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| The Walrus and the Carpenter http://i.imgur.com/eEzb9uO.jpg |
A few weeks ago, I was eating oysters (that was a first for
me), trying to explain to my interlocutor what it is that I do. Figuring that a
detailed exposé of diocesan administration in Late Antiquity would…well, be
boring, I chose to focus on a different topic, historical memory. As an
example, I asked why, out of the millions of micro-events that happen to “you”
on a daily basis, do “you” choose to construct your personal narratives along
certain nodal points. For instance, my father came to every soccer game of mine
until college, why do I remember the one he missed? That game did not matter at
all.
Moving on, today I got a notification from Facebook: on this
day this happened to you in the past (well since 2006). A flurry of
inconsequential events: I wrote a review of the Second Law by Muse (I forgot I
did that, I love that album), I had a message from a dear friend about her life
in Paris (she lives in Qatar now) and how well that was going, and I apparently
felt the need to share that I came back from visiting an ex-girlfriend in
Rochester with a cold… and so on. Nothing that will fundamentally alter my
life, or my personal narrative, and yet.
Facebook, with its “today in your life” feature, can probably
remind us of some important aspects of our individual lives. A friend, for
instance, reposted a picture of a goat cheese from 2005. I have no idea what
that means, but it obviously struck a chord. I will not suggest that Facebook
has the power to drastically alter our own personal narrative, but it might create
nodes around which memory can coalesce. Perhaps that goat cheese was so good
that he eventually became the cheese aficionado I know he is today: a memory of
cheese-loving life coalesces around that picture. He may not have remembered
this until today. Or it’s just something ridiculous
This is all good for people, but what about societies and
nations? Nations are constructed around historical narratives. This is not new.
We used to say, “history is written by winners.” Now in historical lingo, we
speak of historical memory, which is essentially the same, except that crafting
history occurs at the social level. To say, “history is written by winners,” is
to occlude the myriads of regional, local and familial histories that exist and
are an integral part of History. The record books of Aurelius Isidorus (I know
right?) are now an important source for the historical narrative of
late-antique Egypt. Consider the trove of documents found in the Cairo Geniza
that shed light on medieval Jewish life (including a poet whose existence had
been posited but not proven until the
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| Solomon Schechter Studying the Fragments of the Cairo Geniza http://blog.longreads.com/2015/02/25/the-holy-junk-heap/ |
Perhaps it is time for a bit of definition. I am not
interested in memory in the psychological sense. Rather, I would like to focus
on social memory—its parallels with psychological memory are perhaps obvious,
but this is not the focus on this post. Pierre Nora speaks of lieux de mémoire (sites of memory) as
the places “where memory crystallizes and secretes itself.” Nora sees these
sites of memory as an inherently modern problem; a set of artificial loci meant
to deliberately preserve what history seeks to destroy. These loci are, for
instance, archives, commemorations, celebrations etc… (and trust me historians
do attack these lieux de mémoire).
These loci are static and derive their significance from systematic repetition
of specific acts through generations. Les
lieux de mémoires, therefore, stand
in sharp distinction from the processes by which social memory is sometimes,
but mostly often, created in “so-called archaic or primitive societies.” Let us
not criticize Nora’s adherence to the “myth of the good savage,” since he is
mostly correct despite the problematic verbiage.
The fireworks to commemorate Bastille Day or Independence
Day are part of a unitary remembrance that crosses many social and ethnic
boundaries. Both days mark an arbitrary starting point for the nation, and both
days are equally artificial. France underwent numerous constitutional changes
between 1789 and 1804, not to mention between 1789 and 1958. July 4, 1776 makes
some more sense, although the state envisioned in the Articles of Confederation
is vastly different from the one we have now. Remembrance has become institutionalized
at the level of the nation.
So why Facebook, and what role does social media play in the
shaping of historical memory. To answer this is moot presently. I have
literally no idea how much of an influence Facebook will have on the perception
of the turn of the millennium by future generations. It will take many more
years before we can begin to have an idea. But what role COULD social media
have?
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| Do I Really Need to Caption This? http://growingsocialmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/download.jpg |
Let’s take my Muse review as an example. I could (admittedly
with great difficulty) deny that I ever loved Muse. Facebook could provide a
counter-example. OR, I could argue that I was always a Muse fan, and we can
have an example. At the level of the individual, we can use Facebook to confirm
or deny personal narratives, by bringing up obscure moments in time. What can
we do at the level of collective memories?
Facebook is a network, a series of mini-interacting social
groups. In my case, my grad student “society” which spans over many states, and
many generations (some were grad students), and merges with family, friends of
various eras of life etc… It is a place where the memories of one social group
are shared with another, while the other groups can only glimpse at the meaning
ascribed by the memory. When we repost a memory, we partake in the process of
memory making for a specific group. The memory more historical, more static and
more permanent than the one we remember at the kitchen table through speech.
And we share it with all these other networks: the group, therefore, loses the
ownership of the memory.
In the context of esoteric memories—that is memories, the meanings
of which are available only to the group—the weight of Facebook can be minimal.
But social memories, or rather, traumas covered in the press, can provide a
different story. The posting and reposting of national or global events reaches
new audiences. The destruction of Palmyra, the Syrian refugee crisis, election
problems and especially the mass shootings have been posted and reposted to the
point that the issue of gun control was at the forefront of the democratic
debate on October 13, 2015. Anderson Cooper stated that gun control had been
one of the most trending topics on social media. Could these become new events
become lieux de mémoire?
I will not speculate as to what Facebook can do. But if
Facebook can become the repository of the sites of memory of simple groups like
college alumni, it’d be fun to imagine around what sort of events, as a
society, we could choose to build our identity. What if next year, on October
1, 2015, we all reposted a memory about Roseburg?
I discussed here the
problems of building memory, and that memory becomes less dynamic. The issue of
Facebook, and more broadly Big Data for historians and the historical method
will be discussed later.
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