Critical Essay
When an unfolding the phenomena of how an individual, collective, or public memory work, it can be a little challenging to unfold the way it can disrupt its grand narrative. I chose St Patrick’s Cathedral as the place I wanted to write about because I have a special connection with the place. Casey’s stance in his article was leaning towards the public memory being more dominant than the individual, collective or social; I can defend my stance on my individual memory being more important to me than the public memory that St Patrick’s Cathedral has. I have a pretty solid case in order to back up my stance with my individual memory of St Patrick’s Cathedral. This historical memorial is filled with a rich history since being in one of the most famous cities in the world can be helpful in creating this type of environment around it. The cathedral has a special place with its community around it and the people who come to visit. People come and visit one of the most historical churches in the world. It is absolutely fascinating people can relate to its architecture, security, and just the aroma in the air of being in this church in midtown. It creates a public space that promotes a public memory that everyone can remember when talking about St Patrick’s Cathedral. Casey unfolds this idea through describing the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. She starts to describe this event as a public memory with key details that solidify his argument on why the public memory is more dominant than the individual, social, and collective. He starts to describe the location and what happened that day. He starts by describing the location by being out in the open and having mediums aware of everything. The union square park display brought people together during this time of mourning. Casey described it as, “the building of a public hearth to which those present, and those who witnessed indirectly by word of mouth, could recur in times ahead.” He makes a strong case with this powerful argument on why the public memory has a stronger impact. I will layout my argument on why in St Patrick’s Cathedral my individual memory has more valuable meaning to me than its public memory towards the public.
How many times have you felt super important in a place that is known and recognized over the world as a piece of history? I felt like there was light shining on me because of the history of this place. Everyone had told me that this experience would be a remarkable one, building up the grand narrative of this place. It was just until now that I remember walking out of this church feeling good and actually amazed with the way the environment inside the church made me feel. I started analyzing what I saw from that day and it all started to click. There were about 25 security guards inside there and about a 30 flat screens with surveillance cameras. There was not an inch in that place that was not being watched. I moved to the back where I saw a gift shop inside with souvenirs and accessories to buy. It was a remarkable place to be a part of especially during such a pivotal moment in my life. A huge part of my family was able to go because they wanted to be a part of this history. I remember just about every second of that day and what happened. I woke up early and was still almost late to this event because of the adrenaline I had. I pass by the cathedral today and I get flashbacks of what was going on that day. If you talk about the cathedral, my graduation is the first thing I start to visualize and playback in my head. A lot of this remembering has to do with what McLuhan predicted would be a game changer in writing. Every so often in social media, I would get reminded of my memories and what I was doing a year ago today or 6 months or even 3 months ago. Social media wouldn’t allow me to forget this incredible memory, but for the most part the cathedral has special link to my graduation making me not forget what happened that day.
The social memory St Patrick’s Cathedral holds in history has a correlation with social media. The cathedral is the main attraction for Catholics in New York City. It is widely known and recognized around the world for its architecture and its rich history in the city. Social media is able to take this architecture and rich history to the next level by giving it access to over millions of users. Eventually a post by a person doing a pose by statue or famous picture can go viral and people can create a space where they will remember the cathedral because of the picture or pose they did. Public spaces in today’s era can become public memories so easy because everyone is connected through social media some one way or another and those are platforms that enable memories to last forever. This can have some collective memory facts in it as well because of the simple fact that people will just remember the content. In the example of a simple picture going viral in the cathedral, people will just remember that but not the date or who were the people and other facts that relate to this memory. People would just simply remember a picture in the cathedral that went viral. Casey defines collective remembering as, “what is important is only the sheer fact that those remembering are remembering the same thing.” This is made possible through what I present in my exhibit as the hash tag. I actually put some type of hash tag on every single page of the exhibit because I find that this has been a very important tool in the way the 21st century civilization chooses to remember or become part of some type memory whether it is on a little or big scale. People use hash tags a lot to join the group of people who used it to create a talk around that place. This can create honestly anything from an individual memory to a public memory. It works together on the collective and social for the most part but can be used for all four.
The public memory people usually have with the Cathedral is related to it being one of the biggest churches in the city, filled with rich history of New York City, and a major part of the history of the Catholic Religion. St Patrick’s Cathedral plays a big part in providing a public memory in Christmas. It brings out every year people from all over the world to celebrate this important holiday in this particular church. People are able to share this memory together with others and create on social media this public memory by either posting it through the hash tag or their actual page. Social media has this major effect on how public memories can be saved and can be displayed through millions of screens. A perfect example and explains