No concrete anthropological evidence exists for the origin of burial. Whether it be the over ten thousand year old cave at Qafzeh or some other unknown beginning, it has always been maintained in the web of shared human tradition.
The Greeks insisted on the sanctity of burials, look no further than the taboos of Antigone. The Egyptians mummified their dead, blessed them and built for them (if they were of kingly status) the most ornate tombs in history. In early Iran and many other spaces of the ancients, this piety existed only as a symptom of necessity. In the desert, and indeed in all exposure of the elements, a body will decay; birds and nightly creatures will eat at the flesh and the smell of decomposition will poison the land. To cover one with rocks begins to remedy this unfortunate circumstance.
But the physical burial of the dead is by no means the only circumstance in which this human tradition of covering has emerged. In truth, it is an axion and state of mind on which the whole of the Neu world relies.
We have, for much of our lives, whether through condition or apparent intuition, come to the point that the past lies where it belongs, and just as with graves, should not be trenched up, as doing such would destroy the sanctity of such places. Though I in the past have advocated for often preposterous ideas, I am by no means suggesting grave robbery in the literal sense. Let the dead lie as they will. But why should the past face the same treatment? Is it not that same conditioning, whether societal or by that supposed intuition, which tells us to learn from the past? One cannot learn from something which is buried six feet under. Instead, I recommend the following: a public catalogue of the dead.
As I hope I have made clear, no person is a static entity. The very idea of a ‘person’ is nothing more than semantic categorisation. In truth, these relations of processes, though sharing characteristics, ideas and memories, are entirely different entities. Does this mean someone should not be held responsible for past axions? Though an interesting question, I am not equipped to deal with it here, so shall table the matter for the future.
No, what I recommend is far less radical. Simply this: we should not try to hide our past and instead should present it as a version of ourselves in the genealogical change which leads to us now. This means one should not be afraid to present old videos, old æsthetic works, old opinions, et cetera. If anything, this shows the growth which the utopians are always claiming is possible.
And not only is this catalogue of the individual, but being an environmental product, it reflects the conditions of its arrival. These showcases are a timecapsule from a time already gone, as all time is. This exact reason is why I keep my previous work available and why I’m skeptical against the erosion of this process in the popular domain.
Examples such as George Lucas with the original cuts of Star Wars, Disney and their retraxion of many pieces (one example being The Simpsons’ “Stark Raving Dad”) and even in the literary world with the confused examples of Ulysses printings or the amended versions of The Hobbit. In all of these cases, it may or may not be true that the improved or removed piece is better in quality (hardly true when a piece of Media simply ceases to exist because of a corporate agenda), but the principle of its existence should remain the same. Media is already the catalogue of our shared history and if we allow for the erosion of that, even on a personal level, history becomes lost and reshaped.
Perhaps the most interesting of these cases comes from two authors: the on-going case of Mark Twain and the recent business with Ian Fleming. Let us begin with Twain, as I believe it to be a clear case which illustrates clearly my case. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has long been considered a noteworthy novel and has equally seen praise as the ever-illusive ‘Great American Novel’. That said, for the recent existence of its history, it has remained a controversial piece. For years, this Tom Sawyer sequel has seen criticism for its racism and nonchalant usage of racial slurs. Indeed, this is something worthy of criticism; however, many who have targeted the book have overlooked the context of such instances. I don’t mean it in the scapegoat approach of ‘it is from a different time’, but rather I speak of the material in the book itself. Huckleberry Finn is largely a book about the institution of racism and the work’s usage of both words and ideas is an intentional move to cause discomfort in the reader and force one to confront one’s own beliefs. Naturally, the strong thematic weight of such axion is heavily reduced or not entirely removed in the 2011 Gribben Edition which sees the removal of such language. Gribben does attempt to maintain the attitudes by replacing it with the word ‘slave’, but also by doing so he is strangely whitewashing the past into a more PG version of itself which ignores the harsh realities.
Now for Fleming, largely the more interesting case. Last year, IFP released a new version of Casino Royale with large edits within. A 70 book is adjusted in a similar way to Huckleberry Finn, where racial slurs and other offensive comments are either lessened or removed from the text. Now, unlike the case of Huckleberry Finn, James Bond is hardly a piece thematically exploring racism or similar institutions of the time. In fact, to say there is any thematic wait to Fleming’s writing aside from a misplaced nationalism and elements of propaganda would be simple incorrect. So, where does this bring us on the issue? Twain, though ‘of his time’ and certainly far from uncontroversial, was largely a decent man who tried to improve the world. Fleming, on the other hand, was part of the British army, a life-long racist, misogynist, et cetera--all traits well reflected in his character. Still, does this give us the right to remove history?
As is the case with Lucas or Disney before, if these editors and publishers still allow access to the original text with the release of these new versions, I see no problem with it. In the case of Fleming, the text might see a marked improvement. But rarely does this happen. The interests of the capital (in this case the publishing houses) will never lean towards a controversial past; they prefer a sanitised past which aligns with the modern sense of profitability. And many others, on the individual basis, share this idea.
We don’t need to destroy the people we were. Time does that for us. Instead, we need to understand the people we are, and the only way to do that is to establish an exhibition of past failures. Because greatness is nothing more than the most recent failure.