Researchers experimenting with a new drug have been able to erase certain memories. While it might be nice to forget certain traumatic events, what about the ethical implications of, say, removing the memory of a crime?
Yet any such drug, Dr. Hyman and others argue, could be misused to erase or block memories of bad behavior, even of crimes. If traumatic memories are like malicious stalkers, then troubling memories — and a healthy dread of them — form the foundation of a moral conscience.
I've long suspected such a drug was around and being taken by many people in government and journalism. At least that's one explanation for their apparent ignorance of history.
(The New York Times, via
