memory, gratitude, story

Re: my recent post on the conservative disposition, I said there that the “two major elements” of that disposition “are an impulsive gratitude and a consequent desire to preserve that for which one is grateful.” But you can only be grateful for something you actually remember encountering. Thus the work of our current digital Ministry of Amnesia is corrosive of gratitude and therefore anti-conservative.

And gratitude is linked not only to memory but also to story. That is, the grateful person is impelled to narrate the causes and consequences of his gratitude. Gratitude and memory alike are impoverished and limited in their reach without this narration.

Thus an old man in Chinua Achebe’s final novel, Anthills of the Savannah:

To some of us the Owner of the World has apportioned the gift to tell their fellows that the time to get up has finally come. To others He gives the eagerness to rise when they hear the call; to rise with racing blood and put on their garbs of war and go to the boundary of their town to engage the invading enemy boldly in battle. And then there are those others whose part is to wait and when the struggle is ended, to take over and recount its story.

The sounding of the battle-drum is important; the fierce waging of the war itself is important; and the telling of the story afterwards — each is important in its own way. I tell you there is not one of them we could do without. But if you ask me which of them takes the eagle-feather I will say boldly: the story. Do you hear me? …

So why do I say the story is chief among his fellow? The same reason I think that our people sometimes will give the name Nkolika to their daughters — Recalling-is-Greatest. Why? Because it is only the story that can continue beyond the war and the warrior. It is the story that outlives the sound of war-drums and the exploits of brave fighters. It is the story, not the others, that saves our progeny from blundering like blind beggars into the spikes of the cactus-fence. The story is our escort; without it, we are blind. Does the blind man own his escort? No, neither do we the story; rather it is the story that owns us and directs us. It is the thing that makes us different from cattle; it is the mark on the face that sets one people apart from their neighbours.