Forgetting After Injustice: The Moral Limits of Institutional Memory in Political Renewal

Can institutional forgetting ever be morally justified- not as a denial of past injustice, but as a condition for meaningful political renewal? Forgetting has traditionally been viewed as unethical by political and moral philosophy, which correlates it to injustice, denial, and victim betrayal. From Hannah Arendt's emphasis on memory as a moral duty to modern theories of memory and transitional justice, institutional forgetfulness is frequently presented as morally dubious unless strictly regulated or categorically rejected. This essay questions this assumption. It makes the case that not all types of forgetting are unfair and that selective institutional forgetting may be morally acceptable and even essential for political renewal under certain normative circumstances. The focus is on institutional decisions (by courts, truth commissions, or administrative authorities) that restrict, bracket, or retire specific kinds of official recollection in order to facilitate reform, reconciliation, or institutional stability rather than on individual memory or cultural amnesia. There are three steps in the paper. It first gives a conceptual explanation of "institutional forgetting," setting it apart from historical revisionism and denial and placing it as a normative issue of moral acceptability as opposed to an actual phenomenon. Second, it identifies an empty space in current frameworks that presume forgetting is inherently wrong by critically engaging canonical and modern perspectives on memory and justice (Arendt, Blustein, Booth, and transitional justice literature). Third, it creates a set of moral standards, such as restorative balance toward victims, proportionality, transparency, participatory legitimacy, and demonstrable contribution to political renewal, under which institutional forgetfulness may be justified. By redefining institutional amnesia as a constrained political practice that can, under certain circumstances, coexist with justice, accountability, and democratic renewal, the paper offers a normative framework for assessing it.