The title of this brief reflection is drawn from Pope Saint John Paul II’s final memoir, published in the year of his death, 2005, wherein he reflects upon various themes, especially in the light of the twentieth century and his own experiences.  A guaranteed excellent read.  However, I use his title to prompt our own reflection on the nature of memory, especially in light of developing technology I recently heard of in a documentary, by which memories, especially those that are painful or traumatic, may be erased from the brain.  Such stuff has provided the fodder of science fiction movies and stories from Blade Runner  and Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind to Robocop and the forgettable Ben Affleck vehicle Paycheck (none of them necessarily recommended viewing!  Although, two of these movies are based on very good short stories by the science fiction author Philip K. Dyck).  What was once fiction may now become reality.

There are various theories on the nature of memory.  Most of the current hypotheses, in our materialist culture, presume that memory is nothing more than neuronal activity; that is, memory is purely physical, stored in the brain itself.  These memories  may exist in a diffuse way throughout the cerebral cortex, or localized in deeper regions of the brain, such as the thalamus, where more emotionally significant memories are retained.  Theoretically, therefore, one could destroy specific neural connections to remove a bad memory.  After all, traumatic brain injury will often result in some level of amnesia.  We could, in theory, control such memory loss by surgical or chemical means, thereby removing specific neuronal connections and the memories associated with them.

Of course, in the Christian view (which means the real one) memory is more than physical; at its deepest level, our memories are intellectual and immaterial, ‘stored’ in the soul itself.  After all, I am sure that now Saint John Paul II in heaven recalls his life on earth!  Certainly, while we are this side of heaven, there is a material substrate to such memories, and access to them may be limited by physical damage to the brain, but, even in those with advanced Alzheimer’s, our ‘self’, our ‘identity’, remains in our souls, waiting for the resurrection, when all things will be restored in Christ.

Of course, this takes us beyond science, so let us remain on the material level, and presume such a technology of physical memory-deletion is possible (and, at the current stage of research, that is a big given):  Would we want, or should we want, to remove memories cause us great pain or sorrow?

Such a question raises serious ethical issues, for, as our late Holy Father implied, our memories form the most significant aspect of ‘who we are’, our identity, as persons.  To remove our memories, therefore, is to remove a part of our very selves.

There are hard cases, of course:  Victims of sexual abuse, or war crimes, or those who suffer the traumatic and sudden loss of a child.  Such memories inflict on those who hold them often a lifetime of debilitating suffering.

Yet should we remove such painful memories?  Or, perhaps, at least the emotional impact of the such memories?  But, as one ethicist asked, would we want a mother to forget the death of her child?  Or, perhaps, to recall the trauma, but without emotion?  Would not such an intervention be inhuman?

We all have painful, and also beautiful, memories; sometimes they are the same memory, seen from different vantage points, for God only permits evil to bring out of it a greater good.  Rather than try to remove such memories, the better way is to hold on to purify them, not to dwell morbidly on the bad, but to see the action of God’s providence in them, and not to linger obsessively on the good, but to see God’s gracious will in His favour towards us.

After all, the most important time, to paraphrase Saint Paul, is not the past or future, but the ‘now’, the present, which is the only ‘time’ that God Himself knows, He Who sees all things totum simul, all at once.  In heaven, we will see how all the acts, omissions and events of our life led to our eternal destiny.  To try to use technology to remove our past, as though it did not exist, is to mistrust this providence of God.  In the end, after the travails of this life, we will see how all of our memories, all of our joys and sorrows, gave glory to the living God, so long as we accept all things as coming from His hand.

Ocotober 31, 2014

As a thought experiment, I will sometimes ask people what their first impression is when they see a police car (here, in Ontario, an O.P.P. vehicle).  Almost invariably, the answer is ‘fear’.  I find this curious, that we fear those who are deputed by the State to ‘protect and serve’, as indeed they should, for they are our employees, who should stand in harm’s way when harm comes our way.

I think this fear has two principal causes:  The hyper-militarization of the police, and the growing extent of law to cover more and more of our daily lives.

Consider the first:  I would have no real problem with the police dressing and acting like Robocop if indeed a significant segment of the population were wreaking harm and havoc, and had to stopped by brute force, with the real danger of immediate and violent death, as we may witness daily in northern Iraq.

Most of us here in Canada have little cause for such militarized police protection; we are blessed to live rather tranquil lives (outside of certain urban locales, like Jane and Finch in TO).  The murder rate in Canada, and the rate of violent crime in general, is lower than almost anywhere else in the world, with the exception perhaps of a few geriatric European socialist states like Denmark and Sweden.  Most of us, however, generally law-abiding citizens that we are, just want to get on with our daily lives, yet find ourselves living in a state of almost perpetual tension whenever a cop car drives by.  The police, in general, spend most of their time policing about 2% of the population, and the rest of it policing ‘us’, their employers.

The second problem, the growing extent of law to cover more and more of our daily actions, exacerbates the first.  Thomas Aquinas asks whether the law of the State should forbid all vices; when I ask my students this question, many respond with an ‘of course!’, not realizing that ‘vice’ implies any deviation from the moral law.  The State, of course, cannot possibly forbid every single ‘sin’, for the obvious reason that such a task would be impossible or at least far outreach the proper sphere of the State.  Imagine a law against ‘lustful thoughts’ (although we may be getting close with some extreme sexual harassment lawsuits).  What of cussing?  (Although even here we have censorship laws in public broadcasting).  Or of smoking in public?  This problem is even worse in the U.S., where the government department responsible for collecting student tuition debt apparently has its own S.W.A.T. team.  And don’t forget, that student debt is the only kind not open to being forgiven by declaring bankruptcy.  They will find you.

The difficulty with the any law of the State is that the whole power of the State stands behind them (which include the capacity and right to inflict harmful and ultimately lethal punishment).  Some things we do not want enforced by men (and, alas, now women) with 9mm semiautomatic SIG Sauer P226 handguns and bulletproof vests (just for starters; their arsenal includes far more than this).  Robocop should be reserved for situations that require, well, robocop.

One may recall the scene from the eponymous 1987 film, wherein the cyborg police officer (who looks a lot like a modern cop in riot gear, but with a bit more ‘artificial’ intelligence) fires upon a perpetrator breaking public smoking laws.  In the movie, it’s due to a flaw in the hierarchical nature of his circuitry in distinguishing ‘real’ crime from indiscretions.

In modern policing, the problem is more complex, as there are real humans involved, with their own conscience, fears and insecurities.  But a big part of the difficulty lies with the fact that all laws must, in the end, be equally enforced, for to ignore one law is to ignore them all.   Back to Thomas:  He answers his own question on the extent of law by stating that public law should only forbid those things which truly harm other people, without which society could not function, such as ‘murder and theft and the like’.  Otherwise, if the people are kept under too strict control by a multitude of minute laws, they will burst forth into even greater evils, either in secret, fostering a black market and hoping not to get caught, or eventually in public, citing rebellion and, ultimately, revolution.

Ponder my previous entry on underage and public drinking laws which, like the more draconian Prohibition earlier this century, simply drove drinking underground, and made everyone a criminal.  Now, if you are like most of us and drive a vehicle, you are basically always breaking the law.  How many of us actually drive 100 km/h on the 401, or 80 on the secondary highways?  Try setting your cruise control at those speeds, and feel the angry wind, and gestures, of all the cars blowing past you.  Someone I know was recently stopped here in the sleepy small town where I live for not stopping for a full three seconds at a stop sign.  Do we really want Robocop enforcing children’s bicycle helmet laws? (to say nothing of the coming adult helmet laws, already in force out east)

As one police officer in the U.S. put in during an apparently illegal and reckless military-style bust of a hairstyling salon, for some unidentified violation, when confronted by one of the owners with the question ‘what did we do?’, he replied ‘It’s a big book, m’am, and we can always find something to put you in jail’.  The miseducated officer unwittingly summed up the problem.

By putting the law back into its proper perspective, the actions of the police will, hopefully, follow, for they are deputed, one presumes, to uphold the law.   Growth in the extent of law, has led to a metastization of policing in this country (and, indeed, throughout the world), as we pay  their (our?) expensive military-grade equipment, along with the ever-increasing and unsupportable salaries, perks and early pensions.   If this uncontrolled growth is not halted, Robocop may well show up one day at your door, demanding you put out that cigarillo.  Who knows?  As Saint Thomas more or less warns, he may one day find there’s a Clint Eastwood behind that cigar, ready to live free or die.

Or to use an analogy from Marvel comics, society itself may become like Bruce Banner pushed too far, turning into some raging green monster.

But, then again, perhaps that is just what they are preparing for.

October 13, 2014