Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
On the Difficulty of Living Together: Memory, Politics, and History

On the Difficulty of Living Together: Memory, Politics, and History

Cruz, Manuel
Jacques, Richard

Hardcover

Series: New Directions in Critical Theory, Book 21

Philosophy

ISBN10: 0231164009
ISBN13: 9780231164009
Publisher: Columbia Univ Pr
Published: Apr 26 2016
Pages: 176
Weight: 0.75
Height: 0.80 Width: 5.60 Depth: 8.30
Language: English

In On the Difficulty of Living Together, Manuel Cruz launches a nuanced study of memory and forgetting, defining their forms and uses, political meanings, and social and historical implications. Memory is not an intrinsically positive phenomenon, he argues, but an impressionable and malleable one, used to advance a variety of agendas.

Cruz focuses on five memory models: that which is inherently valuable, that which legitimizes the present, that which supports retributive justice, that which is essential to mourning, and that which elicits renunciation or revelation. His methodical approach makes sense of memory's positive and negative effects, its contradictions, and its tensions. Cruz shows us that remembering is not necessarily an end in itself, nor is it a supreme value, immune to external influence. The exercise of memory guarantees nothing, though many insist it is a progressive act preventing the repetition of past mistakes. Tying the making of memory to the movements of history, Cruz prioritizes memory's political dimensions over its philosophical aspects and helps us remember its myriad uses.

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