http://www.aisjca-mft.org/guilt-free.htm

  1.                   <h3><font face="Garamond"><a name="world-without-regret"></a>New
  2. Science Raises the Specter of a
  3. World Without
  4. Regret</font></h3>
  5.                   <h1 align="center"><font face="Garamond"><a href="http://www.villagevoice.com/news/"><img src="voice_logo.gif" title="" alt="VOICE logo" style="border: 0px solid ; width: 174px; height: 59px;"></a></font></h1>
  6.                   <h3 style="text-align: center;"><font face="Garamond">The
  7. Guilt-Free
  8. Soldier by <a href="http://www.kurzweilai.net/erik-baard">Erik
  9. Baard</a></font></h3>
  10.                   <font face="Garamond">January 22 - 28,
  11. 2003 Copyright
  12. © 2003 <a href="http://www.villagevoice.com/news/" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Village Voice
  13. Media</a>,
  14. Inc.,
  15. 36 Cooper Square, New York, NY 10003 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Village_Voice" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">The Village
  16. Voice and
  17. Voice</a> are
  18. registered
  19. trademarks. All rights reserved.&nbsp; </font>
  20.                   <p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="Garamond">A
  21. soldier faces a
  22. drab cluster of buildings
  23. off a
  24. broken highway, where the enemy is encamped among civilians. Local
  25. farmers and their families are routinely forced to fill the basements
  26. and shacks, acting as human shields for weapons that threaten the lives
  27. of other civilians, the soldier's comrades, and his cause in this messy
  28. 21st-century war.&nbsp; <br>
  29. There will be no surgical strikes tonight.
  30. The
  31. artillery this soldier can unleash with a single command to his mobile
  32. computer will bring flames and screaming, deafening blasts and
  33. unforgettably
  34. acrid air. The ground around him will be littered with the broken
  35. bodies
  36. of women and children, and he'll have to walk right through. Every
  37. value
  38. he learned as a boy tells him to back down, to return to base and find
  39. another way of routing the enemy. <br>
  40. Or, he reasons, he could complete the task
  41. and
  42. rush back to </font><font color="#cc0022" face="Garamond"><span style="font-weight: bold;">start
  43. popping
  44. pills</span> </font><font face="Garamond">that
  45. can, over the course of two weeks, </font><font style="font-weight: bold;" color="#cc0022" face="Garamond">immunize
  46. him
  47. against a lifetime of crushing remorse</font><font face="Garamond">. He
  48. draws
  49. one last
  50. clean
  51. breath and fires.&nbsp; <br>
  52. Pills like those won't be available to the
  53. troops
  54. heading off for possible war with Iraq, but </font><font color="#cc0022" face="Garamond"><span style="font-weight: bold;">the
  55. prospect of a soul absolved by meds remains very real. Feelings of
  56. guilt
  57. and regret travel neural pathways in a manner that mimics the tracings
  58. of ingrained fear, so a PROPHILACTIC against one could guard against
  59. the
  60. other</span>.</font><font face="Garamond">
  61. Several current lines of
  62. research,
  63. some
  64. federally
  65. funded,
  66. show strong promise for this.&nbsp; <br>
  67. At the <a href="http://www.berkeley.edu/" style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">University of
  68. California</a>
  69. at Irvine,
  70. experiments
  71. in rats indicate that the brain's hormonal </font><font color="#cc0047" face="Garamond">reactions
  72. to fear can be inhibited, softening the formation of memories and the
  73. emotions
  74. they evoke</font><font face="Garamond">.&nbsp; <br>
  75. At <a href="http://www.nyu.edu/" style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">New York
  76. University</a>,
  77. researchers are
  78. mastering
  79. the means of short-circuiting the very wiring of primal fear. At <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/" style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Columbia
  80. University</a> one Nobel laureate's lab has discovered the gene
  81. behind
  82. a
  83. fear-inhibiting
  84. protein, uncovering a vision of <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">fight
  85. or flight</span> at the molecular
  86. level.
  87. In Puerto Rico, at the <a href="http://www.psm.edu" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Ponce School
  88. of Medicine</a>,
  89. scientists are
  90. discovering </font><font color="#cc0022" face="Garamond">ways
  91. to help the brain unlearn fear and inhibitions by stimulating it with
  92. magnets</font><font face="Garamond">.
  93. And at <a href="http://www.harvard.edu/"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Harvard
  94. University</span></a>,
  95. survivors of car accidents are already
  96. swallowing
  97. propranolol pills, in the first human trials of that common cardiac
  98. drug
  99. as a means to </font><font style="font-weight: bold;" color="#cc0022" face="Garamond">nip
  100. the
  101. effects of trauma in
  102. the
  103. bud</font><font face="Garamond">.&nbsp; <br>
  104.                   </font> </p>
  105.                   <div style="text-align: justify;"><font face="Garamond">The web of </font><font color="#cc0022" face="Garamond">your
  106. worst
  107. nightmares, your hauntings and panics and SHAME, radiates</font><font face="Garamond">
  108. from
  109. a dense knot of neurons called the amygdala. With each new frightening
  110. or humiliating experience, or even the reliving of an old one, this
  111. fear
  112. center triggers a release of hormones that sear horrifying impressions
  113. into your brain. That which is unbearable becomes unforgettable too.
  114. Unless,
  115. it seems, you act quickly enough to block traumatic memories from
  116. taking
  117. a stranglehold.&nbsp; <br>
  118. Some observers say that in
  119. the name of human decency there are some things people should have
  120. to
  121. live with.<br>
  122.                   <span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">They
  123. object to the
  124. idea of medicating away one's
  125. conscience</span>. <br>
  126.                   </font> </div>
  127.                   <font style="font-family: mistral;" size="+2">It's
  128. the
  129. morning-after
  130. pill for just about anything that produces REGRET, REMORSE, pain, or
  131. GUILT </font><font face="Garamond">says <a href="https://bioethicsarchive.georgetown.edu/pcbe/about/kass.html" style="font-weight: bold;">Dr.
  132. Leon Kass</a>,
  133. chairman of the <a href="http://www.bioethics.gov/"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">President's
  134. Council on
  135. Bioethics</span></a>, who emphasizes that
  136. he's
  137. speaking as an individual and not on behalf of the council.<br>
  138.                   <br>
  139.                   <a href="http://www.vvaw.org/veteran/article/?id=832&amp;hilite=barry+romo"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Barry Romo</span></a>,
  140. a national
  141. coordinator for <a href="http://www.vvaw.org/" style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Vietnam
  142. Veterans Against the War</a>, is even more blunt. </font>
  143.                   <div style="margin-left: 40px; font-family: mistral; text-align: justify;"><font style="font-family: mistral;" face="Garamond" size="+2">That's
  144. the <font color="#cc0022">DEVIL
  145. PILL</font></font><font face="Garamond"> <span style="font-style: italic;">he
  146. says.</span> </font><font style="font-family: mistral;" face="Garamond" size="+2">That's
  147. the monster
  148. pill, the ANTI-MORALITY pill. That's the pill that can make men and
  149. women
  150. do anything and think they can get away with it. Even if it doesn't
  151. work,
  152. what's scary is that a young soldier could believe it will.&nbsp;
  153. Are
  154. we ready
  155. for the
  156. infamous Nuremberg plea</font><font face="Garamond"> <br style="font-style: italic;">
  157.                   </font> </div>
  158.                   <div style="text-align: justify;"> </div>
  159.                   <div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><font face="Garamond"><span style="font-family: mistral;">&#8212;</span></font><font style="font-family: mistral;" face="Garamond" size="+2">
  160. I was just
  161. following
  162. order<br>
  163. &#8212;</font><font face="Garamond"><span style="font-family: mistral;">&nbsp;
  164.                  </span></font><font style="font-family: mistral;" face="Garamond" size="+2">to
  165. be made
  166. easier
  167. with pharmaceuticals?</font><font style="font-family: mistral; font-style: italic;" face="Garamond" size="+2"> </font><font face="Garamond"><br style="font-family: mistral;">
  168.                   </font> <font style="font-family: mistral;" face="Garamond" size="+2">Though
  169. the research
  170. so far has been
  171. limited
  172. to animals and the most preliminary of human trials, the question is
  173. worth
  174. debating now.&nbsp; </font><font face="Garamond"><br>
  175.                   <br>
  176.                   </font> </div>
  177.                   <div style="text-align: justify;"> </div>
  178.                   <div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><font style="font-family: mistral;" face="Garamond" size="+2">If
  179. you have
  180. the pill, it certainly
  181. increases
  182. the temptation for the soldier to lower the standard for taking lethal
  183. action, if he thinks he'll be numbed to the personal risk of
  184. consequences. <font color="#cc0022">We
  185. don't want soldiers saying willy-nilly, 'Screw it. I can take my
  186. pill
  187. and even if doing this is not really warranted, I'll be OK'</font></font><font face="Garamond"><span style="font-family: garamond;">
  188. says psychiatrist <a href="http://www.healthgrades.com/physician/dr-edmund-howe-2qhd7" style="font-weight: bold;">Edmund G. Howe</a>,
  189. director of the <a href="http://www.usuhs.mil/psy/" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Program on
  190. Medical
  191. Ethics at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences</a>.</span>
  192.                   </font><font style="font-family: mistral;" face="Garamond" size="+2">If
  193. soldiers are going to have that lower threshold, we might have to build
  194. in even stronger safeguards than we have right now against, say,
  195. blowing
  196. away human shields. We'll need a higher standard of proof [that an
  197. action
  198. is justified].</font><font face="Garamond"> <br>
  199.                   </font> </div>
  200.                   <div style="text-align: justify;"> </div>
  201.                   <p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="Garamond"><span style="font-family: garamond;">The
  202. scientists behind this advance </span></font><font style="font-family: garamond; font-weight: bold;" color="#cc0022" face="Garamond">into
  203. the shadows of memory and fear don't dream of creating morally
  204. anesthetized
  205. grunts</font><font face="Garamond"><span style="font-family: garamond;">.
  206. They're trying to
  207. fend off </span><span style="font-family: garamond;"><a href="mal.htm" style="font-style: italic;">post-traumatic
  208. stress disorder,
  209. or
  210. PTSD</a></span><span style="font-family: garamond;">,
  211. so that</span></font><font style="font-family: garamond;" color="#cc0022" face="Garamond"> </font><font style="font-family: garamond; font-weight: bold;" color="#cc0022" face="Garamond">women
  212. who've been raped</font><font face="Garamond"><span style="font-family: garamond;">
  213. can leave
  214. their
  215. houses
  216. without
  217. feeling like targets. So that survivors of terrorist attacks can
  218. function,
  219. raise families, and move forward. And yes, so that those </span></font><font style="font-family: garamond; color: rgb(204, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;" color="#cc0022" face="Garamond">young
  220. soldiers aren't left shattered for decades by what they've seen and
  221. done
  222. in service</font><font face="Garamond"><span style="font-family: garamond;">.&nbsp; </span><br style="font-family: garamond;">
  223.                   <span style="font-family: garamond;">Combat
  224. and
  225. psychoactive chemicals have
  226. always
  227. been inseparable, whether the agent was alcohol or a space-age pill. A
  228. half-century
  229. after Japan hopped its soldiers up on </span><b><font style="font-family: garamond;" color="#cc0022"><a href="/adhd.htm">methylamphetamines</a></font></b><span style="font-family: garamond;">
  230. during </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: garamond;">World
  231. War
  232. II</span><span style="font-family: garamond;">, the
  233. U.S. has pilots
  234. currently in the dock for
  235. mistakenly
  236. bombing Canadian troops while using speed to stay awake. When </span><a href="http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2000/kandel-autobio.html" style="font-weight: bold; font-family: garamond;">Eric
  237. Kandel,
  238. the Nobel laureate in medicine</a><span style="font-family: garamond;">
  239. who works out of Columbia, was
  240. asked
  241. if
  242. his </span><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC193636/" style="font-weight: bold; font-family: garamond;">genetic
  243. exploration
  244. of fear</a><span style="font-family: garamond;">
  245. was funded
  246. by the </span><a href="http://www.darpa.mil/default.aspx" style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: garamond;">Pentagon's
  247. Defense
  248. Advanced
  249. Research Projects Agency</a><span style="font-family: garamond;">, he
  250. quipped,</span> <br>
  251.                   </font> </p>
  252.                   <div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><font style="font-family: mistral;" face="Garamond" size="+2">No,
  253. but
  254. you're welcome to call
  255. them
  256. and tell them about me.</font><font face="Garamond"> <br>
  257.                   </font> </div>
  258.                   <div style="text-align: justify;"> </div>
  259.                   <p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="Garamond">Imagine
  260. a world where </font><font style="font-weight: bold;" color="#cc0022" face="Garamond">the
  261. same pill soothed victims and perpetrators alike</font><font face="Garamond">.<br>
  262.                   </font> </p>
  263.                   <div style="text-align: justify;"> <font face="Garamond"><a href="http://www.transcendentalists.com/1thorea.html" style="font-weight: bold;">Henry
  264. David Thoreau</a> advised, </font><font style="font-family: mistral;" face="Garamond" size="+2">Make
  265. the most
  266. of your regrets; <span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">never
  267. smother
  268. your sorrow</span>... To regret deeply is to
  269. live afresh.</font><font face="Garamond"><br>
  270. Without remorse, there
  271. would have been
  272. no <a href="http://www.joyfulheart.com/misc/newton.htm" style="font-weight: bold;">John
  273. Newton</a>, a slave trader who found religion during a harrowing
  274. storm
  275. at
  276. sea
  277. and later became an abolitionist; he's best known for penning <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmhqszfmLu8" style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Amazing
  278. Grace</a>. <br>
  279.                   </font> </div>
  280.                   <p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="Garamond">For
  281. doctors, the
  282. drugs would present a
  283. tricky
  284. dilemma. Most people exposed to traumatic situations don't end up with <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">PTSD</span>,
  285. but there are few means of knowing on the spot who might need treatment
  286. much further down the line. Researchers say that for the medicines to
  287. be
  288. effective, patients would need to take them soon after the upsetting
  289. event. </font><font style="font-weight: bold;" color="#cc0022" face="Garamond">The
  290. temptation for physicians might be to err on the side of caution, at
  291. the
  292. cost of curbing normal emotional responses</font><font face="Garamond">.
  293. Victims might be
  294. eager to avoid lasting pain, wrongdoers the full sting of
  295. self-examination.&nbsp; <br>
  296.                   </font> </p>
  297.                   <div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><font style="font-family: mistral;" face="Garamond" size="+2">The
  298. impulse
  299. is to help people to not
  300. fall
  301. apart.
  302. You don't want to condemn that,</font><font style="font-family: garamond;" face="Garamond"> says <a href="http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/2009-05/Interview.html" style="font-weight: bold;">Kass</a>.</font><font style="font-family: mistral;" face="Garamond" size="+2"> <font color="#cc0022">B</font><font color="#cc0022">ut
  303. that you would treat these things with equanimity, the horrible things
  304. of the world</font></font><font style="font-family: mistral;" face="Garamond" size="+2">,
  305. so that they don't disturb you ... you'd cease to be a
  306. human being., </font><font face="Garamond"><br>
  307.                   </font> </div>
  308.                   <div style="text-align: justify;"> </div>
  309.                   <p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="Garamond">The
  310. very idea of <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">PTSD</span>
  311. has been
  312. attacked as
  313. a
  314. social construction, a vague catchall that provides </font><font style="font-weight: bold;" color="#cc0022" face="Garamond">EXCULPATION</font><font face="Garamond">
  315. for the misdeeds of war. But </font><font style="font-weight: bold;" color="#cc0022" face="Garamond">researchers
  316. are
  317. trying
  318. to prevent the onset of a disease, not change the social circumstances
  319. that bring it about</font><font face="Garamond">. <a href="http://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=2140" style="font-weight: bold;">James L. McGaugh</a>, a
  320. neurobiologist at <a href="http://www.uci.edu/" style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">U.C.
  321. Irvine</a> whose study of stress hormones and memory
  322. consolidation in
  323. rats
  324. is one of the cornerstones of the effort, acknowledges the ambiguities
  325. but comes out swinging in defense of his work. <br>
  326.                   </font> </p>
  327.                   <div style="text-align: justify;"> </div>
  328.                   <div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><font style="font-family: mistral;" face="Garamond" size="+2">Is
  329. it immoral
  330. to weaken
  331. the memory of horrendous acts a person has committed? Well, I suppose
  332. one
  333. might make that case. Some of your strongest memories are of
  334. embarrassments
  335. and of the guilty things you did. It doesn't surprise me at all that
  336. people
  337. would wake up screaming, thinking of the young children they killed in
  338. Vietnam,</font><font face="Garamond"> McGaugh says. </font><font style="font-family: mistral;" face="Garamond" size="+2">But
  339. is
  340. treating that worse than saying,
  341. 'Don't
  342. worry if your leg is shot off, we've got penicillin and surgery to
  343. prevent
  344. you from dying of infection'? Why is it any worse to give them a drug
  345. that
  346. prevents them from having PSTD for the rest of their lives? The moral
  347. dilemma
  348. is sending people to war in the first place.</font><font face="Garamond">
  349.                   <br>
  350.                   </font> </div>
  351.                   <div style="text-align: justify;"> </div>
  352.                   <p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="Garamond">Nevertheless,
  353. fellow
  354. fear
  355. researcher <a href="http://biology.uprrp.edu/people/view_employee.php?id=307" style="font-weight: bold;">Dr.
  356. Gregory
  357. Quirk</a> of the <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Ponce
  358. School of Medicine</span>, in Puerto Rico, is troubled by
  359. how
  360. his work might be used if it progressed from studies of rats to
  361. therapies
  362. for humans. He argues that fear isn't created and&nbsp; degraded in
  363. the
  364. amygdala alone, but is also unlearned in the prefrontal cortex, which
  365. in <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">PTSD</span>
  366. patients is only weakly active. Quirk thinks a physician could
  367. stimulate
  368. those areas with magnets while patients view the images they fear, and
  369. could thus restore balance to the mind.<br>
  370.                   </font> </p>
  371.                   <div style="text-align: justify;"> </div>
  372.                   <div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><font face="Garamond">&nbsp;</font><font style="font-family: mistral;" face="Garamond" size="+2">With
  373. that
  374. same method,</font><font face="Garamond"> he says, </font><font style="font-family: mistral;" face="Garamond" size="+2">firemen
  375. could
  376. stave
  377. off episodes of life-threatening panic.</font><font face="Garamond"> </font><font style="font-family: mistral;" face="Garamond" size="+2">Certainly
  378. the military might be interested in something like that,</font><font face="Garamond">
  379. he
  380. says. </font><font style="font-family: mistral;" face="Garamond" size="+2">If
  381. this would be used to go against fear that's important for survival or
  382. morality, I would have a problem with that.</font><font face="Garamond">
  383.                   <br>
  384.                   </font> </div>
  385.                   <div style="text-align: justify;"> </div>
  386.                   <p style="text-align: justify;"><font face="Garamond">There
  387. are reasons to
  388. believe our
  389. military
  390. would
  391. covet mastery of Quirk's technique in humans.<br>
  392.                   </font> <font style="font-weight: bold;" color="#cc0022" face="Garamond">People
  393. at war dehumanize their enemies to make killing more palatable</font><font face="Garamond">.
  394. Now, in
  395. the war on terror, our modern cultural taboos against torture are
  396. fraying. <br>
  397. Put yourself in the room then. The
  398. commission
  399. of heinous acts, even deliberate torture, can also visit lifelong
  400. torment on
  401. perpetrators
  402.  
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