The Machinery of Obedience II

When History Commands

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”— George Orwell

When religion gradually loses its role as the organizer of society, political power does not abandon its search for a source of authority greater than itself. Over the past two centuries, states have discovered another force almost as powerful as the sacred: memory. A people's great wounds, victories, humiliations, and martyrs gradually become the foundations of a national narrative. The past ceases to be merely what happened; it becomes what explains the present and, at times, what dictates the future.

There is nothing artificial about this phenomenon. Every nation tells its own story. Every nation commemorates its dead, honors its heroes, and teaches its children the events that shaped its identity. Without a shared memory, it is difficult to build a sense of belonging. A people who forget their history would quickly lose part of their cohesion. Memory is therefore not simply a backward glance at the past; it is the cement that binds generations together.

Yet memory possesses a characteristic that rulers quickly came to understand: it speaks more to emotion than to reason. A war, a genocide, a foreign occupation, or a revolution never completely disappears. Such events leave scars that often endure for generations. Children inherit the stories of their parents, and grandchildren those of their grandparents. Monuments, commemorations, museums, school textbooks, and national holidays preserve these memories until they become essential components of collective identity. Whoever speaks in the name of this memory therefore acquires a special authority. They no longer speak merely in their own name; they claim to speak on behalf of History itself.

This development marks a significant break with earlier centuries. For a long time, kings ruled in the name of God. Modern states govern more readily in the name of the people—but also in the name of their past. National heroes gradually replace saints. Battlefields become places of pilgrimage. War memorials acquire an almost sacred significance. Commemorative ceremonies occupy in civic life a place once held by certain religious festivals. The vocabulary changes, yet the underlying psychological mechanism remains remarkably similar: the sacred does not disappear; it simply changes its object.

Few examples illustrate this reality better than the memory of the Holocaust. No event has more profoundly shaped the modern history of the Jewish people. Its remembrance constitutes a universal moral obligation, and the fight against antisemitism remains a fundamental responsibility of democratic societies. In Israel, this memory naturally occupies a central place in national identity and in reflections on the country's security. For many Israelis, it serves as a reminder that no state can delegate responsibility for its own defense. This memory is entirely legitimate. Yet, like every founding memory, it can also be invoked in contemporary political debates, giving rise to sometimes intense discussions about the extent to which the past should shape present-day decisions. The very existence of these debates demonstrates that collective memory is never fixed; it remains a political object.

The same mechanism can be observed in Algeria through the memory of the Algerian War. Independence, achieved after an exceptionally bloody conflict, forms the founding narrative of the modern Algerian state. Successive generations have grown up with this history, which recalls the price paid to regain national sovereignty. This memory plays an essential role in shaping Algerian identity. At the same time, it also serves as an important source of political legitimacy. Since independence, several leaders have claimed the legacy of the national liberation struggle to strengthen their authority or to emphasize their place within the continuity of the state. Once again, the point is not to question the reality of the historical trauma, but to recognize that the memory of a war can become a lasting political resource.

In Russia, the memory of the Great Patriotic War occupies a similar position. Victory over Nazi Germany, achieved at the cost of immense human losses, remains one of the pillars of the contemporary national narrative. Every year, the commemorations of May 9 recall that extraordinary sacrifice. They reinforce a sense of continuity between generations while strengthening the belief that the nation continues to face existential threats. Deeply rooted within Russian society, this memory is regularly invoked in public discourse to emphasize the necessity of national unity in the face of external dangers.

China provides another example. The narrative of the Century of Humiliation, covering roughly the period from the Opium Wars to the founding of the People's Republic, occupies a prominent place in education and national memory. Foreign interventions, occupations, and the unequal concessions imposed upon China are presented as episodes that explain the country's determination to regain full sovereignty and international influence. Here again, historical memory nourishes a political narrative directed toward the future.

Democracies are not exempt from this logic. The United States was profoundly marked by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. For years, that tragedy shaped national security policies, military interventions, and debates over the balance between protecting citizens and preserving civil liberties. The fear of another attack became a powerful argument in political discussions. Once again, the issue was not the invention of a threat, but the response to a genuine trauma whose consequences continued to influence public decision-making.

These examples should by no means be understood as a criticism of memory itself. On the contrary, a society that forgot its dead, its victims, or its struggles would lose part of its moral identity. The duty of remembrance protects future generations against forgetting—and sometimes against repeating the same tragedies. The problem arises when memory ceases to be a shared inheritance and becomes an argument from authority. When a political leader claims that a decision cannot be questioned because "History demands it," the nature of public debate changes. The opponent is no longer simply someone who holds a different opinion; they may instead be portrayed as betraying the dead, dishonoring past sacrifices, or forgetting the lessons of history.

At this point, memory begins to perform a role strikingly similar to that once occupied by religion. It produces heroes, martyrs, sacred places, ceremonies, founding texts, and truths that become increasingly difficult to challenge. Commemorations sometimes acquire an almost liturgical character. Monuments become places of reverence. National narratives are transmitted with an emotional force that extends far beyond historical knowledge. Gradually, the past ceases merely to be studied; it is, at times, venerated.

The philosopher Paul Ricœur nevertheless reminded us that there is an essential distinction between memory and history. Memory belongs to human beings: it is selective, emotional, and deeply personal. History, by contrast, seeks to confront testimonies, verify facts, and embrace complexity. Both are indispensable. But when memory entirely eclipses history, there is a risk that the past will be transformed into a political instrument rather than an object of knowledge.

Those in power have long understood that a people united by a common memory are easier to rally than a people divided by competing interests. They also know that a collective trauma can justify sacrifice, strengthen national cohesion, and make certain political decisions more readily acceptable. Memory itself is not what becomes dangerous; rather, it is its instrumentalization when it is used to exempt power from contradiction. A society that can no longer calmly debate its own historical narrative runs the risk of transforming History into a new civil religion.

Yet the twentieth century would go one step further. For some leaders, religion and national narratives were no longer sufficient. They claimed to possess not only the memory of the past, but the science of the future. Salvation would no longer come from God—or even from History. It would come from an idea. An idea presented as infallible, capable of explaining the world and guiding humanity toward its destiny. After the sacred, and after memory, a third machinery of obedience was about to emerge: the machinery of ideology.

This translation preserves the structure and meaning of the French original while adopting a polished, natural English style suitable for publication in an essay or book.