TRAMES, 2010, 14(64/59), 4, 307–322

TIME AND MEMORY: A CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE

Elżbieta Hałas

University of Warsaw

Abstract. This article presents an outline of the problems of time, history and memory
seen from a cultural perspective. Aiming at a revalorization of the cultural dimension in
sociocultural phenomena, it particularly highlights the concept of cultural memory. In the
cultural perspective, memory is a temporal dimension of meaning. Memory consists in
communicative acts transmitting reflexive knowledge about the past from the perspective
of the future present. Of significance is the development of a new semantics of memory,
which is symbolized by the concept of trauma. Trauma as a cultural process is based on
symbolization; this process takes place between the event,which has been traumatogenic
for a community, and the establishment of its representation. The analysis of trauma as a
cultural phenomenon can be grounded in the outlined concept of cultural memory with
such essential dimensions as: communication, reflexivity of the knowledge about the past,
axionormativity, affectivity and, last but not least, orientation toward the future. Collective
trauma in particular shows the symbolic, emotional and moral dimensions of memory as a
cultural phenomenon, the temporality of which is not limited to the past in the present, but
also encompasses the future.

Keywords: cultural memory, history, temporality, time, trauma

DOI: 10.3176/tr.2010.4.02

1. A cultural approach – introductory remarks

Time, history and memory are crucial terms in the research of sociocultural
phenomena, constituted by meanings shaped through cultural knowledge. How-
ever, the humanities have never formed one comprehensive theory of culture. For
this reason, every attempt at clearly explicating them carries the risk of opening
some Pandora’s box, full of contradictory views or differing traditions of thought.
This is a situation in which investigators will find themselves also upon entering
the field of some discipline seemingly already developed. The presented rule
applies to sociology as well, in which a processual – thus embracing the dimension
308 Elżbieta Hałas

of time – approach to phenomena has not always been obvious (Elias 1987). First
and foremost, an explicit understanding of sociocultural phenomena – and of the
relations between culture and society – has never become established. This
impacts our understanding of time, memory and history.
The presented essay proposes a look at issues of time, history and memory
from a cultural perspective. It shows that social and cultural meanings of time,
history and memory are not identical. Attempting to revalorize the cultural
dimension in sociocultural phenomena, it especially brings into relief the concept
of cultural memory. Thus, it questions the assumption that human social life pro-
duces time conceived as a measure, because of the narrow focus and sociological
one-sidedness of this view. Instead, it embraces the idea of cultural autonomy of
time and temporality, neither of which can be confined within the social
boundaries of distinct groups. At the beginning, the issue of cultural time will be
sketched out, in order to subsequently present a deeper analysis of cultural
memory and of the particular phenomenon of the collective memory of trauma.
The universalization of the cultural meaning of trauma is showing itself to be a
global phenomenon today.

2. Time as a cultural dimension of meaning

At the outset, it is worthwhile to return to the reflections on the understanding

of time, as presented years ago by Fernand Braudel (1958) He claimed that the
historian cannot perceive the time of sociologists as his own; the deepest structure
of the historian’s craft defies this. For historians, time is a measure. Neither did he
see a possibility of building a bridge linking historical and sociological research.
Furthermore, Braudel claimed that time will never become a central problem in
sociology, although he pertinently observed that time with which sociology con-
cerns itself is something that exists inside social phenomena – it is one of their
dimensions, or characteristics – a sign that gives meaning to social phenomena.
This is a very important statement with regard the present attempt to show the
problematics of time, history and memory in a cultural perspective. However
surprising the standpoint of Braudel may seem as regards the centrality of the
question of time in sociology, it must be acknowledged that merely introducing
the term ‘social time’, or rather – as Georges Gurvitch (1963) proposed – the
multiplicity of social times, or even an already clearly demarcated current of
research in the form of sociology of time (Ryan 2005:838-839) do not suffice to
undermine the validity of Braudel’s skepticism. After all, it might be accepted that
sociology of time remains on the periphery of the discipline, although it presents
many valuable results of analyses of multiform social time, which is a correlate of
individual and collective actions. Rhythms, cycles, pace and other rules of socio-
temporal order do not mean that time moves into the focus of sociological
problems. Instead, the question of time has become shifted toward the center of
sociological problems by research on social memory. Matters change when
Time and memory: a cultural perspective 309

Braudel’s claim becomes confronted with the problem of time as it appears in

historical sociology, which depicts the sociotemporal conditions that underlie
events and processes (Tilly 2001:570).
In an attempt to conclusively undermine both theses, concerning time of history
and time of sociology, as well as the place of time in sociology, it is however best
to question Braudel’s notions on the grounds of history itself – the author’s native
discipline – where new ways of perceiving the object and methods of historical
research have appeared (Le Goff 1992:213). When we acknowledge that one of
the meanings of ‘history’ is a story – a narrative – and this meaning remains tied to
the primary meaning of ‘history’ as research (Ricoeur 2000:173), then time as a
‘when’ category of meaning in the narrative order of phenomena is no longer an
external measure, but rather a cultural dimension of the meaning of phenomena
investigated both by the historian and by the sociologist or other researchers of
culture and society. Thus we arrive at the question of qualitative time, which
makes it possible to break out of the narrow concept of social time in favor of a
broader, cultural perception of time – time linked with structures of meanings,
values and emotions, or affects, which are not limited to social phenomena. For
this reason it is important not to identify history solely with society. In other words
– one should rather link history with culture, recognizing the latter as a term
encompassing more than just social phenomena, which however do belong within
its scope (Znaniecki 1934), as shown by the notion of societal culture.
It is to Braudel’s credit that he noted the difference between time and history.
This is significant insofar that even in approaches which take into account the
complex dynamics of the influences of cultural meanings and social meanings
time and history are occasionally treated as equivalent (Bourdieu 1984:74–75).
Time, temporality and history – in regard both to phenomena of social life and to
culture – require a more precise definition as distinct terms. These categories also
do not yet exhaust the main issues which uncover the key significance of the
problem of time as a dimension of meaning in sociology, transforming this branch
of science into cultural sociology. Here belong, in particular, tradition and
memory; of these two, more attention will be paid here to the latter; from a
cultural perspective, after examining questions of time and history.
This direction of pursuits in sociology, within which the issue of time as such
explicitly appeared, has been interpreted most often as a variant of social
determinism in regard to the phenomena of culture, in other words – systems of
meanings, values and their symbolization, conditioned by social structures. I am
referring to sociologism as the research method proposed by Emile Durkheim. It
was this sociological school that gave rise to the well-known work of Maurice
Halbwachs, who conceptualized memory in social frames (Halbwachs 1969).
However, the matter is not as clear as it might seem, since it is possible to apply a
more cultural or semiotic interpretation to ways of thinking, feeling and acting –
the facts analyzed by Durkheim. The contemporary strong program of a cultural
sociology, researching the meanings of social life, is rooted in an interpretation of
Durkheim’s thought that proceeds in precisely such a direction (Alexander
310 Elżbieta Hałas

2003:8). With regard to the further course of reflections, gravitating towards the
cultural issues of collective memory and trauma, it is worth noting that for the
Durkheimian research on collective representations and imaginations, the religious
fact remained paradigmatic. This accentuates the constant relevance of symbols,
sacrum and emotions in culture.
The culturalist point of view, nowadays regaining visibility, has formerly been
proposed by certain researchers who pointed out the multiplicity of cultural
systems and recognized their relative autonomy in regard to social systems
(Archer 1996, Geertz 1973:66–73, Znaniecki 1952), although it is frequently
tempting to use a term that embraces ‘sociocultural phenomena’ as a whole (White
2008:369). In the light of culturalist notions, time is closely linked with the
constitution of cultural phenomena and its reduction to social time is impossible.
Here arise issues of, on the one hand, the actuality of the ‘here and now’ and the
long duration of cultural phenomena, and on the other, of their temporality and
history. When adopting a cultural perspective, one has to acknowledge social
phenomena – since they are significant – as belonging to the cultural reality.
Although the collective life of humans induces us to discern within this reality
social phenomena as such – based on interactions and relations, or networks – the
idea of the relative autonomy of cultural phenomena as compared to social
phenomena must be supported. It is thus necessary to draw a distinction between
cultural time and social time.
An example of a modern sociological theory, in the center of which we find the
problem of time, is Niklas Luhmann’s theory of social systems. Two elementary
categories here are communication and meaning – in other words, cultural
categories par excellence. Thus, at the outset it must be noted that both for Braudel
and for Luhmann time is linked with what may be called the semiotic mechanism
of culture (Łotman and Uspienski 1971). As Luhmann writes, ‘time’ is a symbol
which indicates that whenever something particular is happening, something else
is happening as well, so that no single operation can achieve complete control over
the conditions in which it is taking place (Luhmann 1995:41). Time is basically
given in changes, which may be reversible or irreversible. Of significance for the
cultural perspective is precisely the thesis that time – whatever it may be – does
not necessarily require irreversibility, which allows us to distinguish between time
and temporality. Temporality refers to experiencing and representing time with
metaphors which emphasize its irreversibility (Luhmann 1995:42).
Reversible time, analyzed by Claude Lévi-Strauss, is characteristic for structures,
whereas processes1 consist of irreversible events (Luhmann 1995:44–45). Socio-
cultural phenomena do not consist in an opposition between structures and pro-
cesses, since processes have their own specific structures (Strauss 1993:254),
whereas structures should be regarded as processes of structuration. Structure and

1
On temporality, events and social processes see the earlier views of Robert M. MacIver (Hałas
1995).
Time and memory: a cultural perspective 311

process assume each other, and the difference between them appears precisely in
the dimension of time (Luhmann 1995:45).
As Luhmann remarks, time in systems of meaning makes it possible to
interpret reality because of the difference between the past and the future (Luh-
mann 1995:77–78). The experience of the passage of time is associated with the
difference between two species of the present. The first one consists in signs that
something is irreversibly changing. These changes are symbolized as the inevit-
able occurring of time. On the other hand, the second present lingers and thereby
symbolizes reversibility, which can manifest itself in all systems of meaning
(Luhmann 1995:78–79). That which is irreversible and the prevention of irreversi-
bility are both represented as time. A double difference manifests itself here; first
between the past and the future, and second – between the reversible and irre-
versible occurring of the present (Luhmann 1995:78–79).
Bearing in mind the issue of cultural memory discussed further on, especially
the question of memory of trauma, it is worthwhile to recall Luhmann’s concept of
‘gaining time’. Gaining time may consist in – among others – the ability to turn
something which has become outdated back into a live issue by recalling the past
and anticipating the future. Here, Luhmann invokes the concept of prudentia,
which possesses a moral dimension (Luhmann 1995:46), in other words – a
cultural ideal of the right action at the right time.
Once again it is necessary to emphasize the convergence between Luhmann’s
notions and the cultural perspective adopted here. This convergence stems from
the basic assumption that time is a special dimension of meaning (Luhmann
1995:78–79). It is the dimension that gives meaning to experience and action
through defining ‘when’ and not ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’ and ‘how’. In other
words, time has its own semantics, which refers to the relations between the ‘past’,
‘present’ and ‘future’.
The temporal dimension of meaningful experiencing and action (Luhmann
1955:278–356) or the active experience of meaning (Znaniecki 1934:42) lies at the
root of cultural reality and the constitution of social systems within it. From the
hitherto presented reflections one may conclude that this is one of their symbolic
dimensions. A closely related concept is the semantics of temporality and temporal
orientations that underlie the reproduction of this semantics in society (Luhmann
1955:278–356). The present as actuality undergoes temporalization, in other
words – perception in terms of the difference between the future and the past, or
that which is changing. Thus, temporality is a variant of time understood as
tempus, which contains moments that consist in the difference between the future
and the past2.
Following Luhmann’s reasoning, we return to the question raised by Braudel –
in other words, to the difference between time and history. Time is a more basic
category and it is in the dimension of meaning which time represents that
2
On various cultural notions of time and the changes of temporal orientations, see Le Goff:50-64.
For related questions of chronometry, chronology, chronography and chronosophy, see Pomian
1984 (after: Ricoeur:193).
312 Elżbieta Hałas

temporality and history are constituted. History is not a simple sequence of events,
which result from past events and causally influence those that will take place in
the future. The focus is meaningful history – history endowed with significance.
When describing social systems that emerge according to the principle of reduc-
tion of complexity, which enables their construction, Luhmann states that history
is always a present past or a present future; it always involves distancing oneself
from the pure sequence and always consists in a reduction of the thus obtained
freedom of abrupt reference to everything past and everything future (Luhmann
1955:78–79).
Until now the issue of consciousness, which is linked to memory, has appeared
only indirectly, in connection with the discussed question of time as a dimension
of constructing the meaning of cultural and social reality. In accordance with the
viewpoint established in the beginning, when taking up the question of memory
we stay within the cultural dimension of communicated meanings, without ventur-
ing into the grounds of phenomenology with its analyses of the inner experience of
time and meaning, to say nothing of the grounds of psychology.
The human experience of time, temporality and history is not passive – it is an
active experience. As Anthony Giddens writes, humans do not simply live in time
and history. As reflexive creatures, they cognitively frame the passage of time and
make their history (Giddens 1986:237). Alluding to the well-known debate about
‘making history’ between Jean-Paul Sartre and Lévi-Strauss, he points out the lack
of obviousness both of ‘history’ and of that which the ‘making’ of history might
consist in. One must emphasize at least two issues associated with the above-
mentioned distinction between reversible time and irreversible time. The routines
of everyday life and a long duration of institutions are what characterizes
reversible time, a vehicle for which is tradition. This would be one of the senses of
‘making history’. In the other, stronger sense, the key issue is the agency of events
that create irreversible time. This process involves the impact of memory, which
cannot be defined merely as a record of the traces of past experiences, because
memory does not only consist in recalling the past. It is something more, because
it is linked with anticipation of the future in the present (Giddens 1986:46).

3. Reflexivity of cultural memory

Cultural reality is a historical reality shaped by human actions, the meanings

and intentions of which assume a temporal experience, in other words – an
experience of past, present and future time (Znaniecki 1919:30–32; Ingarden
1987:41–68). Cultural processes and cultural changes are closely linked with the
memory of individual and collective agents as active factors. Externalized with the
help of signs and symbols, meaningful experience possesses both a subjective and
an objective dimension. Similarly, temporality has its subjective and objective
side.
Time and memory: a cultural perspective 313

Psychology has given ‘memory’ a functional meaning, denoting the ability to

assimilate, preserve and recall sensations and information. Adopting the notion of
social memory, sociologists have undertaken studies on social contexts of
remembrance processes. The concept of memory must first be reendowed with a
cultural dimension. In fact, the theory of cultural memory remains insufficiently
elaborated. Recently, interest in cultural memory has been stimulated by Jan
Assmann’s publications. However, the concept proposed by that author has a
particular application and a limited significance (Assmann 1995:126), because he
treats cultural memory as an identity-forming characteristic of social groups. The
concept of cultural memory sketched out here differs from the proposal of
Assmann, who did not draw a clear distinction between cultural memory, cultural
heritage and cultural tradition. Actually, memory – as Max Scheler noted – makes
it possible to neutralize the coercive or captivating power of tradition (Scheler
1976), since memory consists in reflexive reference to tradition. Thus, memory
should not be considered the equivalent of tradition, as the former may consist in a
radical departure from the latter and still retain the character of cultural memory,
because memory is not associated exclusively with the past.
It is not my aim to reconstruct Assmann’s concept in detail, or to analyze it
critically. Hence I only pay attention to selected issues, highlighting the specificity
of the cultural approach proposed here. The direction of the presented reflections
has been determined primarily by the analytic distinction between culture and
society, as well as by assuming the supremacy of the former and consequently by
recognition of the autonomy of cultural phenomena in relation to social pheno-
mena in the strict sense, that is – phenomena related to the collective life of
humans. Instead, in Assmann’s concept the notion of culture is close to the stand-
point of those cultural anthropologists who use the differentiating concept of
culture being always the feature of a certain group, so the concept in fact refers to
cultures in plural. According to Assmann’s concept, cultural memory remains an
exclusive feature of a certain group – the part of shared knowledge that articulates
the group’s identity. In fact, Assmann speaks about “the inevitable egoism of
cultural memory” (Assmann 1995:130). In such an approach, cultural memory is
truly a sociocultural phenomenon and this concept prevents grasping the more
universal processes of cultural dynamics in the temporal dimension of culture.
Moreover, the proposal of separating cultural memory from communicative
memory – that is, separation of the long-lasting, objectified memory of past events
from commonsense memory on the level of everyday life – appears unsustainable.
After all, the former also consists in communication, although in organized and
institutionalized forms.
In the cultural perspective proposed here, memory is a temporal dimension of
communicated meaning. In other words, memory consists in communicative acts
transmitting reflexive knowledge about the past from the perspective of a future
present. Thus, a further important difference lies in the fact that this proposal no
longer regards memory as turned exclusively towards the past. In Assmann’s
concept, cultural memory – understood as knowledge about the past, objectified in
314 Elżbieta Hałas

various symbolic forms – is retrospective (Assmann 1995:129). However, memory

cannot be reduced only to sets of ideas about the past and to ways of
commemorating that past, because it is closely linked with action (Mead
1964:345–354), and thus with an orientation towards the future.
In an attempt to shed light upon the cultural dimension of memory, it is
worthwhile to consider religion as a cultural system constituted by memory 3 .
Biblical tradition transmits a primary, moral sense of memory, which might be
taken for a specific paradigm of axionormative models of cultural phenomena. In
such a cultural sense the key issue is not short-term or long-term memory, nor
merely the recollection of past events, but the memory that determines the
transmission of meanings which will be formative for the future. In other words,
the memory of the past prepares new events and makes it possible to actively
anticipate the future. Such a notion of memory as a cultural phenomenon becomes
a basis for social relations and ties connecting individuals or groups and
determines their future actions.
God’s memory about the human being and the human being’s memory about
God, depicted in biblical texts (Leon-Dufour 1970) is therefore a cognitive and
affirmative memory, as well as a normative and imperative memory, directed
towards the future. The focus is on ‘memory that [something]’ or ‘memory of
[something]’, as well as memory relating to the future, obliging to actions con-
sistent with principles derived from the past – ‘remember to [do something]’.
Thus, here we find the modeling features of culture which Clifford Geertz (1973)
analyzed as ‘models of’ and ‘models for’. The transcendence of relations and
memory in the religious symbolic universe illustrates the autonomy of axio-
normative models of culture. According to the concept proposed here, cultural
memory enables reflexivity.
It follows from the presented line of argumentation that the concept of cultural
memory is broader in terms of temporality than the concept of history, which only
refers to the past of cultures and societies. In this way, temporality creates a
different platform for the opposition of memory and history than the most frequent
distinction between history in the sense of rational knowledge – history as a
science that deals with the past – and memory as common knowledge about the
past – an opposition questioned in any case, as evidenced by the expression ‘living
history’4.
Here one must also consider the affective dimension of memory. Cultural
memory, an outline of which is being sketched out here as communicated,
reflexive knowledge, is associated with emotions relating to meanings and values
originating in the past (the present past) and significant for the future present. As
already shown, one must venture beyond researching the social circumstances of
memory as ideas about the past – including group identity requirements – towards

3
The presented proposal differs from Assmann’s claims also in this respect (Assmann 2006).
4
The expressions: ’living history’ and ‘living memory’ do not refer only to a representation of that
which is animate as opposed to that which is inanimate, but rather reach for the cultural sense of
the transmission of meanings through the ‘living’ – spoken word.
Time and memory: a cultural perspective 315

analysis of autonomous cultural memory as a formative factor for social

phenomena. This requires maintaining the analytically distinct categories of
culture and society.
Cultural memory also has its past and may be a subject of historical research.
The modern history of memory should take into consideration the appearance of a
new criterion for selecting facts worthy of remembrance and commemoration.
From heroic or triumphant memory the accent has shifted to martyrological
memory. Of significance here is the development of a new cultural semantics of
memory, which is symbolized by the concepts of trauma and genocide. Today,
cultural memory both in the local and in the global dimension is largely a
traumatized memory.
Transformations of memory in a global perspective (Hałas 2008) are associated
with the establishment of new international relations on a cultural basis. The future
of those relations depends on how each country deals with memories of past
events – even those that took place in a very distant past. An assessment is being
made of the entire modern age, from the time of great geographical discoveries
and the beginnings of colonial expansion to the consequences of World War II. As
regards the European context, the relevance of cultural memory stems from its
differentiation and the still-valid sociocultural division between the East and West.
European memory requires shared transmission of the meanings of past events, or
at least their articulation, especially in the case of traumatogenic events. The
analysis of trauma as a cultural phenomenon can be grounded in the outlined
concept of cultural memory and its essential dimensions, such as: communication,
reflexivity of the knowledge about the past, axionormativity, affectivity and, last
but not least, orientation toward the future.

4. The cultural memory of trauma

‘Trauma’ is a symbol that condenses the tragic experiences of the age that saw
two world wars. Their extreme manifestation is genocide. This relatively recent
term, introduced into international law by Rafał Lemkin, is crucial in the
semantics of contemporary, universal humanism. Trauma was initially understood
as a psychological phenomenon – it appeared in the works of the French
psychiatrists Pierre Janet and Jean-Martin Charcot, who had encountered the
problem of personality disorders among World War I veterans. Earlier, too, there
had been numerous autobiographic and literary descriptions of mass sufferings, for
example the recollections of Henri Dunant – the founder of the International Red
Cross, who described harrowing images of the aftermath of the Battle of Solferino.
However, the meaning of ‘trauma’ has become broader – once referring to the
psychical experiences of individuals, this term was extended to the collective
experience of traumatized communities (Erikson 1994), or – as in the concept of
cultural trauma – beyond the borders of directly affected participants (Alexander et
al. 2004).
316 Elżbieta Hałas

Both ‘trauma’ and ‘genocide’ are terms that encompass in meaning not only
cognitive and emotional content, but normative content – moral, legal and political
– as well. Their use often becomes an object of dispute and symbolic strife in
various contexts of relations between groups, nations and states. Governments,
international organizations such as the United Nations Organization, and other
newly formed institutions participate in political actions on a global scale –
politics of symbolization and politics of memory – which have developed around
these concepts. In these sociocultural processes the autonomy of cultural factors
manifests itself. Thus, the psychological perception of trauma is secondary and
depends on sociocultural processes. A cultural approach allows the understanding
of trauma as a process which is the result of an event defined as the disruption of
the group’s existence and the cultural meanings and values which are constitutive
for that group. The memory of a traumatic event articulated in traumatic dis-
courses simultaneously divides and connects – it is a memory both shared and
divided. Significantly, cultural memory of trauma involves both the perpetrators
and the victims, the witnesses and those who participate in it in various indirect
ways as a result of the transmission of the memory of trauma. In the cultural
understanding of trauma, a key question is its symbolic representation and
communicated meanings, which is associated with other constitutive dimensions
of cultural memory – axionormativity, affectivity and reflexivity.
In contrast to the concept of cultural trauma used by a team of researchers from
the Advanced Center for Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University (Alexander et
al. 2004), here I propose the term ‘cultural memory of trauma’ in order to avoid
ambiguity associated with such an interpretation, in the light of which the
experience of trauma would be something relative and only constructed. In this
respect I partially share the standpoint of those who criticize the concept of
cultural trauma (Joas 2005). However, the meaning of trauma is not limited only
to the primary experience, unmediated by meaning. In fact, the experience of
trauma often requires passage of time in order for the event to become defined as
traumatic. Thus, trauma understood as a cultural process is not restricted only to
the experience ‘here and now’, but consists in interaction and communication,
where a blow dealt to the community is defined, victims are identified, res-
ponsibility is ascribed and future consequences of the experiences ‘there and then’
are determined. A crucial component of this process is the way of presenting
trauma, its images, in other words – symbolization that influences the constitution
and changes of collective identity. This translates into constantly repeated retro-
spective and prospective remembering oriented towards the future – a spiral
process along the timeline. Jeffrey Alexander distinguishes several components of
trauma: the feeling of community members that they have experienced a terrible
event; indelible traces of the event left in the group’s consciousness; permanent
scarring of collective memory by that event; and finally, a fundamental and
irreversible change of the collective identity (Alexander 2004). The characteristic
of trauma presented above emphasizes group consensus and the continued uphold-
ing of the definition of the situation as traumatic. However, trauma as a cultural
Time and memory: a cultural perspective 317

process is not a state of group existence, nor can it be brought down to individual
experiences; neither is it limited to the experience of those who directly
participated in the traumatogenic event, but consists in the process of constructing
cultural memory. The understanding of trauma has frequently been dominated by
interpretations rooted in the psychoanalytic tradition. According to this approach,
defense mechanisms are a key issue and successful therapy requires bringing the
experience out into the open – its articulation. Although analogies between
psychoanalytically perceived individual trauma and collective trauma may be
useful, in a cultural analysis of trauma attention should be focused on reflexive
processes of communication, interaction and symbolization.
Reducing trauma to a state of group existence dominated by a past event
prevents its analysis as a cultural process which does not guarantee the
consolidation of collective identity. This is a process with a variable course over
time, and furthermore, its participants are not passively subjected to trauma; on the
contrary, they are active. They define trauma, deal with trauma, enter into disputes
about the meaning of trauma, or even defy it. Thus, trauma is not merely an
accepted memory, publicly affirmed by a significant group of participants, all of
whom recall events or situations which are burdened with negative affect; appear
indelible; are considered a threat to the existence of the group, or else are thought
to violate some fundamental cultural values of that group (Smelser 2004:44).
In this way one can, at most, describe the experience of trauma communicated
by a traumatized group, where such a message represents only an element of the
reflexive, cultural process of memory which constitutes trauma. In the cultural
perspective the key issue is showing trauma as a future-oriented process of
attempting to publicly define some historical event as trauma, to acknowledge it,
and thus to respond to it. The point is not that social catastrophes are not traumatic
in themselves for the people who have survived them, but the fact that their
recognition and acknowledgment as trauma are not an unavoidable consequence of
those events. It is the sociocultural context and the initiated process of construct-
ing cultural memory that decide whether the given events will be recognized and
acknowledged as trauma. This is the final result of processes of communicating,
defining and symbolically representing, thanks to which the experience can later
be remembered and acknowledged as culturally significant, because it has violated
the axionormative model of culture.
Also, despite the content of the basic memory-creating message of the
experience of collective trauma – in other words, despite the claim regarding its
lasting existence – trauma often becomes a thing of the past, although not
necessarily in an irreversible way. Cultural memory is historically variable and
shifting. An analysis of this sociocultural process requires taking into account both
the symbolic actions that construct the memory of trauma and the interactions of
social subjects which respond variously to the claims of memory.
Assuming that collective trauma is a concept referring to very diverse
traumatogenic events, one may – albeit with reserve – agree with the statement
that a given situation may be traumatogenic in one sociocultural context and non-
318 Elżbieta Hałas

traumatogenic in another (Smelser 2004:36) – at least in regard to the initiation of

the reflexive process of memory. Thus, the cultural process of collective trauma is
not restricted to the psychological dynamics of mechanisms of defense and
adaptation – ‘dealing’ with trauma or ‘working through’ trauma. A traumatogenic
event must be associated with a strong negative affect that accompanies defining a
tragedy, shame, a collective catastrophe, in order for it to have a traumatic impact
(Smelser 2004:40–41). The cultural understanding of trauma is in no way
undermined by the fact that trauma has an affective dimension. On the contrary –
emotions have a sociocultural explanation. The cultural vocabulary of emotions is
characteristic for communicative processes constituting trauma as a cultural
phenomenon. Affect-filled cultural representations – the affective symbolization of
trauma – are not restricted to individual, psychological experiences, since they
belong to axionormative models that endow experience with meaning.
Trauma as a cultural process is based on symbolization – this process takes
place between the event or situation which has been traumatogenic for a
community and the establishment of its collective representation. In this sense one
may speak of a cultural process of constructing collective trauma, which is
initiated by a message – the claim of the traumatized group that the symbolic
representation of its experience should be acknowledged. Hand in hand with the
narrative about the experience that violated the cultural models of existence goes a
request for memory and for amends: emotional, institutional or symbolic. Thus,
this is a process of symbolic interaction, by nature uncertain, contested, causing
the polarization of the communities and individuals that participate in it. During its
course, there is competition among various answers to the questions: what does
the harm consist in, who is the victim, what is the relationship between the
traumatized group and the wider audience and whether this audience will consent
to symbolically participate in that group’s experience of trauma. Finally, the
identity of perpetrators is determined and responsibility is ascribed to them.
The modern institutions of international law, trials for crimes against humanity
and crimes of genocide have fulfilled and still fulfill a special function in the
cultural process of trauma, objectivizing the symbols of moral universals and
creating axionormative models. Here, the representation of trauma comes under
strictly defined categories, on the basis of which judgment is passed, responsibility
is ascribed and punishment is meted out. However, these actions need not lead to
the perpetrators’ recognition of their own guilt, or to a solidary identification of
wider audiences with the victims of trauma. Administering justice to those res-
ponsible for atrocities through researching the past is problematic, which raises
doubts about the degree to which criminal law makes it possible to adequately deal
with collective trauma. Requirements of justice, of historical truth, moral upbring-
ing and commemoration create the need for various alternative ways of relating to
trauma (Cohen 2001:230–231). One cannot ignore the voices which point out that
new institutions are also needed, in order to create conditions promoting the
development of a culture of peace in the future (Christie 2003:346–347).
Time and memory: a cultural perspective 319

Thus, the memory of trauma is on the one hand a shared memory, when it
connects a traumatized community, and on the other hand a divided memory,
which means not only the divided memory of perpetrators and victims, but also the
differences, divisions and stratifications of the memory of trauma in a local and
global scale. Oblivion as a result of the disruption of the transmission of memory –
collective amnesia – neutralizes trauma. In another sense one may speak of
neutralization, which can be the result of growing routine in the cultural process of
symbolically representing trauma. Neutralization means above all a reduction or
removal of the strong affect. Acknowledging the claims of the traumatized
community or society and consensus as to the meaning of the traumatic experience
become objectivized symbolically in places of memory and in commemorative
rituals. This does not mean that in such a routinized form the memory of trauma
does not have deep normative implications and significance for the collective
identity, as a reference system for the interpretation of the present and future, as
well as relations between groups or between nations. Rituals of truth and
reconciliation, acknowledgment of the traumatogenic event, or of the situation and
of responsibility for causing it, in rituals of repentance and apology which
have become a new cultural form of defining identity in international relations –
all this emphasizes the significance of the issue of collective trauma in the modern
world.
One may speak about the neutralization of collective trauma in yet another
problematic and conflictogenic sense, when – as in the classic criminological con-
cept (Sykes and Matza 1979) – the perpetrator denies responsibility for his norm-
breaching deed or questions the classification of the results of that deed as a
violation of the preexisting order. In such a case, however, there still exists
consensus – at least an implicit one – as to the question that a deed belonging to a
certain category constitutes a breach of the norm. Perpetrators and their supporters
employ various means of neutralization in order to try to prevent the acknowledge-
ment of the claims of the traumatized community or society. Avoiding the label of
genocide is an extreme example of communicative situations in which such ‘states
of denial’ occur (Cohen).
Techniques of denial and neutralization used by individual perpetrators are
similar to those which appear in the discourse of the representatives of groups or
governments accused of violating human rights. Furthermore, their semantic
cultural resources resemble those that are utilized when calling people to actions
that involve committing atrocities. These are cultural vocabularies of motives, the
main purpose of which is to help avoid a depreciating categorization of actions.
Thus, the definition of wrongs is questioned, as is victimhood; those who condemn
are condemned; higher loyalties are invoked in an effort to justify acts, or
responsibility is denied entirely, or an attempt is made to prove a lack of
knowledge about the traumatogenic event, in other words – inability to understand
the significance of one’s own earlier actions (Cohen:76f). Official denial often
follows a clear course: from a strategy of literal denial (no such thing has
happened), through interpretative denial (something completely different
320 Elżbieta Hałas

happened), to implicative denial (the occurrence is justified). If the first strategy

fails, one switches to the others (Cohen:7–8).
The concepts of trauma and genocide, referring to extreme, tragic experiences
of collective existence – such as Nazism and communism – must be considered an
achievement in the process of civilization, because they have appeared as symbols
of opposition against that which may be called the inhuman coefficient of social
and cultural reality. They create the semantics of cultural memory in the cognitive
and affirmative sense (‘remembering that [something happened]’) and in the
normative and imperative sense (‘remembering to’). Thus, although they may be
subjected to semantic manipulation in the politics of memory, above all they
become tools for ongoing preventive action against the normalization of atrocities
in the future. The cultural process of trauma shows the temporality of collective
memory, which encompasses not only the past, but also the future.

5. Concluding remarks

This article presents an outline of the problems of time, history and memory
seen from a cultural perspective. Semiotically interpreting the concept of time
used by sociology, we acquire the ability to better analyze the connections
between the cultural and the social in sociocultural phenomena, as well as their
temporality. It has been shown that the issue of time has a central position among
sociological problems and is not restricted to the question of social time as a
correlate of social actions, since time is a cultural dimension of meaning. It is
necessary to relate social phenomena to a relatively autonomous cultural reality of
meanings and values – axionormative models. Cultural memory endows them with
reflexivity. Collective trauma in particular shows the symbolic, emotional and
moral dimensions of memory as a cultural phenomenon, the temporality of which
is not limited to the past in the present, but also encompasses the future variants of
the present.

Address:
Elżbieta Hałas
Institute of Sociology
University of Warsaw
Karowa 18
00-927 Warsaw
Poland
E-mail: [email protected]

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