We owe the past much, but do we owe it everything?
In last week’s essay, I engaged with the question, “What do we owe the past?” I began by accepting that the past matters for the present, that we have a responsibility to remember the past both for moral reasons and from a recognition that we cannot fully understand the present without understanding what came before and why. We owe the past, and those who lived in the past, our remembrance of the history that shapes all we do, and are, in the moment. In remembering the past, we should also be learning from the past, recalling the wisdom of our forebearers and trying to avoid their mistakes as we work to build a better world in the present.
We should also try, to the extent we can, to rectify the injustices of the past. While it is true that there is much about the legacy of the past that cannot be changed, there are still ways we can reckon with the past to address some measure of the injustices we inherit, and, where we can do so, we should. These all reflect obligations we owe to the past that should inform all we do in the present, so that even what is bad about the past can in some way — through a process of remembering, learning, and informing the work of rectifying historical injustice — help to create a better present and future.
Read more here