The Myth of the Politics of Regret

Abstract

This article argues for the need to think about the politics of regret more critically, within academia and beyond. The politics of regret here refers to the process through which the representation of past events comes to be dominated by apologetic voices in the public discourse. A brief overview of the most prominent previous attempts to make sense of the phenomenon shows why it is vital to strengthen the critical perspective on the issue. I assume that, in practice, the politics of regret almost always makes use of simplified representations of historical events that constitute images of the self and of wider society; as such, it should be properly understood as mythical. For this reason, I argue that the critical (scholarly and social) approach to the politics of regret should be based on a more general ethical framework with regard to myths that simultaneously acknowledges the right to existence of all interpretations of the past (including political regret) and challenges the exclusionary characteristics of mythologies.

‘It all started here, and it all ends here too’: Homosexual criminalisation and the queer politics of apology

“…In Australia, as elsewhere, we have witnessed a recent wave of government apologies for a variety of past misdeeds, most notably the landmark National Apology for the Stolen Generations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in 2008, and the National Apology for generalised forced adoption policies in 2013. 5 This trend in apologetic discourse suggests that remembering violence has emerged as ‘a novel form of self-legitimation and identification’ for the state (Toth, 2014: 555). While apology may not have overtaken denial as a dominant ‘technique of neutralization’ (Sykes and Matza, 1957), states are nevertheless now crafting historical narratives of guilt and exposing shameful events and practices with increasing frequency.…”

“…While apology may not have overtaken denial as a dominant ‘technique of neutralization’ (Sykes and Matza, 1957), states are nevertheless now crafting historical narratives of guilt and exposing shameful events and practices with increasing frequency. Rather than ignoring or glorifying past misdeeds, the apology constructs historical narratives of remorse in order to ‘take some degree of responsibility for them’ (Toth, 2014: 553). Through authoritatively reworking historical narratives and privileged emotional orientations to the past (such as shame, or guilt), the apology tells a new story about the present identity of the apologiser (the state, in this instance), as it is remade through its relationship with wronged and victimised group/s.…”

Politics of Memory and Nationalism

“…At least since Ernest Renan’s seminal lecture (1990), they recognized the decisive role of memory and forgetting in nation building. The widespread “invention of traditions” at the end of the 19th through the beginning of the 20th century (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983) is sometimes considered as the first wave of the “memory boom” (Toth 2015, 553). According to the analysis of Duncan Bell (2003, 67–68), all major explanations of the origins of nationalism shared the idea of the centrality of historical representations, even if they did not necessarily make a clear distinction between professional history, shared memory, and popular myths.…”

“…It considerably concentrates around the concepts of transitional justice describing manifold practices of revealing misdeeds committed by the collapsed authoritarian regimes and rehabilitating their victims (Ash 2004; Rusu 2017; Cole 2018; Epplée 2020), and of collective , or cultural trauma , which focuses on social and political consequences of the harrowing events, that “generate serious and often catastrophic challenges to communal self-understandings” (Bell 2006, 5; see also Alexander et al 2004; Edkins 2003; Resende and Budryte 2013; Tismaneanu and Jacob 2015; Kissane 2020). Both concepts are sometimes criticized for combining under the same label rather different social practices (Bell 2006; Olick 2007, 122–123; Toth 2015, 556). In this review, I focus on the literature exploring how nation states cope with their dark pasts to reveal the major patterns.…”

“…By Olick’s opinion, shifting the focus of politics of memory from heroic golden ages to past misdeeds signals a decline rather than triumph of nation-states and nationalist sentiments (134). However, his critics fairly point out that this claim needs examining on empirical grounds (Toth 2015, 558). It looks like the recent international memory conflicts in Europe, which will be addressed in the next section, disprove rather than confirm Olick’s suggestion.…”