Title: Is There a Right to Forget? Historical Injustices, Race, Memory, and Identity
Abstract: This article critically evaluates the argument that individuals and nations have a right to forget their past. Since our histories shape our identities, forgetting is unnecessary, impossible, and politically problematic. Cosmopolitanism allows individuals to combine memory and de-essentialized group identities with more universal identities. Further, governments have no right to forget the past, since they could use this right to avoid grappling with the legacies of historical injustices in the present. Against the view that time heals all wounds, I argue that promoting justice in the present requires us to recognize the legacies of historical injustices such as slavery and to promote some form of restitution.
Publication Year: 2002
Publication Date: 2002-12-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 20
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