JK Rowling on the fringe benefits of failure

“How happy are the blameless vestal’s lot, the world forgetting, by the world forgot”

I was having a conversation with a student after class, who mentioned that Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is his favourite movie. In a nutshell, his question was whether the use of a memory removal machine – in which the characters in the film undergo in a bid to whitewash the heartache, bitterness and disappointment of relationships – was a good thing. What would be left of man if we all allowed our memories to be erased, in his words, to a “spotless sheen”? 

Some questions to wrap your mind around:

1. The philosopher John Locke, in one of the first modern accountings of consciousness and identity, argued that personal identity is defined not by the physical body or the “soul”, but by repeated self-identification. Thus, according to Locke, memory is an integral aspect of the self. Are Clementine and Joel (Kate Winslet and Jim Carey, the leads in the movie) different people after they have their memories erased? In other words, have their identities changed in some meaningful way?

2. Consider that elective plastic surgery might be a real-life analogue to the memory-erasing procedure. On the American TV show “Extreme Makeover”, people are given plastic surgery as part of a radical image upgrade. Do these peoples’ identities change in any meaningful way when their bodies are changed?