A few months ago I watched a few segments of Charlie Kaufman’s “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” While I only saw a few snippets of the film, the storyline was out of the ordinary, and certainly succeeded in catching my attention. In this film, the main character Joel (played by Jim Carrey) falls in love with a young lady. After sharing many wonderful memories, they have a harsh break up. Soon after, Joel gets an official-looking notification that alerts him that his ex-girlfriend erased all her memories of him via a form of selective memory erasure, and that it would be greatly appreciated if he refrained from causing any confusion by re-entering her life. He then proceeded to have his own memories erased, but, in the middle of the memory warping procedure, he decided that he did not want to forget about his girlfriend, because even though the painful memories would be erased, all the tender and happy memories would pass away too.
While this was a fictional story, it certainly made me curious. With the current level of research, the possibility of erasing memories may be nearer than we may think. There are already drugs that erase or numb bad memories, and physicians are learning more about the brain each day. So, if someone could select certain memories to erase, would that be ethical? I think that one would have to be extremely cautious when deciding to have parts of his memory erased. While there could be potential benefit for people who have experienced truly traumatic experiences, mind erasure could be used to avoid all sorts of pain, and could seriously alter the mindset of the general public.
Perhaps in extreme cases where people have witnessed gruesome murders or been in a grisly war, these people could be treated with a form of selective memory erasure. In more general terms, if someone begins to experience severe mental distress, that does not appear to decrease with a substantial amount of time, and that is a result of a horrific memory, erasing traumatizing memories may be a legitimate option.
While these extreme cases seem to justify the use of memory erasure in select cases, the allowance of selective memory erasure would have to be treated with the utmost caution. Consider the situation where memory erasure procedures do not have any health risks. This procedure would have to be very limited and available to only those with severe mental disturbance. Otherwise, people may take advantage of the procedure or drug that enables this erasure and may harm or manipulate others, and the victims will have no idea what happened to them. In society, chaos may ensue when some people have no memory of a certain event, while others do. If this procedure is abused, in an extreme case, people will begin to deny certain events, and accuse others of lying all because they do not have the same memories. For example, many people were severely hurt and traumatized by the terrorist attacks on September 11. What would happen if some people had this lasting memory of the attacks, while others have no clue and deny its occurrence?
In terms of humanity and character, what would happen if someone turned to memory erasure after every sad or harmful event? People would lose their humanity and feeling. Living through sad or hurtful events or situations is indeed painful, but it puts life into perspective. Knowing sadness leads people to understand how good goodness is via juxtaposition. And knowing hurt helps people to learn not to hurt, but rather to appreciate. Hard times give us the opportunity to respond to these hard times in a dignified way, which, as a result, shapes good character. Of course it is easy for people to be “good” when nothing is bothering them, but true character is revealed and seasoned through one’s response to trying situations. So, erasing every little harmful, sad, or upsetting memory would compromise the character of the individual.
While selective memory erasure could undoubtedly relieve severely disturbed individuals of painful and haunting memories, it also has the potential to induce mass chaos and dehumanization. Therefore, I think that mind erasing procedures should be strictly limited to those in extreme torment—such as disturbed war veterans, or people who witnessed particularly gruesome, traumatizing, and mind altering events.
Sources:
http://www.jimcarreyonline.com/movies/eternalsunshine.html?p=2#about
1 comment:
This post stimulates my thoughts on the issue of memory erasing. Something about memory erasing that should concern people is that the subconscious mind is a field yet to be explored and understood. After I watched the movie I thought part of the reason Joel could beat the power of memory-erasing machine is that he doesn’t even realize how much he loves Clementine. Deep down, he has an attachment to Clementine that’s stronger than his rational mind thinks. The agony that Joel went through in order to maintain his memory reminds me of McMurphy from One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. In this novel by Ken Kesey, McMurphy is forced to undergo electroshock therapy by the head nurse at a mental hospital. McMurphy’s situation is similar to what Birgitt suggests as “memory manipulation”, and both the movie and the book imply that if memory erasing falls into hands of the evil, tragic things would happen.
However, what if people voluntarily undergo electroshock therapy to erase certain traumatizing memories? I used to think it would help until my high school English teacher told us about his brother. His brother went through electroshock therapy for some health-related reason so memory erasing is a side effect for him. What he experienced years after the treatment is that certain lost memories would “find” him, in the sense that he is deeply troubled by some reminiscent of his memory but just couldn’t remember exactly what that memory is. The feeling was terrible, and totally changed his brother’s peace of mind. I doubt if the memory erasing drugs in the market have passed tests rigorous enough so the chance of old memory recurring is minimal. And I doubt if patients know about the possibility of erased memory coming back, they would still voluntarily take memory erasing drugs.
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