Radio Atlantic - January 6 and the Case for Oblivion (Free link)

The difference between forgetting the past and choosing not to remember it

By Hanna Rosin
January 16, 2025, 11 AM ET

Podcast at link

Donald Trump has said, at different times, that he will pardon some, most, or even all of the January 6 insurrectionists. He’s also said at least once that he would do this on his first day in office, which is imminent. Given Trump’s past rhetoric about the incident (calling it a “day of love”) and the people who were jailed for acts they committed that day (“political prisoners,” “hostages”), his pardons can be understood only as part of his alarming—and alarmingly successful—attempt to rewrite the history of the day that nearly brought down our democracy. But what if the pardon were to come in a different spirit? That could move the country a long way toward healing.

In this episode of Radio Atlantic, we invite the author and scholar Linda Kinstler to talk about a centuries-old legal theory, embraced at calmer times in American history, of “oblivion.” When two sides have viciously different experiences of an event, how do you move forward? You do a version of forgetting, although it’s more like a memory game, Kinstler says, “a kind of collective agreement about how you’re going to move past something that is fundamentally irreconcilable.”

(Transcript at link)