What is Cultural Memory?
Cultural Memory: The effective length of time that an idea or concept can remain within the common zeitgeist of a cultural group. Ideas, dispositions and perspectives that have become established can prevent others from establishing credibility and being entertained by a culture as a whole. This is true with ideas that are in current circulation but also they can have legacy effects.
Legacy Effects: These are conclusions that are reached based on the perspective of one disposition that is preserved even after the initial disposition has been forgotten/abandoned.
Cultural or societal memory is how long an idea or concept stays in the zeitgeist of a population. The sad part is that it boils down to us forgetting what we have learned in the past.
Over time there is a natural rate of decay that occurs for knowledge and information as it is no longer circulated and refresh. Depending on the nature and impact of the knowledge this could be as short as a few days or as long as generations. Either way, the advent of ideas become lost to the fog of the past when the knowledge we have cultivated is no longer engaged and left to stagnate.
How long a culture maintains an idea is a matter of how long it will renew learning it. Ideas, like anything, need to be continually renewed or they will fade away. This is one of the reasons why Learning is a vital aspect of daily life for everyone. It is one thing to have all of the information and knowledge stored and preserved, but if we are not continually engaging with it, then how could that be useful to anyone?
What is the factor that determines how long an idea or knowledge will be maintained for? There is a correlation between the length of time that knowledge is cultivated and the value that is has. The greater the value people assign to it, the longer it will remain in the cultural zeitgeist. This can be for good or for ill, as there is only a limited amount of space for cultivation. The assigned value of an idea is inescapably linked to the advertising/ propaganda that endorses it. This is true as it pertains to various state/government functions as well as consumer habits.
The Availability of knowledge affects everyday life and not only the decisions we make but also how we think about and understand our lives. If we are faced with a social or political problem today, and it is an issue dealt with in the past, then we should have an obligation to engage with that material. It would be folly to try and “Reinvent the Wheel” as it were. Why would we not take advantage of the fact that entire dialogues have been carried out on topics we are concerned with today? Engaging with the discourses of the past can only enrich and expand our understanding of any issue.
There needs to be a revival of appreciation for Learning and for engaging with the ideas and discourses of the past. Traditionally this has been the position of the historian but the vast majority of historians of today are swept away by state propaganda. The lenses through which most history is written in the lens of the state and its glorification or that of the racial extremist both groups having poor understandings of the nature of the state or of the economy.
It is in the best interest of all that people are educated throughout your community. I don’t mean state schools, I mean education,
Education is something that can only be embraced.
Indoctrination is what is impressed upon people.
In Credible Discourse 