Who controls the past, who Controlling the future?

"Whoever controls the past controls the future; those who control thepresent control the past." The totalitarian state in "1984"controls the thoughts of its citizens by rewriting history. Thisconspiracy exaggerates the role of history in shaping politicalidentity. Throughout the ages, stories of various political forcesfighting for the right to speak historically have happened. Monuments,memoirs, and textbooks can record specific historical narratives and pass themon to future generations, thereby affecting their judgments on historical figuresand events. However, with the change of time, those carefully constructedthings may be forgotten, and those forgotten by their predecessors may bereborn. This issue of Foreign Magazine reviews the history of nearly 2000years. Let's think together: Can those who try to control the past reallycontrol the future?

1.

Departure place of ancient Roman art "delisting and destroyingmemories" : Lauren Huckworth Peterson, "The existence of"cursed memories "in Romania," Source: Art History Note 30, Issue 2(2011): 1-8.

According to Roman writer Sutonius, after the assassination of Emperor Domitian(81-96), the patriarchs were very happy and hurriedly gathered in the Senate,"where they unbridled with the dirtiest and fiercest curse Attacked thelate emperor. They even took a ladder and watched him tear off shields andportraits on the spot and smash them. Finally, the Senate passed a resolutionrequiring that his inscriptions everywhere be removed and removed."Remembrance of Zhang." Refer to Zhang, et al. Translated"1984", Commercial Press, 2009 Edition-Editor's Note] This kind ofelder reaction was not uncommon in ancient Rome. In addition to Domitian,many people who have been declared public enemies are subject to the samepunishment, and they have destroyed various text and image records about theperson as if the person had never existed. This punishment was called"erasing memory" by future generations. The Romans attachedgreat importance to shaping memories. They believe that a person's placein collective memory can be erased by the order of "removing names anddestroying memory", which indicates that they are constantly writing(rewriting) their own history. However, not all efforts to rewrite historyhave been equally successful. The original purpose of "removing namesand destroying memories" was to eliminate people's memories of theconvicted person and prevent him from leaving his name. However, thispunishment often has the opposite effect, which is to make people notice that someonehas been erased here. This is still a question worthy of discussion, why"removing names and destroying memories" cannot really achieve itssuperficial goals and erase punishment from collective memories. As we sawin Domitian's case, "delisting and recall" means deliberatedestruction of a person's physical traces, so that people can no longer recallthe enemies of the country through images or words. The portrait may bedestroyed or completely changed, making it impossible to recognize the originalcharacter. For example, in the relief shown below, Caracalla is the onlyperson to perform the ceremony, because the characters on the left (his wifeand father-in-law) were erased under his command. The disappearance ofsome characters led to an imbalance in the overall composition, making theerased parts attract the attention of the audience. Therefore, in a sense,the white space and people in the image also exist.

Relief depicting Caracara's sacrifice, Rome, Argentine Argentina, 204AD. In Derrida's words, erasing the mark of an image instead turns into amark. After erasing the traces of a certain person, only a blank space isleft on the portrait or statue, but this blank space is also meaningful, whichindicates that the character originally located here was dealt with by"removing the name and destroying memory". Ironically, thesewere originally used to erase the gaps in memory, but they caused people toremember the characters in them. This article also wants to elaboratefurther on this point: the system of deleting names and destroying memoriesallows Romans to (re) paint a history where they can live in harmony. Thehistory of reconstruction is not the past directly related to them, but thepast that they need to work hard to reconstruct. Freud compared severalhuman writing instruments to memory. Writing on paper leaves a permanent"trace of memory." Only by throwing away the paper will thememory disappear. Writing on the blackboard with chalk is similar toanother method of preserving memory: the writing on the blackboard can beerased at will, and new things can be written with chalk after erasing; theblackboard keeps receiving during the process of wiping and writing New contentcapabilities. Erasing the words on the blackboard leaves no trace, but "Erase"leaves traces of image modification and erasure. Therefore, rather than ablackboard, what Freud calls a "magic tablet" is more like"removing names and destroying memories." "Magictablet" is a children's toy with transparent sheets on the top and dark resinor wax plates on the bottom. The transparent sheet is divided into twolayers, the upper layer is celluloid board, and the lower layer is wax paper,which can be pasted on the lower board. Writing on a celluloid board witha pen will leave marks on the dark board below and show thehandwriting. When you lift the top sheet, the handwriting disappears, butthere are still dents on the resin or wax board below. Freud uses the"magic tablet" to describe human consciousness because it can beerased and leaves some permanent marks on the subconscious and unconsciouslevels. This is similar to the effect of "removing names anddestroying memories" on ancient Roman stone carvings: people can erase theimages on the stones and make the characters disappear, but just like the lowerlayer of the "magic monument" will leave a dent, the stone The imageon it will also leave dents.

Although "Magic Stone" was punished for "removing his name anddestroying his memory", he still has some statues in the world, many of whichhave not been intentionally destroyed. They may have been stored for laterreuse and carved into other people's figures, which was common at thetime. For example, in the picture below, Domitian's image has become hissuccessor Nerva.

From 93 to 95 AD, the image of Domitian / Nerva (fourth from left) on therelief of the Vatican Institute of Culture was hidden in the Vatican Museum

. The details of the Domitian / Nerva image show traces ofmodification. The Romans (more precisely, members of the Roman Senate)tried to rewrite their recorded history by destroying portraits or removingthem from public view. They want to drive those condemned out ofcollective memory. The molten and broken statues are indeed nowhere to befound, but the transformed statues may leave traces evoking memories. Itcan be said that the Roman patriarch did not achieve the purpose of erasingpart of history. Many of the people who were punished by "removingfrom the list and destroying memories", as well as the traces of their portraits,have been left on the stone, leaving them in Roman history. The blank anddamaged marks left on the stone echo the hard-to-remove marks in people'smemory. "Delete names and destroy memories" was originallyintended to erase a person from collective memory. As a result, peopleremember this deliberate forgetting behavior and even evoked memories of thosewho should be forgotten. This is really a paradox.

2. How did King Frederick shape his historical image?

Picked from Andreas Peel and Regal Bruch Als Marken Cai Zhen. FriedrichsBettungder Einzigartigkeit, in: representation Und selbstinzenierung FriedrichsDesgroen (2012).

https: // www. perspectivia. net / publicationen / Friedrich 300-collection en/ Friedrich _ repraesentation / pecar _ regelbruch

"Unique Frederick"-some contemporary of King Frederick praised him soenthusiastically, and some historical writings describe him as a near-perfectgenius. Today, although the sound has not completely disappeared, it isobviously much smaller. What this article wants to say is that