Enlightened remembering and the paradox of forgetting: from Dante to data privacy

This paper adopts a law and humanities-based methodology to critique the binary distinction between remembering and forgetting that often features in law and policy. Using the right to be forgotten as a case study, the paper argues that such a distinction conceals the many ways that remembering and forgetting are intrinsically connected. In particular, a binary distinction understands forgetting as not remembering. But forgetting can also take the form of enlightened remembering: a deliberate choice to think differently about the past, an attempt to remember it in more positive or constructive ways. Drawing on insights from Dante’s Divine Comedy, the paper pursues a normative argument about the value of enlightened remembering and then assesses the implications for legal discourse.