can we bury the past and still think of the future?

the nytimes has a chilling, but illustrative, article on memories of the gulags in kazakhstan.

apparently, there aren't many anymore. these "corrective labor camps" which murdered over one million for crimes against the soviet state, are now simply things such as "just a village for miners," according to one girl. even those who lived through such horrors don't speak of it.

if freud is to be believed, some "forgetting" is natural and healthy. however, as thoughts of the future are inexorably linked to those of the past, i.e. our memories, in our brains, i wonder how this rewrite of the past is changing survivors' abilities to think about the future.

read more about the gulags here or here and, for the bookish, here.

Labels: misc. psych, neuroscience, political