedor to the extentthattheyhave individually benefitedfromit but simplyinsofaras theybelong to the American collectivity But if "modern Americans"automatand thus partake of an American identity. should we conclude that ically inherit this morally tainted collectiveidentity, itas well?Or do thedisadvantagesof belonging modern "black Americans"inherit to the collectivity "black America" cancel out the guiltthatone would otherwise "America"?To say thatdisadvantagescan inheritas a member of the collectivity outweighcollectiveguiltis presumablyto exhibitthe same sortof "nice calculation"that MacIntyreperceivesin Americanswho measure theirguiltforslavery does MacIntyre's bythe benefits theyhave received fromit. But whatalternative and ongoing injuriesare beside the point; if argumentallow? If presentbenefits collectiveguilt for the past is taken seriouslyin its own rightand is not just a to presentinequities;thenitis hard to see whymodern figurative wayof referring black Americansare any less responsibleforthe effects of slavery thanAmericans of slavery generally.Are black Americans themselvesthus guiltyfor "the effects upon black Americans"?26 The dilemma posed by MacIntyre'saccount merely dramatizes a general weakness, at least in modern liberal societies,of ascriptionsof (morallysignifiThe difficulty can be stated succinctly: collectiveidenticant) collectiveidentity. overlap. In this sense the voluntarism ties, unlike individual ones, frequently as a product of liberal individualismmerelydescribesa feaMacIntyrecriticizes ture of large-scale collectivities as such. Citizens born into a nation that has in addicommitted crimescan alwaysclaiminnocencebased on theirmembership
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tionalcollectivities: notjust an Americanbut a blackAmerican,or a recentimmia European, a Christian, grant; notjust a German but a socialist, an intellectual. in disowningcollective Of course there is no guarantee thatan agent willsucceed in questiondefinesher identity or determines guiltbydenyingthatthe collectivity than does some othercollectivity her ethicalstatusmore powerfully to whichshe in whichmembershipin one also belongs. No doubt thereare culturalsituations collectivity-forexample, clan membershipin a tribalsocietyor early Christian membershipin the "body of Christ"-counts as sufficiently importantto render In such cases it mayeven be competingmemberships negligiblebycomparison.27 or conversion,foran agent to repudiate her personal easier, thanksto initiation past than it is forher to deny her connectionto the past of the collectivity. Hence in our presentsocial conthe problem of deniability, though possiblyintractable text,does not amount to a logicallynecessaryobstacleto all practicesof binding people to actual eventsin theircollectivepasts. Perhaps revisionism should be understood,then, preciselyas an attemptto restorea preliberalmode of identity, so thatmembershipin some privilegedcolof identifications lectivity willonce again overridethe plurality thattends,in our presentcontext,to defeat ascriptionsof collectiveresponsibility. (Somethinglike thisis what Fiorenza seems to envisionwhen she calls, in a passage cited earlier, for "a universalsolidarity of sisterhoodwithall women of the past, present,and follow the same futurewho vision"; MH, 31.) But if this is a plausible way to then revisionism construe an importantaim of revisionism, itselfmay in many For a centraltendencyof current cases turn out to be curiouslyself-defeating. research designed to replace collectivememorieswithan account of the actual the groundsfordenyingcollective of the sortthat past is surelyto multiply identity in the strongsense we seems necessaryforascriptionsof collectiveresponsibility have been exploring. If collectiveidentity of the preliberalsortis based, at least to an important on the possessionof commonnarratives, whateverunderextent, mines those narrativeswill inevitably tend to qualify, even if it does not destroy, one's sense of belonging to the collectivity whose past has been revised. In gennarratives thatconnectus to a collectivepast tend to presuperal, the precritical pose thatour ancestorslargelyshared our beliefsand values,foronlyin thatcase of theirs.Suppose, recallingan can our actions readilybe seen as continuations from an earliersection,thata modernAmericanacceptsa responsibility example to promote egalitarianismbecause she believes that she has inheritedthis obligation fromher colonial ancestors.Presumablyshe does so in part because of an the assumptionthatthese assumptionderived fromcertaincollectivenarratives: in roughlythe way she understandsit. She ancestorsunderstood egalitarianism now learns, by reading Edmund S. Morgan's account,thata crucial component of what theymeantbyegalitarianism was slaveholding.Nothingin principlepreventsher fromsimplyembracingthisinformation as a discovery about the true content of her inherited obligation, and thus from taking up the banner of 144
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thata transhisBut a more likelyoutcome would seem to be uncertainty slavery. obligationsthus a of inherited American body American identity-and torical reallyexisted in quite the way she used to think.
The Relevance of Historical Revision The burden of this essay has been skeptical. My reflectionshave ethicalor politicalimportended, on thewhole,to raise doubtsabout theintrinsic tance of new discoveries about what actually took place in a collective past. Indeed, my argumentsso far mightplausiblybe taken to implythat I consider irrelevant-mere antiquarand politically historical researchethically revisionist ianism,in Jameson'ssense. The purpose of thissectionis consequentlyto point to several ways in which revisionistresearch might indeed prove relevant to treatedin presentvalues, even ifnot quite forthe reasons imaginedbythe critics the opening sections. My argument to this point has assumed that people's ethical and political to doctrinesor images that are in turn values take the form of commitments of action.Suppose it turnsout, dependent on imagined or rememberedpatterns however,that at least some ethical values held by some people involvecommitin some designated occurred mentsnot to a patternof actionbut to whatever actually some ancestor. designated or whatever was done by actually of the past segment Suppose, in otherwords,the logic of ethicalvalues is at least sometimesindexical, appropriatewayis a dispositionto act in so thata dispositionto act in an ethically the way some designated person or group acted, whateverthatmayhave been.28 Thus (to returnto an example fromthe opening paragraph) a Christianbeliever of a certainkind mightbe disposed to act in the wayJesus acted, whatever Jesus' actions turned out to have been and whetheror not theymatched the received record of thatrevisedthe traditional discovery accounts. In thatcase, a historical change the contentof the believer'svalues, and Jesus' actions would necessarily nothingelse could change it in the same way.Presumablytherewould be a limit to how farrevisioncould go beforethe believerrepudiated the value of actingin showed whateverwayJesus acted-for instance,if the historicalreconstruction thathe was a murdereror a Roman spy.The limitin thiscase would be set bythe other values, perhaps nonindexical ones, to which the believer was also committed.Nevertheless,whetheror not she remained committedto the value of along Jesus,the contentof thatvalue would have changed, necessarily, imitating withthe historicalinformation. The question is whetheranyone's values reallytake this "indexical" formto act in whateverway it turnsout thatsome that is, the formof a commitment to mean bysome ethicalterm designated person acted,or perhaps of an intention Collective and theActualPast Memory 145
whatever some designated ancestors meant by it. Might there really be, for to was in facta commitment to equality instance,an Americanwhose commitment it? Possiblythere is no one whateverthe Founders meant when theyaffirmed in these terms,though whose ethicaldispositionscould be understood primarily lifeof any mayplaya role in the normative some degree of indexicalcommitment agent or collectivity. theoretically The second kind of relevance I have in mind is less interesting relevanceto the about the past a necessary (since itstopsshortof givingdiscoveries present) but perhaps more plausible psychologicallyas an account of how inquiry.Suppose one discoversthat a someone mightbe affectedby revisionist holds has been linkedin the past to motivesor consequences value one presently createsa suspicionthatthe value thatnow seem repulsive; suppose thisdiscovery in question is stilllinked to somethingone would like to repudiate. (Conversely, researchmightshow thata value one no longer holds has been linkedto benefits and this mightlead one to ask whetherthe neglected one stillfindsattractive, value deserves a revival.)Perhaps,once again, I am convincedbyMorgan'sclaim that the notion of equalitywas connected in colonial Virginia to a slaveholding ideology. As has been suggested, this is unlikelyto persuade me to revise my concept of egalitarianismalong colonial Virginian lines. But I mightbegin to in the presentmightnot wonder whetheregalitarianadvocacyin certaincontexts the solidarityof one end up serving similar ends, for instance by reinforcing group at the expense of another. in The factthatsomeone mightbe led to question her presentcommitments researchwas necessaryto the correction thisway would not show thathistorical or more careful application of present values, since the potentialuse of egalitarian principles by oppressive interestscould in principle have been demonstrated by fictionalexamples or by logical analysis. Still, it was useful, and in precedentto workwith; practicemayhave been invaluable,to have the historical novelistsand politicaltheoristsmightnever have inventedan equally revealing of the origins of present values example. In this sense, historicalinvestigation on the posmay serve as a means of gatheringexamples thatprovokereflection though,once again, siblesocial consequences of certainideologicalcommitments, there would be no necessaryconnectionbetween the historicalactualityof the In fact,the historicity of the example mightbe positively example and its utility. misleading,if forinstancethe alleged statusof the Virginiaideologyas the true were interpreted (via geneticfallacy) historical originof Americanegalitarianism and oppression was a necto mean that the connectionbetween egalitarianism essaryone.29 The last kind of relevance I wish to mentionhas less to do withinformation than with motivation.In the previous section,I imagined a reader of Morgan's reallyexistedin quite who began to wonderwhetheran Americanidentity history thatsuch a discovery mightraise thewayshe previously thought.To say,however, 146
REPRESENTATIONS
is not to say that questions about the precise characterof an American identity values would thereAmerican as to whatshe perceived the reader's commitment of and contingency recognizingthe fragility fore be weakened. On the contrary, her sense of an American egalitarianismin its earliestmomentsmightintensify obligationto preserveand fosterthisinheritedvalue, despite or even because of itsambiguous lineage.
Notes
1. This essay is a much revisedand expanded versionof a lecturedeliveredat the 1985 meeting of the English Institute.Among the many people whose suggestionsand the shape of the argument,I wishespeciallyto thankMargaret have affected criticisms Knapp, WalterMichaels, Jeffrey Ferguson,Catherine Gallagher,Stephen Greenblatt, Robert Post, Christopher Pye, Michael Rogin, Elaine Scarry,Randolph Starn, and or otherwise,for my Bernard Williams. But they are not responsible,collectively errors. servesto authorizeparticularpro2. The precise manner in whicha canonical narrative subtle and varied, as is amply shown,forexample, by David posals can be extremely (Philadelphia, 1975). Theology in Recent H. Kelseyin The UsesofScripture see criticism, interaction betweentheologyand historical 3. On the post-Enlightenment and Knowledge TheMorality ofHistorical and theBeliever: Van A. Harvey,The Historian Belief (Philadelphia, 1966); and Hans W. Frei,TheEclipseofBiblicalNarrative: Christian (New Haven, 1974); for an Hermeneutics and Nineteenth-Century A Study in EighteenthTheHebrew see Norman K. Gottwald, overview of the mostrecentphase of thishistory, (Philadelphia, 1985), 16-20. Introduction Bible:A Socio-Literary trans.John H. Marks,reviseded. (PhiladelA Commentary, 4. Gerhard von Rad, Genesis: phia, 1972), 19n. Israel, ofLiberated A Sociology Religion ofthe ofYahweh: 5. Norman K. Gottwald,The Tribes 1250-1050 B.C.E. (Maryknoll, N.Y., 1979); and Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, In Origins (New York,1983). ofChristian Reconstruction Theological Memory ofHer: A Feminist be cited in the textas TY and MH, respectively. These workswillhenceforth TheBiblicalArchaeologist 6. George E. Mendenhall, "The Hebrew Conquest of Palestine," 25 (1962): 66-87. 7. In observingthat Gottwaldand SchtisslerFiorenza have in one sense merelyshifted theyconferon thatthe authority I am not implying the locus of scripturalauthority, the biblical events is necessarilythe same in kind or degree as the authoritymore impute to the biblical texts.Schussler Fiorenza, for instance, orthodox interpreters rejects the notion that the "counter-voicesand visions" she uncovers constitutea "norm to be obeyed" or a "canon to be observed"; their value lies instead in their today";Protocol struggles vision,courage, hope in liberation capacity"to giveliberating and Modern Culture 53 in Hellenistic Studies forHermeneutical oftheCenter oftheColloquy (1987): 54. In that case, my question is stillwhyit should matterthat such benefits derive fromthe (actual) past. in TheBible ofYahweh," 8. Norman K. Gottwald,"The Theological Task AfterTheTribes ed. Gottwald(Maryknoll,N.Y., 1983), and Social Hermeneutics, Political and Liberation: 198. CollectiveMemoryand the Actual Past 147
9. Readers familiar withstructuralist terminology willnoticea resemblancebetween my use of the termsanalogyand continuity and the structuralist habitof contrasting metaphorand metonymy. This suggeststhatthere may be a connectionbetween tendencies manner of essentializing literary to essentializethe actual past and a certainformalist relations language (i.e., by privilegingfiguresin which metaphoricand metonymic in thisessay. happen to coincide). But I willnot pursue the suggestionany further TheOrdealofColonial -AmericanFreedom: Virginia 10. Edmund S. Morgan,American Slavery (New York, 1975), chap. 18. Narrative 11. FredricJameson, The PoliticalUnconscious: as a Socially Act (Ithaca, Symbolic cited in the textas PU. N.Y., 1981), 17; henceforth 12. To ask whetherpersonal and collectivepasts have similarclaimson the presentis not to implyany endorsementof a philosophicalor an ethicalor politicalindividualism.I am in no sense questioningthe viewthatpersonsare sociallyconstructed-that,in the words of George H. Mead, "the self,as thatwhichcan be an object to itself, is essenand it arises in social experience";Mind,Self, and Society: From tiallya social structure, theStandpoint ofa SocialBehaviorist, ed. Charles W. Morris (Chicago, 1934), 140. Nor am I questioningthe numerous otherways,apart fromrelationsto the past,in which personal and collectiveidentitiescan be treated as homologous. For a discussion of and theEvolutionof Society, such homologies, see Jurgen Habermas, Communication to conclude thatagents are trans.Thomas McCarthy(Boston, 1979), 106-16. Finally, notaccountable for theircollectivepasts would not be to absolve them of collective fortheircollectivepresentsand futures. responsibility see C. L. Ten, Crime, and Guilt, 13. For a recentcriticalsurveyof theoriesof punishment, A Philosophical Introduction Punishment: (Oxford, 1987). Important earlier studies and Responsibility: of Law include H. L. A. Hart, Punishment Essaysin thePhilosophy Law (Boston, 1978). As a Criminal (Oxford, 1968); and George P. Fletcher, Rethinking glance at any of these workswill show,my argumentaddresses only a verynarrow complex subject. range of the questions associatedwithwhatis in facta bewilderingly 14. "As the National Socialistswell knewin controlling inmatesin slave labor camps, occadetersdisobediencebyotherinmates"; sionallyhangingan innocentperson effectively Criminal Fletcher, Rethinking Law, 415. 15. Of course even deterrencewould collapse if more than a fewpeople knew about the deception. 16. Robert Nozick,Philosophical Explanations (Cambridge,Mass., 1981), 387. 17. It is stronger,for one thing, than the notion of personal identityNozick himself defends in the first chapterof the same book. 18. The precise relevance of metaphysicaldebates about free will and determinismto theories of punishmentis unclear in any case. See Derek Parfit, Reasonsand Persons (Oxford, 1984), 323-26. 19. In a lucid chapter on collectiveresponsibility, Joel Feinberg distinguishesbetween vicarious liability and vicarious guilt.Accordingto Feinberg,"Even though criminal froma guilty can transfer or extend vicariously to an innocentparty, itcannot liability as well. For guilt to transfer be true that guilt transfers literally, action and literally But to sayof an innocentman thathe bears anothtoo musttransfer intention literally. and yetanother (guilty)one, a er's guiltis to say thathe had one (innocent)intention claim which on analysisturnsout to be contradictory"; Essaysin Doingand Deserving: theTheory ofResponsibility (Princeton,N.J., 1970), 232. The question I am asking here is whether it makes any more sense to transferaction and intentionfrom past to present states of a single person than it does to transferthem fromone person to another.If not,then all guilt,notjust some cases of collectiveguilt,is "vicarious."
148
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20. As this sentence indicates, I am not advancing a skepticalor reductive account of as such. My claim is not thattemporalsuccessiondeprives the agent personal identity itis insteadthenarrowersuggestionthattimehas removed of anycontinuousidentity; the past act fromthe agent's presentcontrol,and thatthismakes it hard to see why responses to the agent thatwould have been justifiedwhile she was performingthe she has performedit. bad action remainjustifiedafter 21. There is, however,no guarantee that any actual practiceof punishmentwill in fact those actionswillhave on cause people to avoid certainactionsbecause of the effects their futurerelation to themselves.There is, in other words, no reason to suppose that a practiceof punishmentunderstood along these lines would not be futile;and if it did succeed, it mightdo so forthe wrongreasons, perhaps byinducing a stateof potentially to do withpeople's actuallybelievingthemselves fearthatwould have little guilty. see the 22. On the crucial role of anticipationin a person's relationto her own identity, penetratingcriticalsurveyof German and Anglo-Americantheories of identityin J. O'Conin Theological trans.Matthew Perspective, Wolfhart Pannenberg,Anthropology nell (Philadelphia, 1985), chap. 5. theoriesgenerally, all of the "pre23. As George P. Fletcherobservesof consequentialist Criminal Law, 414. dicted goods" of punishment"are highlyspeculative";Rethinking withBernard Williams. 24. I am indebted forthisline of reasoningto a conversation A Study in MoralTheory, Virtue: 2nd ed. (Notre Dame, Ind., 25. Alasdair MacIntyre,After 1984), 220-21. action and similarpolibeside the point here, is thataffirmative 26. My own view,strictly justifiedprecisely are sufficiently of slavery cies designed to compensate forthe effects inequities,though I have no doubt that injuriesand present bythe existenceof ongoing public awareness of the past makes such phenomena somewhatharder to ignore than theywould be if slaverywere simplyforgotten. in PaulineTheology (Philadel27. See, forinstance, John A. T. Robinson,TheBody:A Study phia, 1952). Even in these cases, however,there are often grounds for skepticism is to be taken literally. about the degree to whichthe assertionof collectivesingularity use of bodilyimages mightshow,as Robinsonargues, thatPaul conceived An insistent of the church as "a specificpersonal organism" (51). But the frequencyof Paul's recourse to such images can just as easily suggest that their purpose is not literally When, in a passage like 1 Corinthians 12, descriptivebut allegorical and hortatory. relations among church members are compared to relationsamong specificbodily organs (foot,ear, eye,hand, genitals),thisimpressionbecomes overwhelming. 28. Such ethicalvalues would be in some respectsanalogous to "naturalkinds"as analyzed and Necessity (Cambridge,Mass., 1980), 116-44. by Saul A. Kripke; see Naming forone, does not appear to thinkthatthe connectionwas necessary; 29. Morgan himself, 381. Freedom, see American Slavery-American
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