Who doesn’t want to know that their life makes a difference – a difference that at least those closest to them will appreciate? Who among us doesn’t want to be remembered? But how are memories created and preserved? What makes some things memorable and others forgettable?
These questions have been at the center of society for most of human history. They lay at the center of many religions, much of politics, and so much more. Now however, probably for the first time in human history, we have a new challenge: how to forget. Thanks to Google, and other such services, in addition to the struggle to remember, we now have the struggle to forget.
We all have a right to shape the data about ourselves, to which others have access.
What do I mean? Well, unlike the “real” world, immortality is quite real in the virtual world. Once something exists in Google, there is no way to take it back – at least not without help from the Google gods. It will be there forever, or at least until Google and the other search engines say otherwise… until now, perhaps.
A movement is building across Europe, predicated on the right to be forgotten. The premise of those who support this movement, and those closely watching hearings being held in multiple European cities where Google is being asked to reconsider its approach to eternal information, is that we all have a right to shape the data about us to which others have access.
Although I generally prefer freedom of access and transparency when it comes to information, I also recognize that there are limits, and that we really can have too much of a good thing. It’s especially true when dealing with new technological realities that are changing faster than our ethical capacities can possibly keep up with.
We all have things in our lives that we wish we could forget, and probably things we wish others would forget about us. The capacity to forget, and to assume some things will be forgotten, strikes me as important to living good and happy lives (as important as the capacity to remember). That awareness lies at the heart of concepts such as forgiveness, atonement, salvation. Yes, it’s possible to accomplish all of these things without forgetting, but sometimes a good dose of forgetfulness really helps.
What do you wish you could forget, both about your own past and about others’? What do you wish others would forget about you? While the struggle for memory is sacred, so too can be the struggle to forget, or to have some things forgotten.
Without narrowly specifying the rules for doing so, it seems we should at least be talking more about the right to be forgotten – a right no less sacred? (even if it is rather newer) than the human effort to remember. Google has a great deal of money riding on our not appreciating this right, so really, it’s up to us – to regular Internet users like you and me – to establish and preserve this newly important sacred right.
Listed for many years in Newsweek as one of America’s “50 Most Influential Rabbis” and recognized as one of our nation’s leading “Preachers and Teachers,” by Beliefnet.com, Rabbi Brad Hirschfield serves as the President of Clal–The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, a training institute, think tank, and resource center nurturing religious and intellectual pluralism within the Jewish community, and the wider world, preparing people to meet the biggest challenges we face in our increasingly polarized world.
An ordained Orthodox rabbi who studied for his PhD and taught at The Jewish Theological Seminary, he has also taught the University of Pennsylvania, where he directs an ongoing seminar, and American Jewish University. Rabbi Brad regularly teaches and consults for the US Army and United States Department of Defense, religious organizations — Jewish and Christian — including United Seminary (Methodist), Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (Modern Orthodox) Luther Seminary (Lutheran), and The Jewish Theological Seminary (Conservative) — civic organizations including No Labels, Odyssey Impact, and The Aspen Institute, numerous Jewish Federations, and a variety of communal and family foundations.
Hirschfield is the author and editor of numerous books, including You Don’t Have To Be Wrong For Me To Be Right: Finding Faith Without Fanaticism, writes a column for Religion News Service, and appears regularly on TV and radio in outlets ranging from The Washington Post to Fox News Channel. He is also the founder of the Stand and See Fellowship, which brings hundreds of Christian religious leaders to Israel, preparing them to address the increasing polarization around Middle East issues — and really all currently polarizing issues at home and abroad — with six words, “It’s more complicated than we know.”