Pranav Sreejayan Week 13: We remember !
Human memory is an odd thing. We assume it is a collective conscience and often say things like “wow omg we the people of (x country) sure do remember the actions of (y country) done to us a long time ago and we need revenge for it!”, but how real is this collective memory, how reliable is it and most importantly how is it used?
The most common thing we hear about collective memory is probably the Mandela effect. This is when something that a lot of people remember is actually wrong. Maybe it was misinformation, maybe it was misinterpretation, but this one cuts deep. For example, the effect derives its name from people thinking that Nelson Mandela died in the 1980s in prison despite him having lived till 2013. A more common one would be people remembering Darth Vader having said “Luke I am your father” despite our dear Sith Lord never having said that. Small misconceptions like this have no effect on life but then the question arises, how much could the Mandela affect the memory of a huge group of people, even a country.
China is a good example of this. The time period from 1849 to 1949 is remembered as a time of trouble, where China was defeated in the Opium war against Britain, completely dominated by Japan and wasn’t having a great time during the Cold War. As a result people there are generally disposed against Western countries due to the slights committed at the time. Even when a US bomb accidentally hit the Chinese embassy during the war in Yugoslavia, rather than coming to the conclusion that it was an accident, they instead reminisced of the time when they were dominated by Western power and refused to take the hit lying down. This shows how, even if it was a slight not committed to you personally or even to your generation, just patriotism and such can lead to a collective memory, and by extension, a collective feud.
This leads to varying, subjective accounts of everything to the level of cultures. For example Russians remember the most important events of Stalingrad as things that affected them, like the Battle of Stalingrad, while Americans thought it was events like Pearl Harbor. It also leads to differences in generations, where older Americans think the dropping of nuclear bombs was good (due to American lives saved) while younger Americans think it was bad due to loss of life.
All of this goes to show that everyone has a different memory of the same thing. The losers don't remember the war as the victors did. Objectivity isn’t a luxury afforded to history, but hopefully we can look past that and put aside past slights in favor of not killing each other in nuclear Armageddon. Just saying we remember doesn’t mean it happened the way we think it did.
Works cited
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-power-of-collective-memory/#:~:text=Collective%20memories%20may%20occur%20at,group%20to%20which%20we%20belong.
https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/entertainment/g28438966/mandela-effect-examples/
Hey Pranav, the concept of objectivity in history is really interesting. There is a saying my history teachers always talk about, that history is written by the winners. This, upon analysis of the events we learn in history classes, it really is true. For example, learning about the events of World War II, we almost learn of its events exclusively from the view of the Allies. We never go into detail on Italy, except for the fact they join the Allies in the latter of the war. We never learn about D-Day from the point of view of the defending Axis powers, only from the view of the invading Allies. We learn about all the deception tactics we used with inflatable tanks and fake transmissions, but we never learn about the Axis' attempts to reveal the true intentions of the invading Allies. Overall, the idea of objectivity in history really is true.
ReplyDeleteHey Pranav, the Mandela Effect is a very fascinating phenomenon where I sometimes still have trouble comprehending how a group of people can all share the same false memories like the good amount of people who thought the “Tunes” in “Looney Tunes” was “Toons” when it is actually “Tunes.” Beyond that, this can also be related to how it goes to show the importance of news outlets remaining objective in order to not spread misinformation and beginning a Mandela effect that could possibly be harmful like the instances you mentioned with countries remembering events differently than what had actually happened. It is a little scary to think about how much the Mandela Effect can affect society on a larger scale. Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeletePranav, what a thought provoking post to read. I have definitely read about the Mandela effect but never knew about its origins until now. I never knew that people actually thought Nelson Mandela was dead but come to think of it I did not know he lived until 2013; I always thought he died maybe in the early 2000’s but I guess the Mandela effect affected me as well. I definitely think as time progresses each generation's opinions on certain situations change throughout time. Gen-Z is much open and outspoken about anything and everything while the Boomer generation is much conservative and adhering to traditional values. Because each of these generations grew up in such different environments, it causes each generation to see national events in completely different views, such as the attacks on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The Mandela Effect has a huge impact on the later generations and hopefully the right version is remembered and not the wrong one.
ReplyDeleteHi Pranav, I have heard of the Mandela effect before, but I did not know about the story of Nelson Mandela that coined this term. I definitely thought Mandela had died sometime in the 20th century, and it was intriguing to find that he was on this earth until almost 10 years ago. This effect can be dangerous at times, where one bit of misinformation can convince a whole group of people to think a certain way and can have a major influence on the way people view a certain topic or act in certain situations.
ReplyDeleteHi Pranav! I found it extremely strange how a whole nation or any other large group of people can collectively remember something wrong as a whole. I wonder what causes mistakes in the collective memory and whether the rise of social media which widens the spread of false news plays any role in it. I was surprised to find out through your blog that some things I believed to be true were actually wrong. In the future, I will remember to fact-check things that I hear people say before falsely believing them. Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteHi Pranav! The Mandela Effect is such an interesting phenomenon, and its really interesting to think that so many people can have varying memories and opinions on the same subject or event. As you mentioned, it is essentially impossible to have objectivity in history, which is why information is so important. The fact that misinformation can change the way a whole group of people and even an entire nation thinks goes to show how it could potentially be very harmful. The fact that different generations have different collective memories are also due to the environments they were raised in, and World War II definitely had an impact on the mindset of Americans during this time compared to newer generations. But these mindsets actually continue throughout their lifetimes, as a certain shaping event can cause shifts or changes in ideas that completely shift our perspectives.
ReplyDeleteHi Pranav, I thought the topic of the Mandela effect was really interesting. How it mixes with history is one I have never seen before but I do remember the Star Wars one. I don't quite understand how a whole population of people can remember a phrase one way when in the movie, it has a completely different version. When I read about the history part of your blog, I was really amazed to see all the information you had researched and further understood Mandela's effect within history. In the end, I hope the Mandela effect is really just a phenomenon that is not done because of time travelers and what not.
ReplyDeleteHey Pranav! I remember taking so many quizzes online that would test the Mandela effect and I would always get them wrong, every time. One example that would always get me was whether Curious Georoge had a tail or not. Regardless, these varying subjective accounts that you describe created from such effects can be damaging to the social outlook of societies and it's up to us to make sure we get our facts straight. Thank you for sharing!
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