Remembering how to forget in the Web 2.0 era
“Forgetting plays a central role in human decision-making,” he argues. “It lets us act in time, cognizant of, but not shackled by, past events.”
Not quite. If you forget something then by the very nature of forgetting you cannot be cognizant of the past.
Memory is important. Learning the lessons of past mistakes is something we have failed to do for thousands of years. Digital memory makes it easy to review past history and keep the lessons of mistakes past clearly in mind so that they can be accounted for this time around.
More importantly, this new ability to "remember" is vitally important for citizens. It is very easy for leaders and elected officials to gloss over past misdeeds. But now they can be held to account. Digital memory puts power in the hands of individual people and this is a very good thing.
It is true that one can be shackled by fear if one attempts to live in the past. But memory itself is not responsible for fear. Only the human heart and ignorance of the facts bring fear. Memory then serves to shine a light on the road traveled. It helps us to get our bearings on our current position in life. And helps us to define our next starting point for new action.














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