A Tentative Answer

to the Question:
Has Civil Society
Cultural Memory? /

BYAGNESHELLER

VV HEN speaking about cultural memory, I do not have in mind

traces of the past stored in a kind of collective consciousness
ready for recall, nor do I propose a collective unconscious buried
under the ruins of forgetting and retrievable only systematically,
if at all.^ Rather, cultural memory is embodied in objectivations
that store meaning in a concentrated manner; meanings to be
shared. They can be texts (such as sacred texts), chronicles, or
poetry. They can be monuments, such as buildings or statues, or
any material signs or memorabilia erected as reminders. In addition, cultural memory is embodied in regularly repeated and
repeatable practices: festivals, ceremonies, and rites. Einally, cultural memorylike individual memoryis linked to places. It is
linked to places where a significant or unique event has taken
place, or to places where a significant event is regularly replayed.
For example, in Europe every village has a Calvary Hill, where
Christ's passion is replayed every Good Friday.
Cultural memory constructs and maintains identity. As long as
a group of people maintains and cultivates a common cultural
memory, the group continues to exist. Yerushalmi (1982) shows
that Jews consciously cultivated identity through remembrance.
The frequency of the injunction ''ZachorF (Remember!) in the
Jewish Bible is a case in point. Whenever cultural memory is lost,
a group of people disappears, irrespective of their recorded history or lack thereof. The Chinese Communist government was
SOCIAL RESEARCH, Vol. 68, No. 4 (Winter 2001)

1032

SOCIAL RESEARCH

aware of this connection when it commanded the destruction of

every ptace of memory after the occupation of Tibet in 1951. The
presence or absence, the very life or decay of a peopte, does not
depend on the biological survival of an ethnic group, but on the
survival of shared cultural memory.
The building of strong and complex cultural identities represented the ascending high cultures of the axiological age. It suffices to refer to Homer, whose Illiad and Odyssey remained the
basic texts and living memory of all Hellenes, or to the first versions of the first five books of the Jevdsh Bible, or the holy sites
where the festivals of the changing seasons were fused with the
maintenance of cultural memory. Religions were the greatest cultural identity builders, as were the political institutions imbued
with religious practices by particular ethnic groups. In cultural
memory, places must remain concrete and distinct regardless of
whether they are mythological or historical. Sometimes the distinction is blurred. We know that Caesar was not murdered on the
Capitoline, but when we visit the Capitoline in Rome we visit the
place were Caesar was murdered. Yet we speak about cultural
memory of the first order, that is, the cultural memory that constitutes identity, when referring to the ceremonies, rites, or days
related to places where the past becomes present. At every
Passover Jews are liberated from the Egyptian yoke, at every Good
Friday Christ is crucified. Every generation experiences the past
as its present.
The centrality of cultural memory in developing identity was
known, and cultural memory thus cultivated, since times not
immemorial. And it was also known that if one changes one's
identity, one also has to change one's cultural memory. It was
Augustine who first began to hammer into Roman heads that
their fathers were Abraham and Moses, whereas until then, their
ancestors had been Romulus and Remus. And the holy dust stemming from Jerusalem was called in his time memoriae. Soon there
were no Romans left, and not because of the Goths but because
Roman cultural identity became a historical matter and ceased to

HAS CIVIL SOCIETY CULTURAL MEMORY?

1033

be an identity-constituting cultural memory. We know that Mussolini wanted to resuscitate Roman cultural memory, but did not
meet with success.
In modern times and particularly since the end of the eighteenth century, political bodies, first and foremost the thenemerging nation-states, also became carriers of cultural memory.
The model for the creation of cultural memory was presented by
religion. The French Republic was celebrated at first on the Field
of Mars as a ceremony in honor of the Supreme Being. Soon the
states enhanced their cultural identity with secular festivals and
celebrations. Like Quatorze Juillet in France, the Fourth of July in
America became the memorial day of the creation of the republic. A celebration takes place every year with the same rites, such
as marches, displays of military strength, fireworks, and speeches.
No state, however, could establish as forceful a cultural memory
as religions once did. But if nation, ethnicity, and religion (or any
of the three) reinforce the cultural memory of the state, it can
also serve as a potent weapon. Ideology then replaces mythology.
In the process of the division of the social and political
spheresnamely, in the process whereby civil society achieved its
relative autonomy from the statethe work of building and preserving cultural memory became first and foremost the employment of the state, or governments. States, or more precisely
governments, began regularly enlisting so-called intellectuals
teachers, poets, paintersin the production of cultural memory,
and continue to do so. Let us remember the Mexican mural
painters who created, almost on their own, a national myth or ideology, which did work.
I do not aim to evaluate the modern story ofthe creation of cultural identity by the state. The mythological/ideological content
of these stories varies from state to state and from epoch to epoch.
Creating identity by reinforcing old cultural memories, by selecting among them, by creating new memories, or by fusing them,
aims at making certain distinctions and achieving a kind of completion, all of which frequently places emphasis on the exclusion

1034

SOCIAL RESEARCH

of other memories (although not necessarily and not always).

Political changes may reshape cultural memories, or may refashion them in the image of different narratives, which better suit
particular interests. But my question here is structural or functional and not evaluative. I do not want to discuss whether having
a cultural memory is a good or a bad thing. What I want to make
here is a more modest proposal. I want to show that in modern
timesthat is, since its very originationcivil society or biirgerliche
Gesellschaft as such has had no cultural memory. But in saying this,
I have already stated something more. Expressly, I have pointed to
the problematic character of the concept of civil society itself. If
civil society has no cultural memory, then it also has no identity.
When different people or scholars talk about civil society, they
talk about entirely different institutions or practices. It is not the
difference that is important here; civil society's heterogeneity is
not at stake. In the modern world there is difference and heterogeneity everywhere. But civil society as a concept is just a hodgepodge. It includes everything the state is not, or what the state, at
any given moment in time, is no longer or not yet. The market
belongs to civil society, as do all privately owned and governed
institutions (for example, education or health), as do trade
unions and all civil associations. It further includes single-issue
political movements that might function as pressure groups on a
government, as well as movements of organized or semiorganized
rebellion against tyrannical governments or states. In addition,
there are ethnic groups and groups of foreigners and the stateless
who can also put pressure on the state. The family belongs to civil
society, as do religions and religious institutions, and institutions
aimed at representing and conserving memory, such as museums,
whether they are private, state-owned, or metropolitan. Thus, civil
society cannot have a cultural memory, for within civil society particular institutions and activities are unable and unwilling to create cultural memory, given that they have no need for a cultural
identity. Still, other segments or institutions within civil society
can selectively take on the inherited debris of certain cultural

HAS CIVIL SOCIETY CULTURAL MEMORY? 1035

memories to create a cultural memory of their own. Civil society
thus consists of a mosaic of identities and nonidentities, of a mixture of groups that have formed cultural memory and other
groups that have not.
Let me briefly discuss the market and economic activity. Marx
once said that interest has no memory, for it is occupied only with
itself. Certainly interest needs a short-term memory, but not a
long-term one, and particularly not a cultural memory. The selfregulating market requires instead the destruction and abolishment of cultural memory. The frequently heard complaint that
the market destroys local traditions is correct: for the market's
proper functioning, the practices of cultural memory are just so
many hindrances. But even if one disregards the idea of the selfregulating market, one will still encounter other interest-regulated activities, all of them exclusively future oriented. By future
orientation I mean orientation toward the near future, the future
of the present. Interest is competitive, not cohesive; or if it is
cohesive, then only in a cooperative manner. Even when groups,
not individuals, compete with one another and share mutual
interest, such group affiliations are contingent and result dependentand mostly ephemeral. To use Max Weber's terminology,
they are purposively rational and not value rational. In activity
guided merely by interest, there is neither love nor hatred,
although there is indifference and cruelty. Interest has no aesthetics; it does not believe in repetition; it is anticeremonial.
Central places of economic activityfor example, stock marketsare certainly not places of memory. Stockbrokers do not
assemble every year in remembrance and mourning on Wall
Street for the anniversary of the great crash. Yet, as I already have
mentioned, it is not only economic activity that is primarily interest and competition oriented. There are also spectacles of such
kind, such as sports events. And not only interest-oriented activities lack cultural memory today: so do most political movements
and collective acts of public concern, if they are engendered by
civil society and if they stay within the sphere of civil society before

1036

SOCIAL RESEARCH

falling apart. This happens with single-issue social and political

movements. As long as such movements keep their issue on the
agenda, they put pressure on the state by mobilizing and infiuencing public opinion, which they may do with demonstrations,
the distribution of leaflets, and the spreading of propaganda in
institutionsfirst and foremost in universities. This is often called
"consciousness raising." Among the hardcore members of such
movements are shared symbols, signals, and signs of "belonging":
they wear their identity on their sleeves in the literal sense of the
words. Despite shared cultural marks, such movements are future
oriented. This is true even if their slogans are conservative or
romantic.
What is more important, however, is that single-issue movements do not establish a cultural tradition of their own for future
generations. They come and go; they can achieve their aim and
fall apart just because of theireven if hmitedsuccess (such as
abolitionism), or their aim can become entirely irrelevant, and
accordingly disintegrate (like the peace movements). They may
leave some traces on civil society, but these will not be memory
traces but pragmatic traces, like changes in customs, behavior,
and the like. Such movements normally get strong media coverage, but when they lose momentum, the media lose interest in
them. The most complex movement of the last decades, that of
1968, changed the lives of people in many respects; still, it did not
establish cultural memory because it did not create identity, and
vice-versa. The only memory it left behind was nostalgia.
Broader political movements in civil society, especially revolts
against a repressive state, can initiate a forceful cultural memory
as long as the repression lasts. Since the repressive state will give
the event (be it revolution, rebellion, or acts of civic disobedience) an abusive interpretation, the cultural memory of victims
or dissenters will be an alternative memory, a countermemory.
Since their celebration will remain clandestine, they will not erect
monuments. Secrecy can in fact reinforce cultural memory, at
least for a while. For example, the Marrano situation in Inquisi-

HAS CIVIL SOCIETY CULTURAL MEMORY?

1037

tion-era Spain might have ended in two ways. Either the Marranos
could have begun to forget their culture, and so ceased to be Marranos, or their cause could have won the day. In the second case,
a new government would have to take over the care and cultivation a cultural memory created in rebellion. The countermemory
would then become an official memory. Therewith, the past
comes to be celebrated by the state, the issue eternalized, and the
memory ceases to be the memory of civil society. This happened
with the 1956 revolution in Hungary. October 23 is now an official holidayand people have generally ceased to remember why.
Countermemory also works in cases where acts of repression were
not preceded by a revolt; such is the case of the demonstrations
by grieving mothers in Buenos Aires.
The nineteenth-century trade union movement alone succeeded in establishing a lasting memorial day: a festival, taking
place every year, now known as the May Day parade. Yet the May
Day parade is not about remembrance, at least not anymore. It is
rather a day for merriment making and for showing the muscle of
the unions and socialist parties, while bringing attention to issues
that were put on the political agenda in the very year of each and
every march or demonstration.
Hegel pointed to the Absolute Spirit, manifestly, to art, religion, and philosophy as the carriers of cultural memory. Great
political deeds will not be forgotten insofar as they are immortalized in writing, artworks, and religion. I will sidestep one of
Hegel's points, namely that philosophy, whose medium is conceptual, does not establish cultural identity, but is the identity of
modernity itself. This is why it does not remember the past, but
exists wholly (as recollection) in the present. Hegel belonged to
those who believed that modernity is about the complete disenchantment of the world. What is nevertheless interesting is that
art began to play the role of the provider of cultural memory on
its own as early as the eighteenth century. Art, artistic creation,
and distribution are all located in civil society. Since the emergence of the nation-state and its increasing effort to create a cul-

1038

SOCIAL RESEARCH

tural memory of its own, the state enlisted the help of the socalled Kulturbourgeoisie. And correspondingly, the creation of a
new national cultural memory contributed to the emergence of
the nation-state itself.
The German case is the most representative. There was no common German state, yet the German Kulturbourgeoisie created an
influential myth about the spiritual brotherhood between ancient
Athenian and modern German culture, thereby extending German cultural memory to the remote past, encompassing Athenian
tragedy, sculpture, philosophy, and architecture. German cultural
memory was thus formed as anti-Roman and anti-French, even
while the French was formed as Roman. A cult of national poets,
composers, and painters was invented in civil society, together
with the myth of the genius. The houses, graves, and belongings
of national geniuses became holy sites calling for a quasi-religious
pilgrimage, like Rousseau's Hermitage, Goethe's house in
Weimar, or Chopin's piano. During the German occupation, the
Dutch tried to institutionalize a Rembrandt memorial day Nowadays this kind of cult has assumed a cosmopolitan character, with
the places of remembrance having become tourist attractions.
The forces of civil society have also initiated widespread identity politics, whether of race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. In one respect these identity movements resemble
single-issue movements insofar as they put pressure on the state,
the legislature, and legal institutions to rectify grievances, and
they may introduce to politics issues of justice or programs of
reform long overdue. But since these are not issue but identity
movementswhich is to say that their issues concern their identitysuch movements must establish or reestablish cultural memory for themselves. Without shared cultural memory there is no
identity. Even families have a cultural memory, objectified in old
letters, photographs, and family lore. Among all the groups in
need of cultural memory, ethnic groups have had the easiest task,
for they have never entirely lost their cultural memory, which
sometimes includes a native language, even if it has not been

HAS CIVIL SOCIETY CULTURAL MEMORY?

1039

recently used. Many things that have been forgotten can be

brought to light, fused with new myths and stories of repression
and suffering, or combined with heterogeneous cultural memorabilia such as music, crafts, and religious lore. Dissimulation
implies the restoration and the creation of cultural memory.
Despite biological differences, or perhaps because of them, the
attempts to create a forceful cultural memory for women in feminist philosophies and writings were less successful. Here one
again faces a clear case of countermemory, with the concomitant
need to establish continuity for alternative memory. And it is an
attempt that leads to a great amount of mythologizing. As was
already noted, the push and pull of assimilation and dissimulation, the repeated pendulum movement between universality and
difference, or, to use Foucault's expression, the revolving door of
reason, are all connected with culturally different, at times even
colliding and hostile, cultural memories, yet also with a mosaic of
activities and group formations in no need of cultural memories.
One must also consider that science has become the dominant
method of explanation of our times and that science is an activity
void of cultural memory. Religions and artistic practices (but
mainly the first) now play a role similar to that played by science
before the Enlightenment, namely the role of the critic.
Civil society can function without cultural memory; it can operate smoothly through the clashes of interest and cooperation, to
limited and future-oriented activities, and to its own short-term
memories, without archive and without Utopia but guided simply
by utilitarian considerations. Still, it seems that the need for cultural memory is still very strong and that the Weberian slogan
about the disenchantment of the world could be one of many
failed predictions. The old conceptual differentiation between
community and society comes to mind. It seems as if pure society
could not deliver the goods that are still kept in store by communities. When confronted with the upsurge of myths offering a
kind of feeling of belonging, and concurrently with the soullessness of utilitarian machines, one loses the old confidence of

1040

SOCIAL RESEARCH

knowing what is kept in store for the next generation. One may
hope not to have to choose between hostile and mythologized cultural memories and soulless utilitarian machines. But those who,
like myself, are committed to the maintenance of open-ended cultural memories, know that one cannot remember ahead.
Notes
^The question of cottective memory was raised by Hatbwachs (1980);
thie question concerning cutturat memory has recently become of central interest in the wake of the works of Nora (1985), Yerushalmi (1982),
and Assmann (1997). In this paper I apply their conceptuat toots.
References
Assmann, Jan. Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monothe-

ism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997.

Hatbwachs, Maurie. The Collective Memory {Memorie Collective). New York:

Harper and Row, 1980.

Nora, Pierre. Constructing the Past: Essays in Historical Methodology. Cam-

bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

Yerushatmi, Yosef Hayim. Zakhor, Jewish History andfewish Memory. Seat-

tle: University of Washington Press, 1982.