Role of Memory in a Global Age - Essay Example

The Role of Memory in A Global Age The Role of Memory in a Global Age There is always somethingimportant about keeping pace with time. Time is integral to human life because humans rely on it to finish their task and move to the next. Time also allows them to go back and make corrections if there are any mistakes in a particular project or vow never to repeat it if something went wrong in an event. Hence, time is history, future and the present all at once. Planning requires assessment of time in order to meet deadlines and for that one needs to remember these targets for punctuality’s sake. The nature of time and its impact on people have evolved over a period of time and are rapidly transforming in the global era. Life is moving too fast and keeping pace with all the developments often requires taking a great deal of risks. Wider processes of globalization have generated new forms of memory. In the age of globalization, remembering things is a matter of being exposed to the electronic media, to store one’s memory such as meeting deadlines or even recollecting one’s own culture and heritage. The currents of globalization have been provoked by new challenges in the social structure. With the changing face of the planet, cultural identity has raised issues pertaining to the construction of memories, both cultural and historical (Colmeiro 2011). This situation is most likely to occur in locations which have witnessed cold war and dictatorship in their societies, seeking to revive their past. The last decade of the twentieth century saw many social and historical changes. The revelation of the effect of globalization on mankind gave way to cultural anxieties resulting in the fear of loss of memory. Memory is often studied with connection to national identity as a unique dimension of nationalism (Bell 2003). It, thus, touches the brim of three distinctive features of society: nationalism, cultural identity and historical identity, before it reaches out as playing an integral part in the advent of globalization (Musner 2000). Much of the data found on the theoretical perspective of memory is with reference to the holocaust and politics in general. In light of the violation of human rights, scholars argue that it is necessary to strongly discourage the “ethnic and nationalistic abuse of history and memory”, demanding an authoritarian politics for making amends for this abuse. The contravention of rights has often resulted from incursion of other nations or through a mere global impact. It becomes necessary to expand upon the term “globalization” for a better understanding of the topic under discussion (Musner 2000). Globalization exists on the map since 1960s. It came to be recognized through anti-globalization movement. It became a current affair jargon after being pushed out of the financial and academic arena. Since then it has been treated as a “buzzword” to describe the all-around-the-world activities. It was rigidly defined by dictionaries as the process of improved communications facilitating financial and investment markets to function at an international level. In reality it was more than simply doing business or operating financial markets. It took its place next to the stature of industrialization in the previous century. It produced marginal, positive and even negative results and remained a mystery for people who became familiar with it. So many definitions are attached with this term that even media personnel fail to delineate it in proper language (Jeffery 2002). In words of Beerkens, globalization is defined as following: “What distinguishes the different views is the point of reference used. After all, if we regard globalization as a process, there must be a ‘past reality that is or has been affected by this process. Classified according to the point of reference taken we can approach ‘global as a geographical concept, distinguishing it from the local; as a concept of authority and power, distinguishing it from territorial sovereignty; as a cultural concept, distinguishing it from isolation; and finally, as an institutional concept, distinguishing it from national.” (Beerkens 2004) The inter-connectedness of each of these elements makes it a complex term which has conveniently generated new forms of the realities of the past. The age of globalization can be conveniently described as the age of growing communication across the globe, and the increasing interaction between people of various cultures, in the process of migration as well as business progressions. Enhancement in such kind of socialization initially gave way to eliminating the differences that existed between two nations and helped in bringing about a universal and uniform change of ideas and interests all over the world. For the fundamentalist, this meant the loss of generations and values (Jones 2010). Many people fought to refrain from the impact of globalization but it all happened so fast that nobody could do anything to stop it. This is where memory comes to play its role. It has been difficult to view the world as a single global society. Many failures in this definition of the process of globalization have led to wars across the nations. Certain inventions and promotions of goods have led to “sacralization of the past” and this is not a viable means for it to survive in the present times. People seek for moral justice straight from the pulpit because they still remember something of the past (Bell 2003). On the economic front, proponents believe that globalization helps the less-developed countries to grow. The reason is that less-developed countries have a higher percentage of the population living below the poverty line, meaning that they would be more willing to work on lower wages. On the political front, proponents believe that globalization forces closed economies to open their markets for international products and services. It allows the free flow of information in and out of the country, increasing transparency in the operations of the country (Koshny 2001). People who are against globalization argue that globalization changes the culture of a nation. When countries open their borders to international competition and companies, they threaten their culture through cultural imperialism. The purpose is not to highlight the disadvantages of globalization but to evaluate it in light of the new forms of memory. The idea of cultural heritage is used with contemporary artistic practice to secure the imaginative memory which existed before the global age. The memories of culture are being reconfigured due to migration and hybrid structures that have risen through popular art forms. The elements that were integral to memory and identity are now part of inflated collective memories. Many forms of memory are transnational and the contemporary creativities are so innovative that there is an element of incoherence in such representations (Anheier & Isar 2011). “Globalization needs to discover itself as an age of hermeneutics” meaning it has an symbolic basis which can be explored at any level. In the present era, truth and authority are not single handedly questioned; they accompany History and Tradition. The increased violence in the society has led to forgetting histories and traditions. Memory needs to be reconsidered along with history and tradition to restore convictions (Uggla 2010). A good example of this will be to demonstrate a live situation that the author confronts while commuting between Sweden and Finland which were a part of one kingdom two centuries ago. Despite the fact that they were united for 600 years, even after two centuries, the historical geography can be traced everywhere today. The names of the cities within each country have a unique historical relationship. Both Finland and Sweden need to be acknowledged for their identity to be able to understand their history and politics. History and politics both work on severe conflicts and controversies (Uggla 2010). Memory can never exist in its pure form because most of what has been preserved is part of the “public memory” preserved in human memory or directed in stupor (Zerubavel 2003). The process of emigration that takes place as a result of globalization, amongst Irish and Italian people, was communicated orally through different forms of memory mainly, individual, social, political and cultural. Individual memory is a recollection of personal events and experiences. Social memory is the combination similar individual experiences through communication within peer groups. By contrast, a political memory reveals how institutions and large social groups such as government and firms “make” a memory to promote a particular construct of identity. Cultural memory, on the other hand is a selective process whereby the society maintains a selective part of information stored in the heritage; libraries and museums. According to a study, individual and social memories last for three generations where political and cultural memories last for a longer period of time, sometimes tending to convert the “‘intergenerational’ individual and social memories into mediated ‘transgenerational’ political and cultural memories”. Hence, memories have become a manipulative source of the global age. These memories of emigration later became means to assess the failure of each state in supporting the plight of Italians abroad (Fanning & Munck 2011). It is widely claimed that sociology is better equipped in the social context as far as accessing the past is concerned. It is informative about human memory as only being capable of recollecting the events of the community in which people reside. For instance, a Jew is likely to remember the destruction of the First Temple which took place twenty five centuries ago. Similarly, a track fan would know about the heroics of Paavo Nurmi in the 1924 Olympics. What the global age has done is merely lubricated the passage of the possibilities that other communities or professionals and fans may have, to explore various memories of the past through the so called authorities of that particular memory. Another eminent human practice is the holiday observing ritual. It does not only focus on what is remembered but also on when it should be remember as a collective process. The author calls it the “mnemonic synchronization” which was considered the earliest “proto-technological fore-glimpse of the modern ‘global village’” (Zerubavel 2003). With regard to the global age and its inventions, media is the first thing that comes in one’s mind. It has played a vital role in the restoration of the images through “exhibitions, films, memorials, and other media” by increasing media events which aid people to focus on collective memory. The standard information of the event projected through media is viewed by millions of people even if it is a conflict which is unacceptable in reality. Hence, studies have shown that “globalized media play a significant role in the formation of an imagined world community.” Just as press was the central institution in the era of nation-state, in the age of globalization, electronic media has taken a similar role (Levy & Sznaider 2006). In sociology, memory cannot be viewed as a psychological trait of an individual but a collective existence structured by groups. The meaning-making process generated by humans, which includes the aspects like “culture, history, memory, identity and conversation”, allows sociologists to understand the nature and consequence of human activities which lead to new discoveries and inventions (Plummer 2010). An excellent literary example of this role of memory in the global age is that of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s epic novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, which narrates the family history of a native South American family, the Buendias. Marquez looks at tradition as opposed to progress while sketching his narrative of history where progress inevitably overcomes and either demolishes or mutates tradition permanently, and it does this by intruding and disturbing the individual and collective memory of the subjects of a tradition. Pre-modern societies, unlike the modern society, had the quality of understanding and explaining the world and its phenomena through another world. This is what makes their worldview sacred. They believe in a higher, greater reality of which this world is a part. To forget this other world, this greater reality, means to have erased the normative structure of the tradition from the mind altogether, and, most importantly, it means to have lost the historical and traditional identity that the subject had been endowed with. The significance of memory lies in the fact that it not only orders values but also defines the self as well as the other. The self can only be established once it’s predetermined position and status in the socio-historical network has been internalized. The sacredness of the other and the other world is vital for the survival of a tradition, which the wider processes of globalization are unable to provide (Merrel 1974). The role of memory in the age of globalization is multifaceted and can continue as an endless discussion because of the nature of its content. The processes of globalization through which memory has taken different forms, no doubt exist in the society and will continue to do so, as long as all the sources of memory are alive and in motion. Time has mysteriously fled too fast and brought about rapid changes in human history. The individual, social, cultural and political memories interchangeably exist across nations and constantly develop over a period of several generations. That is how world has evolved so far. The realities have been shifting and transforming through not only oral communication but also the global media which is doing its work diligently. Art and literature also play a role in capturing memory’s attention. To start with, each community has its own set of memories based on its values and leisure pursuits. History and Tradition play a vital role in the development of memory and memory is always forgotten before it is again remembered. It is this nature of human memory that defines the term in its proper sagacity. Memories have evolved through many generations but they are interconnected with the changing face of the world. The global age views memory as a collective process whereby new ideas are evolved and older ones are transformed. Bibliography Anheier, H. K., & Isar, Y. R. (2011). Heritage, memory & identity. Thousand Oaks, Calif, Sage Publications. Beerkens, H. J. J. G. (2004). Global opportunities and institutional embeddedness: higher education consortia in Europe and Southeast Asia. Bell, D. (2003). Mythscapes: memory, mythology, and national identity. British Journal of Sociology. 54, 63-81. Colmeiro, J. (2011). A nation of ghosts?: haunting, historical memory and forgetting in post-Franco Spain. 452ºF: Electronic journal of theory of literature and comparative literature, 4, 17-34. Fanning, B., & Munck, R. (2011). Globalization, migration and social transformation: Ireland in Europe and the world. Farnham, Ashgate. Jeffery, S. (2002). What is Globalization. [online]. The Guardian. [Accessed 26 March 2012] Jones, A. (2010). Globalization: key thinkers. Cambridge, UK, Polity. Levy, D., & Sznaider, N. (2006). The Holocaust and memory in the global age. Philadelphia, Temple University Press. Merrel, F. (1974). Jose Arcadio Buendias Scientific Paradigms: Man in Search of Himself. Latin American Literary Review. 2, 59-70. Musner, L. (2000). Memory and Globalization: Austrias Recycling of the Nazi Past and Its European Echoes. New German Critique. 77-91. Plummer, K. (2010). Sociology: the basics. London, Routledge. Uggla, B. K. (2010). Ricoeur, hermeneutics, and globalization. London, Continuum. Zerubavel, E. (2003). Time maps: collective memory and the social shape of the past. Chicago, Ill, University of Chicago Press. Read More