The Politics of Regret: On Collective Memory and Historical Responsibility

Something is sacred because it is written down. Whereas the successful cultic priest is judged by his skill in performing sacred knowledge, the monotheistic priest is judged by his skill in interpreting ‘the Word’. Ritual reproduction gives way to the production of the unfamiliar, the profound. Theatrics, Assmann says, gives way to hermeneutics. However, as a result of the increased emphasis on hermeneutic innovation, religions must develop techniques by which they can ‘rein in ’ the urge to push the boundaries of knowledge. This is canonization. With the canon, Assmann shows that written memory paradoxically creates more opportunities for forgetting than ritual memory does. Canons create vast archives of stored memory, some of which will inevitably become lost. ‘It is only through the interplay between these processes of making visible and canonization’, Assmann concludes, ‘that culture can become an island in the ocean of forgetting that can ensure continuity for centuries and even millennia ’ (p. 84). Other essays in the book tackle a range of topics within the theme of religion and memory. Assmann presents a fi ve stage theory of canonization using the case of early Judaism; he summarizes his infl uential work on Freud’s peculiar book Moses an