On the Difficulty of Living Together : : Memory, Politics, and History / / Manuel Cruz.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Columbia University Press Complete eBook-Package 2016
• VerfasserIn: Cruz, Manuel,
• TeilnehmendeR: Jacques, Richard.
• Place / Publishing House: New York, NY : : Columbia University Press, , [2016]; ©2016
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Language: English
• Series: New Directions in Critical Theory ; 21
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (176 p.)
• Other title: Frontmatter --; Contents --; Preface to the English Edition --; Chapter One. Of Memory and Time --; Chapter Two. The Present Breathes Through History --; Chapter Three. For an Urgent Typology of Memory --; Chapter Four. We Need to Start Defending Ourselves from the Past --; Chapter Five. More About Traumas, Calamities, and Catastrophes --; By Way of an Epilogue: A Future with Not Much Future (or About How the Perplexity of the Will Is Possible) --; Notes --; Index --; Backmatter
• Format: Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
• ISBN: 9780231541398; 9783110638578; 9783110485103; 9783110485301
• DOI: 10.7312/cruz16400
• Access: restricted access
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: Manuel Cruz.

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.