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Individualism vs collectiveness
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The three authors Jorge Luis Borges, Scott Russell Sanders, and E.B White all have different stories yet somehow they tie together. Borges’ “The Keeper of the Books”, Sanders’ “The Men We Carry in Our Minds” and White’s “Once More to the Lake” all touch upon perception throughout their stories. Their perceptions thoroughly shape their stories, but their memories also influence and shadow their perception as well. Throughout this essay I hope to prove how memories influence and tie together with our perception of our individuality.
There are two different types of memory; individual and collective. Individual memory is defined in the article “Individual and Collective Memory” written by Sara Hanneman and Brianna Brandon, as “a personal interpretation of an event from one’s life” (Hanneman, Brown). Collective memory, however, as defined by dictionary.com, is “a memory or memories shared or recollected by a group, as a community, or culture” (dictionary.com) To compare these two we can consider September 11, 2001. September 11 was a tragedy that shook not only the United States, but the entire world. In one way or another, almost every person in the United States at the time was effected by it. Whether they had a direct connection or not wasn’t relevant; it changed conditions. Even if someone was born after 2001, they are still affected because of the changes the government put in place and are involved in to this day because of this catastrophe. The way one remembers this tragedy is going to differ with everyone. Not one person is going to feel the same way about it as anyone else. The way our individual and personal memory handles this situation is going to influence our collective memory on the situation and may also influen...
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...ve Memory." Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com, n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2013. .
Hanneman, Sara, and Brianna Brandon. "Individual vs. Collective Memory." - Aftermaths. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2013. .
Sen. "Understanding Your Individuality." Calm Down Mind RSS. N.p., 21 July 2012. Web. 14 Dec. 2013.
Sundem, Garth. "How You Remember, How You Decide: Memory Part I." Psychology Today. Sussex Directories, Inc., 05 Oct. 2010. Web. 11 Dec. 2013.
Thomas, Ben. "What’s Individuality, and Where Does It Come From? | MIND Guest Blog, Scientific American Blog Network." What’s Individuality, and Where Does It Come From? | MIND Guest Blog, Scientific American Blog Network. Scientific American, 22 May 2013. Web. 15 Dec. 2013.
What do events like the assassination of John F. Kennedy, The Challenger space shuttle disaster, and hurricane Andrew that shook Miami have in common? All these events can be remembered by the people who experienced it due to flashbulb memory. Flashbulb memories were defined by R. Brown and J. Kulik (1977) as vivid, detailed, and long-lasting memories for attributes of the reception context of public news (Curci, A., & Lanciano, T., 2009). The people who experience such huge events are certain that their flashbulb memories are very accurate and can give in detail what occurred to them in those events (Schwartz, 2013). Furthermore events that generate flashbulb memories are usually very surprising and emotionally arousing and are perceived by the subject as personally consequential (Emotion & Memory 1993). But not all memories need to be negative and tragic. Events like the first day of first grade, your first romantic kiss, your first day at a new job, or recital of your wedding vows can also be described as flashbulb memories (Schwartz, 2013).
Although the book has many stories to tell, all with something in common but yet with a different feature, the point of the book was to not only educate the world about these situations but to also give us real scenarios that we all can relate to in some sort of fashion. This book is about the human mind and the abstractness of our visions and memories. Everything affects us physically and mentally. We all share a common feature; we are all simply human with simple human minds.
...These specifics recalled consist of things which, under normal conditions, we probably would not have ever remembered. The number of detailed facts retained about a particular situation is usually commensurate to the intensity of involvement or proximity to the action in question; therefore, it can be reasonably concluded that while these memories are not always perfectly engrained into our minds, interesting arguments exist which support the possibility of substantial and long-term recall of these matters.
Today, we live on earth holding approximately seven million people. Taking a closer look at the number of people we begin to take notice that not one person is identical to the other. What is it that makes us, as individuals, different from the rest of society? “We come into this little world with our own little nature, our own pattern of behavior, and our own natural reaction to people” (Littauer and Sweet 18). Not only do our features on the outside tell us apart from one another but our personalities also set us aside from others. Personality defends us as our own person. Personality is an individual’s process of thinking, feeling, and taking action toward something. Research helps to define the discovering, structuring, and the understanding
That being said people remember certain aspects that happened, but they miss certain details. Tali Sharot and her colleagues (2007) reported that the amygdala is significant in encoding and retrieving memory that triggers emotions during a traumatic event. It is reported that New Yorker who was near the World Trade Center were likely to have a vivid and accurate memory than someone in a different location. People have better recall mechanism when there is something that triggers their emotions in a big way compared to something that you did last summer. The study used word cues such as “summer” and “September” to stimulate one’s memory, so it was recalled accurately (Sharot et al., 2007). If someone was near the World Trade Center during the attack, so there is a high possibility that that the person would have an accurate memory when someone says the word September because they were emotional involved. Honestly, not that many people remember what they did that summer compared to the September 11
Collective memory is commonly defined as “shared individual memories” but in the source Collective Memory from a Psychological Perspective, it is better defined as “publicly available symbols maintained by society” (Coman et al.). The article went on to explain how collective memory differs from an individual memory in the sense that “an individual restructures the world” so that one can better remember, whereas in collective memory, the memory is restructured by society. In this case, the photograph from atop Mount Suribachi is most definitely a symbol that has been passed on from person to person, family to family, newspaper to newspaper since the day it was taken. It was printed in papers all over country, used as a means of gathering funds
Remembrance is an integral part of our everyday lives. Both pleasant and unpleasant memories shape who we are as human beings. The definition of memory is two fold 1. “the faculty by which the mind stores and remembers information” and 2. “Something remembered from the past; a recollection” (Google Definition). The life of memory has three stages in which it is created. An event occurs in ones life it becomes encoded and stored in the brain. Following the encoding, the brain then has full access to retrieve the memory in a response to any current activity or thought. Memories are unique to each person. There are three main types of memories that are studied. An individual memory is one that is formed by his or her personal experiences. An institutional
Collective memory is the remembered history of a community; the way groups form memories out of a shared past to create a common identity. Collective memory is the structures that underlie all myths and histories without any distinction between them. The past that is fixed and internalized is myth, whether it is fact or fiction (Assmann 2011: 59). Therefore the memory of a group is a construction, or reconstruction, of the past. Collective memory can be expressed through a variety of different medias, e.g. festivals, rituals, symbols, memorial places, museums, as well as oral and written narratives, like myths, prophecies, law material, biographies and perceived historical accounts (Lewis 1975: 13). Each memory is specifically designed to recall events in the history of the collective. The past remembered is not necessarily a historically accurate past, but it is based on stories recognized to be the past as it has been remembe...
Many philosophers and psychologist from Jean Piaget to William James have theorized what makes a person who they are, their identity. Jean Piaget believed that the identity is formed in the sensorimotor stage and the preoperational stage. This means that a child is forming his identity as late to the age of seven (Schellenberg, 29) However, identity is strongly impacted by society such as school, church, government,and other institutions. Through our interactions with different situations our personality develops (Schellenberg 34). "In most situations there is a more diversified opportunity for the development of social identities, reflecting what the individual wants to put forth to define the self as well as what others want to accept,"(Schellenberg 35). Therefore, humans, much like animals, adapt to different situations based on who they are with. Individuals are always changi...
Most people are very convinced that they have memories of past experiences because of the event itself or the bigger picture of the experience. According to Ulric Neisser, memories focus on the fact that the events outlined at one level of analysis may be components of other, larger events (Rubin 1). For instance, one will only remember receiving the letter of admission as their memory of being accepted into the University of Virginia. However, people do not realize that it is actually the small details that make up their memories. What make up the memory of being accepted into the University of Virginia are the hours spent on writing essays, the anxiety faced due to fear of not making into the university and the happiness upon hearing your admission into the school; these small details are very important in creating memories of this experience. If people’s minds are preset on merely thinking that memories are the general idea of their experiences, memories become very superficial and people will miss out on what matters most in life. Therefore, in “The Amityville Horror”, Jay Anson deliberately includes small details that are unnecessary in the story to prove that only memory can give meaning to life.
What associations arise in our head when we talk about memory? First of all, this is the memory of generations, historical and cultural memory. These concepts correlate with the development of society, with the greatest values and events within the whole world, the state or some individual nations.
Thus, story and memory remove humans from the horrible brevity of mortal life by bringing existence into a realm outside of time. Humans die, but through story their fellow humans can make them immortal. Even amidst life’s tragedies, stories allow us to transform what seems an unbearable reality into something deeply beautiful. And yet their power is not merely retrospective since stories impose moral responsibility on our every action. Forgetting, therefore, is among the worst evils; not only because of the “moral perversity” it permits, but also because of the meaning it denies.
The first issue that needs to be addressed however is what exactly is memory? “ Without memory we would be servants of the moment, with nothing but our innate reflexes to help us deal with the world. There would be no language, no art, no science, no culture. Civilization itself is the distillation of human memory” (Blakemore 1988). The simple interpretation of Blakemore’s theory on what memory is that a person’s memory is at least one of the most important things in their life and without it civilization itself could not exist.
Memory is the tool we use to learn and think. We all use memory in our everyday lives. Memory is the mental faculty of retaining and recalling past experiences. We all reassure ourselves that our memories are accurate and precise. Many people believe that they would be able to remember anything from the event and the different features of the situation. Yet, people don’t realize the fact that the more you think about a situation the more likely the story will change. Our memories are not a camcorder or a camera. Our memory tends to be very selective and reconstructive.
Memory and the Quest for Family History in One Hundred Years of Solitude and Song of Solomon