QuoteProject
We live in a society of an imposed forgetfulness, a society that depends on public amnesia.
Angela Davis
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote highlights how society often tends to forget important issues and events, relying on a collective amnesia to function.

Angela Davis's quote emphasizes the troubling reality of a society that selectively forgets past injustices and struggles. It suggests that this 'imposed forgetfulness' allows the status quo to persist, as people become disengaged from critical historical contexts that inform contemporary issues. The implication is that public discourse and collective memory are essential for social justice and awareness, urging individuals to resist this trend of amnesia and keep vital histories alive.

Themes

SocietyForgetfulnessHistoryPublic AmnesiaConsciousness

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about social justice, one could use this quote to highlight the importance of remembering historical injustices.

More from Angela Davis

Well, we see an increasingly weaker labor movement as a result of the overall assault on the labor movement and as a result of the globalization of capital.
Angela DavisRead
Racism is a much more clandestine, much more hidden kind of phenomenon, but at the same time it's perhaps far more terrible than it's ever been.
Angela DavisRead
Imprisonment has become the response of first resort to far too many of our social problems.
Angela DavisRead
It's true that it's within the realm of cultural politics that young people tend to work through political issues, which I think is good, although it's not going to solve the problems
Angela DavisRead
Radical simply means 'grasping things at the root.'
Angela DavisRead
When children attend schools that place a greater value on discipline and security than on knowledge and intellectual development, they are attending prep schools for prison.
Angela DavisRead

Similar quotes

There are wholes, the behavior of which is not determined by that of their individual elements, but where the part-processes are themselves determined by the intrinsic nature of the whole. It is the hope of Gestalt theory to determine the nature of such wholes.
Max WertheimerRead
At first sight experience seems to bury us under a flood of external objects, pressing upon us with a sharp and importunate reality, calling us out of ourselves in a thousand forms of action.
Walter PaterRead
Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty, and supped with infamy.
Benjamin FranklinRead
And every human being is precious.
Desmond TutuRead
A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined.
David HumeRead
When we turn to one another for counsel we reduce the number of our enemies.
Khalil GibranRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.