Kolektif Belleğe Dair: “Madem İyisin…”
Gizem Ekin ÇelikBu çalışmanın amacı kolektif belleğe dair yeni bir kuramsal bakış açısını ortaya koymaktır. Makale, kolektif bellek ile Marksizm arasındaki o “son bakışta” kurulan boşluğun kapanmasına dair bir düşünme egzersizinin; daha uzun soluklu bir çalışmanın ilk adımlarından biri olarak formüle edilmiştir. Kolektif bellek hep bir soyut anlatılar, temsil ve anma törenlerinin aritmetik bir toplamı olarak düşünülmüştür. Alanın kuruluşuna ve gidişatına bakıldığında bu bilginin artık revize edilmesi gereklidir. Böylesine tartışmalı bir konu Marksizm’in aynı oranda tartışmalı bir kavram çiftiyle birlikte düşünüldüğünde; kolektif belleği somutlaştıracak, onu sınıf mücadelesinin bir parçası haline nasıl getireceğimize dair yeni bir düşünce hattın örebilir miyiz sorusu makalenin temel kurucu gücüdür. Bu argümanı zaman ve mekân kırılmasının en kristalize haliyle izlenebileceği postmodernizmi -bir soyutlama düzeyi olarak- merkeze alan bir hatla açıklamaya çalışan bu makale; modernizmin “tasfiyesinin” salt bir zaman ve mekân kırılması değil; aynı zamanda onun hümanist ve ütopyacı yönlerinin de budanmasıyla kaybedilen politik ve toplumsal fırsatlar üzerine düşünmeyi amaçlamaktadır. Kolektif belleği, tanıklık etmek ve müdahale etmek arasındaki makasın sürekli açıldığı bir tasvirler dizini olarak değil; literatürün en başından beri vurgulanan “kolektif” köklerine geri döndürmeyi amaçlayan bir teorik hat, temel bir metodoloji eleştirisi ve güçlü bir politik- teorik repertuvar nasıl kurabilir? Çalışmanın özü, bu sorunun cevaplarını tartışmak ve tarihsel maddeci bir bellek perspektifinin imkanları ve nüveleri üzerinde düşünebilmektir.
On Collective Memory: “The Interrogation of the Good”
Gizem Ekin ÇelikThe aim of this study is to imagine a new theoretical perspective on collective memory. The article is described as a thinking exercise on closing the gap established at that “last glance” between collective memory and Marxism; as one of the first steps of a longer-term study. Collective memory has always been thought of as a simple collection of abstract narratives, representations and commemorations. When we look at the establishment and course of the field, this information needs to be revised. When such a controversial issue is considered together with an equally controversial pair of concepts from Marxism; the question of whether we can weave a new line of thought on how to make collective memory concrete and make it a part of the class struggle is the fundamental founding force of the article. This article, which tries to explain this argument with a line centred on postmodernism, where the time and space rupture can be observed in its most crystallised form, aims to think about the political and social opportunities lost by not only the time and space rupture of the “dissolution” of modernism, but also by pruning its humanist and utopian aspects. How can a theoretical line, a fundamental methodological critique and a strong political-theoretical repertoire be established that aims to return collective memory to its “collective” roots, which have been emphasised since the very beginning of the literature, rather than as a series of descriptions where the gap between witnessing and intervening is constantly widening? The essence of the study is to discuss the answers to this question and to think together about the possibilities and cores of a historical materialist memory perspective.
In this study, the literature on collective memory will be considered together with the concepts of “class in itself” and “class for itself”, two important concepts of Marxist terminology. This effort seeks ways to comprehend collective memory from a historical materialist perspective rather than an effortless equation or a forced line of similarity. The effort to rethink collective memory together with these two concepts is also an attempt to prepare a ground for seeing the wholeness; however, it is an attempt to think of this not alone but as a concept that transforms/transforms together with the “collective” to which it is inherent. I call the cultural line that uniqueness collective memory as its own reason for existence and perceives it as free from its historical and social ties as “memory in itself”. While I problematise what the theoretical and political connection is that will transform it into being “for itself”, just like the discussions on the original ground of the concept, I claim that the historical materialist theory of memory is the theoretical and political ground of this main connection. I argue that only the clarification of the lines of this powerful methodological objection will reconnect it to the human agency and the economic and political dynamics to which it belongs. This is the fundamental point that can make it part of the class struggle, that can unite it with the memories of social struggles, not just their testimonies.
For beginners, the literature on collective memory seems quite rich, profound and, so to speak, like a kaleidoscope. Collective memory is closely tied to all issues of the social and the subject through visible and invisible ties. The topic of collective memory has become an increasingly central theoretical concern across academic disciplines, from the humanities and social sciences to literature, aesthetics, cognitive and natural sciences. Why has collective memory become very popular? What dynamics of conceptual or theoretical trends can this “popularity” be read as a response or objection to? What “gap” in theory or practise has caused this situation? Is this gap a structural gap resulting from the dynamics or progress/ disruptions of historical progress, or should it be read as a kind of articulation and substitution ground created by new “identities” that specific political and social identities gain or lose in policy processes? The answer to this question can be found in observing the transitional process between modernism and postmodernism, which is the main ground of the rupture of time and space. The post-modernist perspective in particular can be described as the “eye of the storm” in this process with its fundamental interventions into history, subject and knowledge processes. For collective memory, the modernism-postmodernism transition is not just a time-space rupture; the main theoretical and political line that has left its mark on the era has changed; this is the main thing. Therefore, the popularity of the field of collective memory is not the cause of the changing basic axis in social sciences, but the result. The focus is to highlight the break with the methodology. In essence, the separation of theory and practise has determined the characteristics of critical thought and the systematic tendencies that have emerged from it, the intellectual orientation. This means shaking up the three main elements of Marxism: the notions of history, subject and knowledge. History as a collection of narratives; a lost, disengaged subject and a theory of knowledge that is separated from itself and from external objects. What needs to be done to break out of the inertia of collective memory studies that seems to have spread to all social science studies today? This is the question that stands before us, waiting to be answered. It is necessary to consider memory as a more complex, multiple and historical contradiction that is suitable for a historical materialist theorisation rather than as a collection of oversaturated ambiguous representations that grasp memory from a more cultural perspective. The main purpose of the study is to mark this point.
