 that the formerly enslaved people of america would not agree to an act of oblivion but as soon as it was done they could start talking about it so we are still living with the shortcomings of those acts of oblivion from the civil war absolutely and i think that's one of the reasons why it's an important concept to revisit i think you know the historian there's always a risk of saying this thing from the past should be grafted onto the present and that's not at all the point i'm making