Things You Only Notice When They're Gone

forgetting

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There's a word for that

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butterfly

is a limitation that protects the human being from the blinding light of absolute historical memory and is an attribute boldly chosen by the philosopher in order to avoid falling into the trap of 'historical knowledge'.

Like everything else in Nietzsche, this forgetfulness is at least double-edged. Even in his early writings 'forgetfulness' makes its appearance in two opposed forms: as a limitation that protects the human being from the blinding light of an absolute historical memory (that will, among other things, reveal that 'truths' spring from 'interpretations'), as well as an attribute boldly chosen by the philosopher in order to avoid falling into the trap of 'historical knowledge.' In the work of the seventies, there are, on the one hand, passages such as the following (in which we must grasp the full irony of the word 'truth') : (Spivak in Derrida 31)

is a limitation that protects the human being from the blinding light of absolute historical memory.

Like everything else in Nietzsche, this forgetfulness is at least double-edged. Even in his early writings 'forgetfulness' makes its appearance in two opposed forms: as a limitation that protects the human being from the blinding light of an absolute historical memory (that will, among other things, reveal that 'truths' spring from 'interpretations'), as well as an attribute boldly chosen by the philosopher in order to avoid falling into the trap of 'historical knowledge.' (Spivak in Derrida 31)

defense mechanism

is a pathology of communication: A failure to communicate with oneself that forms a particular system with misunderstanding.

in terms of a pathology of communication: 'Far from being a banal device to achieve an easy effect, forgetfulness seems to be a failure to communicate with oneself and, hence, to be one of several modalities of a phenomenon in which we have been inclined to discern a true category of mythical thinking. According to this hypothesis, forgetfulness forms a system with misunderstanding, defined as a failure to communicate with others, and with indiscretion, defined as an excess of communication with others. The proof was supplied by the alternation or accumulation of these motifs in variants of a single myth. 'levi-strauss 'view from afar 187)

is an active and in the strictest sense positive faculty of repression.

Not a result of inertia, but 'it is rather an active and in the strictest sense positive faculty of repression'.

is an attribute boldly chosen by the philosopher in order to avoid falling into the trap of 'historical knowledge'.

is an intensely active gap whereby, for instance, when one forgets a name the forgotten thing is not wholly absent, but persist as a kind of ghost, beckoning us, making us tingle with closeness.

Suppose we try to recall a forgotten name. The state of our consciousness is peculiar. There is a gap therein... but no mere gap. It is a gap that is intensely active. A sort of wraith of the name is in it, beckoning us in a given direction, making us at moments tingle with the sense of our closeness, and then letting us sink back without the longed-for term. If wrong names are proposed to us, this singularly definite gap acts immediately so as to negate them. (James 1892 'stream of consciousness')

is closing the doors and windows of consciousness for a time, remaining undisturbed by the noise, providing for a little quietness, a little tabula rasa of the consciousness, to make room for a new thing.

Forgetting is no mere vis inertiae as the superficial imagine... it is rather an active and in the strictest sense positive faculty of repression [Hemmungsvermo gen], that is responsible for the fact that what we experience and absorb enters our consciousness as little while we are digesting it (one might call the process 'inpsychation') as does the thousandfold process, involved in physical nourishment so-called 'incorporation.' To close the doors and windows of consciousness for a time... to remain undisturbed by the noise and struggle of our underworld of utility organs working with and against one another... a little quietness, a little tabula rasa of the consciousness, to make room for new thing, above all for the nobler functions and functionaries, for regulation, foresight, premeditation (for our organism is oligarchicallv directed [oligarchisch eingerichtet] ) that is the purpose of active forgetfulness, which is like a doorkeeper, a preserver of psychic order, repose, and etiquette: so that it will be immediately obvious how there could be no happiness, no cheerfulness, no hope, no pride, no present, without forgetfulness. (NW VI. ii., 307-08... GM 57-58) (derrida in spivak in derrida : 32)

yuko's 

is far greater and more structural than remembering.

the history of the victors suffers from a significant omission, the truth of the vanquished. In Benjamin's theory of history, forgetting is far greater and more structural than remembering, which is an exceptional adventure of oblivion. Benjamin invalidates the thesis progress and announces a new political project: the danger of forgetting persist. His essay 'Theses on the Philosophy of History' emphasizes the liberating capacity of memory.' (net)

forgetting, n.Memes

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