The term "purposive forgetting" is an intriguing term that reminds me a bit of what I've learned about repression, where parts of experience are shoved out of the way (crammed into the closet or pushed far under the bed, so to speak) so that we can handle life. In this case, though, the terms we know have been learned through experiences we have since, for the most part, forgotten. Why do we know what a "table" is? Because somewhere back there something happened that we made the connection between the thing and the sign/symbol. We haven't necessarily retained a memory of that moment of epiphany, however.

The concept of "purposive forgetting" would seem, therefore, to tie back to our symbol/sign manufacturing--and perhaps it could also tie back to piety. It would be difficult to replace one term for another--as we find when we try to learn another language, our piety to one word may be a stumbling block for learning its equivalent in another language. But it does seem a bit absurd at the same time that we accept terms and associations with piety when we can't necessarily remember when we got there in the first place.

What's more, Burke talks about our understanding of terms we have no personal experience with: eskimo and Napoleon, for instance. I've never met either one, yet I come to these words with a very definite idea of what they are and what I think of them. I can try to remember how I got these associations, and can come to the conclusion that part of my impression may have been formed by experiencing the Carnegie Museum's exhibit on eskimos where you get to walk through an igloo and can see a couple of eskimo statues ice fishing. But it gives me pause to think back and try to remember exactly why I think of Napoleon as I do. Or even of the people I hold in high regard and have never met. It probably ought to make us at least start questioning piety.