FORGETFULNESS AS A PREREQUISITE OF A BETTER WORLD

“…How little the world would look moral without forgetfulness!” (Nietzsche: Menschliches 92).

How is forgetfulness, discussed in this entry, related to the dream of a better world to come? Looking at the substance of modern international conflicts, particularly, the most hopeless ones, we see their primary cause in bitter memories of past offenses. Examples are so numerous and so overwhelming that one is hardpressed to single out one that would be more bitter than the rest. (Any "singling out" is always subjective, and shows a distinct bias toward other such conflicts around the world.) Actually, we can safely say that all international conflicts in existence today are the results of bad memories.

With this in mind, my promotion of the "larger than life, ergo sterile" superpower rivalry between the United States and Russia, which was openly acknowledged during the cold war era, but today, although very much alive, has been unwisely driven into the shadows, makes plenty of sense. This structural rivalry is not based on bad memories, and is, therefore, non-lethal. With the world deprived of such “good rivalry,” the vacuum has been filled with old deadly scores. It seems like the old coldwar superpower rivalry had put a damper on the deadly conflicts, but now that lid is off, and here is a world in a much worse shape than it had ever been since the end of World War II.

A myriad practical questions are rising in this regard and some of them will certainly become the subjects of separate entries in this section. Perhaps, the most important of them is whether the future of Russo-American relations has been permanently damaged by the misguided American policies and actions in the post-Soviet era? I hope not. It takes a true nobleness of character, some would call it national-chauvinism, to rise above the insults and unpleasantnesses of the past, and I am quite sure that the Russians are good national-chauvinists, in this sense. Haven’t they, in recent memory, risen above the tragedy of the German aggression in WWII or above some lingering unpleasantness, including a series of nasty military skirmishes with China, to befriend both these nations in unprecedented rapprochements of our time?

Generally speaking, whether we like it or not, in the absence of a decent distraction (like the old superpower rivalry used to be), the only solution for our sad world’s mounting problems must be a self-induced amnesia, or, better worded, a new moral spirit displaying a common will to forget.