On

We are, I think, for reasons that are not altogether clear to me, standing sentinel because we are encountering not a treasure in quite the same sense that Arendt suggests here, but something like its distant echo—the rumor of a mode of life we’ve forgotten or been denied. 

We appear to be both obsessive documenters of our experience, yet largely indifferent to or overwhelmed by the archives we create.

History written by the victors offers glimpses of marginalized figures, for whom we need to “fabulate” stories to “strain against the limits of the archive” and “represent lives… through the process of narration.” Building relationships between things is a form of authorship too.

offloaded on to others whose experiences are less visible or less privileged.