
One is a word for a category of things such as ‘animal’ or ‘vegetable’. Subjects are given pieces of paper with pairs of words. "By prompting some thoughts, statues suppress others, thus promoting an ideological view of the past." Let me explain first how retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) works in the lab before describing how it can be socially shared in the wild, so to speak. Psychologists have established the existence of a phenomenon known as socially-shared retrieval-induced forgetting (hereafter, SS-RIF). Surely, I hear you say, this is preposterous! Statues are not a means of mind control. Seeing figurative public art every day subtly manipulates our minds. By prompting some thoughts, statues suppress others, thus promoting an ideological view of the past. In fact, monuments make us forget more than they help us remember.
SOCIAL AMNESIA EXAMPLES FREE
However, there is nothing free and open about the contribution of these statues to our discourse on British History. Both Chris Patten and Mary Beard argued in favour of keeping the statue because removing statues of individuals with whose views one disagrees is contrary to freedom of speech and historical accuracy.

In the official defence of this choice, something no one can object to was called upon: freedom of speech. One may speculate about the true reasons behind the staunch resistance by this institution against the students’ protest.


The student campaign to remove a statue of Cecil Rhodes from Oriel College at Oxford University failed.
