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October 21, 2004
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Rob Stein of the Washington Post asks: "Is every memory worth keeping?"
Logue volunteered for an experiment designed to test whether taking a pill immediately after a terrorizing experience might reduce the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The study is part of a promising but controversial field of research seeking to alter, or possibly erase, the impact of painful memories -- a concept dubbed "therapeutic forgetting" by some and taken to science fiction extremes in films such as this summer's "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind."
I definitely fall under the category of "skeptic" on this one, and not because I fear the extremes of the movie mentioned (which, as I've noted, is an excellent movie). What would such a thing mean for our ability to learn from our mistakes? Wouldn't we be doomed to repeat them?
"All of us can think of traumatic events in our lives that were horrible at the time but made us who we are. I'm not sure we'd want to wipe those memories out," said Rebeccas S. Dresser, a medical ethicist at Washington University in St. Louis who serves on the President's Council of Bioethics, which condemned the research last year. "We don't have an omniscient view of what's best for the world."
One of the hardest parts (if not the hardest part) of programming is debugging. Especially with more complex programs, it's sometimes amazing that a small oversight on one line can cause a bug to manifest on a section of the code that is, at first glance, completely unrelated. This change, allowing people to forget extremely painful memories, could have untold effects on society. Maybe they'd be good (though I doubt it), but I think the potential for disasterous effects far outweights the possible good.
Granted, I don't know what the consequences of this type of research could be, but I guarantee that any study on it now is only going to look short-term. Ms. Logue may not be harmed by the drug she's taking, and she may appear to be happier for it, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's helped her.
As the President's Council on Bioethics pointed out, even if the treatment were helpful on a case-by-case basis, it could be problematic for society. Using the example of the Holocaust, the council wrote: "The life of that individual might well be served by dulling such bitter memories, but such a humanitarian intervention, if widely practiced, would seem deeply troubling: Would the community as a whole -- would the human race -- be served by such a mass numbing of this terrible but indispensable memory?"
You know, given the number of people who now deny the Holocaust ever happened, maybe the memory thing wouldn't hurt that much after all.
Posted by Robin S. at October 21, 2004 05:09 PM
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