After reading The Role of Interpretative Communities in Remembering and Learning, by Farhat Shahzad, I began to see the overwhelming implications evidence for Shahzad’s argument to the effect of social relations on how we create memories.  Her exploration of interpretive communities, and how they help process events explored the role of figures of authority. The university students she interviewed often discussed the impact of a teacher’s opinion or passion on his or her own.  This discussion inspired me to consider the complex relationship between the diverse networks we live in, including the role authoritative figures play, contrasted to the role of our peers in relation to the act of remembering.

In our society, it is accepted that figures of authority in our lives (for example teachers or coaches) hold a strong influence over those in a place of inferiority.  Their opinions and perspectives tend to hold greater importance over those of our peers. Therefore, figures of authority have more sway over what we believe and interpret.  For example, teachers in high schools control the lesson plan.  Shahzad refers to the instructor’s ability to choose the sources shared or neglected.  The role of figures of authority in sharing their ideas, sources, prejudices and perspectives is fervently important.

However, superiors often lack the emotional closeness we share with our peers.  In matters of politics and world affairs, a teacher or coach’s opinion can heavily influence those of a student or player. Nonetheless, memory and the act of remembering are very personal.  Members of an inferior group do not often share their personal backgrounds or stories with their superiors. The nature of the student to teacher relationship allows for formal influence and learning, but commonly lacks the emotional connection that is correlated with remembering personal events, and the influence these events have on our memory.  Despite the fact that many public events do not directly relate to personal life, worldview and perspectives are often determined by moments and experience outside of formal settings. They accumulate, and form an individual.  Frequently, figures of authority are not present for pivotal moments, or even the constant accumulation of mundane moments that can develop into an emotional connection to an issue.

Essentially, the nature of an inferior’s relationship to a figure of authority calls for a certain emotional distance.  The figure of authority has control over formal ideas and perspectives the inferior may consume, but has little control over the experiences and emotional moments that will create a second kind lens of which to view the world through. The inferior’s peers and equals, and the natural emotional closeness in these relationships, create the second lens. Peers, alongside authoritative figures, occupy unique yet important spaces in an individual’s interpretive community.