Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Myths of the Past

Nearly two years ago, I typed the following quote into a blank blog post:
"There are political consequences to remembering things that never happened and forgetting thing that did."
- Ariel Levy in the 11/16/09 New Yorker, in the middle of a review of recent books on feminism

And then started a meandering paragraph about how everyone recreates their lives through memory -- sometimes deliberately, more often just by remembering some things and forgetting others -- and that means that we all live in slightly different worlds, ones with subtly different events and clearly different implications. It was rough, the usual bloggy first draft, but I clearly intended it to lead somewhere.

It never did, I'm sorry to say -- I still think it's an interesting insight (though it's hugely not original with me), but I no longer remember exactly what I wanted to say about it...and that's enough of an ironic comment on my original idea that I think I need to leave it right there.

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