My computer crashed last month. I was advised that the hard drive had failed and would need to be replaced. That meant that all my memory would be lost. Every e-mail I had sent or received, all the music I had stored on I Tunes, all my pictures of family and friends, and all my written work including all my past columns, my novel, which in the process of being reprinted, and my book on metaphysics, which was backed up on another system, thank G-d. I took the great loss well and I started thinking about memory and its loss. My novel concerned one person who was destined to be forever forgotten and another who lost his memory of himself. The loss of memory was a punishment for the first character and a blessing for the other. What is our memory to us?
When I first studied psychology in the early 60s, I was taught about a concept called "the halo effect." The concept or theory was that first impressions color the way a person is forever regarded and remembered. If a person had been considered bright and honorable at first meeting, everything he did from then on would seem somewhat bright and honorable. A few years later, while in college I had a chance to test the theory. I was the French teacher's favorite and best student. I was bright and hard working and got A's on my first tests. But by the end of the semester, I had missed some tests and done badly in others. My teacher viewed me as a poor student who just didn't have what it took. She remembered the last few weeks of school rather than the first impression, which had seemed justified for most of the semester. I realized it was the most recent experience that colored our memory of people and events and not the first.
Take the weather. If it is warm and sunny in San Francisco for a week, people say that it has been that way forever. When the weather changes and it is cold, foggy and or wet for a few days, people say that this weather seems like it will never end.
Or take relationships. People have a great relationship for a period of time. Then something happens to make them split a part. If it was a bad ending, there is a good chance that it will make the memories of the good times less so. It was the last experiences that revealed the true nature of the person and the relationship.
Or take retail. Do you remember what Abercrombie and Fitch used to be? It was a totally different store that specialized in high end sports equipment. In the 1950s I was big into ping pong and would buy my special paddles at Abercrombies. It was not a store for young people wanting to be sexy. But who remembers that? Do you remember what Banana Republic sold and why they chose their name? They sold surplus uniform items from banana republics.
And then there is our lack of memory about taxes. The highest marginal tax rate is threatening to go from 35% to 39.6%. People are screaming "unfair exorbitant tax increase on the rich." The 35% top rate was part of the former administration's temporary tax cut for those in the highest tax bracket. “It means that when adding state, local and payroll taxes, the wealthiest among us will be paying almost half their earnings in tax. What will it do to productivity when people see so much of their earnings taken from them?” the well-to-do ask. We forget that it is a marginal tax rate which means it is applied to only the highest part of the person's net income. (So for a person making $500,000, with $100,000 in deductions and a net of $400,000 would pay an extra 4.6% on the $42,000 over $358,000, (the beginning of the top bracket, or $1932 more in taxes. This is less than four tenths of one percent (.38%) of their income We also forget that this is what the top earners paid from the 1980's to just a few years ago. But we also forget something else. While America was its most productive, from 1946 to about 1980, the highest marginal tax rate in America was 90%.
I remember growing up in an upper middle class family where my father earned about $40,000 a year in the 1950's. He paid at a 50% marginal tax rate so whenever he lamented the cost of something, like my boarding school, he would double the amount because he figured, incorrectly, that all of his earnings were taxed at the 50% rate and therefore everything actually cost twice as much net income dollars.
But a bad memory is also a plus. We forget some of our past prejudices as our culture evolves taking us along with it. The latest presidential primaries and election were cases in point. One major party picked an African-American over the wife of its most successful past president and then over an good old boy, really white guy who was the son and grandson of full admirals. It showed that many of us have forgotten our past racism enough to give an excellent candidate a chance to make a difference.
Our bad memory helps when we must forgive someone's past transgressions and find it harder and harder to remember exactly what they had been or why they mattered so much. It helps us forget some of the pain that life provides us so generously. We have forgotten how painful the pregnancy was so that we can look forward to having more children or the pain of open heart surgery so that we can face it again when it needed five, ten, or 15 years later. It surprised me when my reaction to being told I needed open heart surgery again made warm salt water cover my cheeks. My body still remembered the trauma even though my mind had forgotten.
But, perhaps, what we should never forget is how lucky we are to be alive and that no matter how hard life seems to us, it could always be a lot worse. And we should not forget those who love us and those who have helped us. And we should try to remember that no matter what we did, it was the best we could do at the time and that there is plenty of room for improvement in the future. And that if this applies to us, then it should also apply to everyone else as per Kant's categorical imperative.
And, if you don't agree with any of this, then you can just forget about it.
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