Has Heritage Become Redundant?

Writer’s Disclaimer: This reflection applies to every society around the world. We may choose to view it from the perspective of the societies we belong to to see what we might have otherwise ignored.

The notion of heritage is inherently complex, encompassing questions of identity, memory, and power. It is not simply a passive inheritance but an active, ongoing process of negotiation occurring in the present. Heritage operates at the intersection of history, politics, and emotion, shaping how communities remember, commemorate, and legitimise their collective pasts.

As heritage scholar Laurajane Smith argues in her book Uses of Heritage, heritage is not a “thing” but a cultural process, a discourse through which social values are constructed, contested, and reproduced.

In mainstream discourse, heritage is often equated with tangible artefacts and monuments: architecture, art, craft, traditions, manuscripts, textiles, and cuisine, or intangible practices such as rituals and oral traditions. These are celebrated as cultural achievements that sustain national or communal pride. However, this celebratory narrative frequently obscures the uncomfortable dimensions of the past: conquest, colonisation, slavery, and cultural erasure.

David Lowenthal, noted historian and geographer, observes that heritage is always a selective version of history, privileging certain memories while silencing others. What we choose to commemorate is often determined less by historical accuracy than by the emotional and political utility of remembrance.

If heritage serves to illuminate humanity’s creative achievements, it must also account for the shadows that accompany them. The gold and riches that adorned temples and palaces, the monuments built through forced labour, and the cultural artefacts obtained through looting and colonisation, all form an inseparable part of our collective heritage. To deny these dimensions is to engage in what French historian Pierre Nora calls the “crystallisation of memory,” where history is reduced to a static symbol rather than a dynamic field of ethical reflection.

Acknowledging these uncomfortable truths does not undermine heritage; instead, it renders it more intellectually and emotionally honest. By recognising both the constructive and destructive elements of our cultural inheritance, we move towards a more holistic and empathetic understanding of the human past. This approach aligns with critical heritage studies, which argue that heritage should not merely preserve objects but also foster ethical awareness, social justice, and intercultural dialogue.

If heritage is to remain relevant in contemporary society, it must evolve beyond nostalgia and the glorification of selective memory. It must become a dialogic space, one where communities confront the moral complexities of their histories and reflect on how these legacies shape present and future identities. Such an understanding transforms heritage from a static repository of pride into a dynamic process of ethical becoming.

Human beings often claim to be the only species capable of moral reasoning. Suppose we can recognise and reckon with the injustices of our past. In that case, our heritage in the future may no longer be defined by conquest and hierarchy, but by empathy, accountability, and spiritual growth.

In this sense, the question “Has heritage become redundant?” does not signal its obsolescence. Rather, it challenges us to reimagine heritage as an evolving moral practice, one that binds memory to responsibility, and history to humanity.

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