Oblivionist

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Someone who deliberately encourages people to forget the past and let memories of events fade away
2. A person who favors and champions the erasure of memory or the willful forgetting of history
3. One who advocates that society should let past injustices, events, or individuals pass into oblivion

Etymology: Oblivionist is formed from "oblivion" plus the agent suffix "-ist," and the noun base has a clearer history than the suffix itself. "Oblivion" came into English in the 1300s from Old French "oblivion," which descended from Latin "oblivio," meaning forgetfulness or a state of being forgotten, from the verb "oblivisci," to forget. The Latin verb is related to "oblitus," the past participle, which also gave English "oblite," though that is rare. The "-ist" ending comes from Greek "-istes," marking a person who practises or adheres to something, as in "artist" or "novelist." Attaching it to "oblivion" gives a noun for someone who holds to, advocates, or practises forgetting, usually in a political or social sense: a person who favours erasing a past event, a painful memory, or a disputed history from public record. Because the word is a transparent coinage built from familiar parts, its earliest uses are harder to date precisely, and it is not a term with a single famous originator. Its meaning follows directly from its components.