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Interesting Article
Christianity Today talks about torture. Now, not being a Christian, and not finding scripture a compelling arguement for anything, I can't say that I agree with all the reasoning within the article, or some of the conclusions that it draws, but I'm for the overreaching statement: it's not okay to torture. Ever.
While I would argue this from the stance of compassion, human dignity, and principles of universal justice (because someone behaves in an unjust way towards you does NOT ever make it okay to behave unjustly towards them), I would also argue it from the corruptive psychological effect that permitting such acts has on individuals and societies.
Human beings are many things. But three of the biggest are: social, pattern-making, egocentric narrativists. We move in groups, we yearn for the approval and acceptance of the group. We need to create meaning from events, and form patterns from the past to inform the present and the future. And we're each living a narrative in our head which says that we, and that which we identify, are good, and right, and true. There are very, very few individuals who can live without the companionship of others. And there are even fewer who can accept every event as an individual occurence without any relationship to the future or other events. And I don't know of anyone who doesn't rewrite the past to make themselves the good guy, who doesn't find it hard to admit doing wrong, or pointing out the flaws of their own group.
What this means is that we have a tendency to justify what we do, incorporate it into our standard operating procedure, /and/ communicate those new mores to the people around us. And the more extreme the action, the more likely we are to justify it and seek to get others to approve of it, or hide it if we can't get that approval. And once a relationship has been changed to incorporate a new behavior, it's /extremely/ hard to place boundaries on that behavior or bar it again. In addition, as each new occurrance is justified, pushing the behavior to more extreme ends becomes easier and easier.
The prisoner/warden relationship is especially vulnerable to a vicious downwards spiral. For one, it's a huge power imbalance...the prisoner has no real power to resist the warden, and power on that level is intoxicating. For another, the prisoner is operating under a cultural assumption that he is there to be punished...even if, as in many of the cases of our current 'detanees', the prisoner has not be charged with any crime or wrongdoing and there is no evidence that they've done anything but be in the wrong place, at the wrong time. This creates an atmosphere where 'punishment' can easily slip over to 'abuse', especially considering the highly emotional components of the current situation, and the stress that the wardens--who in general are soldiers with no or little training in managing prisons or prisoners, and who often don't speak the same language as their prisoners and have inadequate knowledge of their prisoners' cultures--are under. And once a single incident of abuse takes place, the only way to keep it from spreading and escalating is for there to be strong rules and consequences rigidly enforced by superiors.
Instead, what we have are situations where the rules are inadequate or contradictory, where superiors or those outside the chain of command are covertly encouraging abuse (then leaving their subordinates hanging out to dry when someone finally gets appalled), and an environment of dehumanization is encouraged. And that spreads to the wider society, as the rest of the culture works to justify the acts of 'our' people, coming up with ways to make such actions true and right, and allowing a creeping acceptance of those things as, if not admirable, at least acceptable or unavoidable. Because, like it or not, it's not a large step to becoming an abuser for any of us, as long as we can justify the actions to ourselves. And the more exceptions we allow, the more exceptions will present themselves. Especially when and if the people in authority are encouraging or allowing such acts. Look up the Milgram obedience study and the Zimbardo prison study for some of these principles in practice in a laboratory setting. But it's easy to see just about anywhere in real life. History, or the present...we adapt to what has happened. If a violation of the norm is not immediately and strongly condemned, it becomes a possibility. From a possibility, it becomes a probability.
The question from there becomes: do we wish to become a society where torture is okay? Is /this/ behavior one that we want to be known for, as individuals (for we are always judged by the company we keep and the groups we belong to) and as a society? Justice and torture are not things that can coeexist, in my opinion. We can become known for one, or for the other. Unfortunately, I believe that it is more likely, on the path we're taking, that it will be the latter.
While I would argue this from the stance of compassion, human dignity, and principles of universal justice (because someone behaves in an unjust way towards you does NOT ever make it okay to behave unjustly towards them), I would also argue it from the corruptive psychological effect that permitting such acts has on individuals and societies.
Human beings are many things. But three of the biggest are: social, pattern-making, egocentric narrativists. We move in groups, we yearn for the approval and acceptance of the group. We need to create meaning from events, and form patterns from the past to inform the present and the future. And we're each living a narrative in our head which says that we, and that which we identify, are good, and right, and true. There are very, very few individuals who can live without the companionship of others. And there are even fewer who can accept every event as an individual occurence without any relationship to the future or other events. And I don't know of anyone who doesn't rewrite the past to make themselves the good guy, who doesn't find it hard to admit doing wrong, or pointing out the flaws of their own group.
What this means is that we have a tendency to justify what we do, incorporate it into our standard operating procedure, /and/ communicate those new mores to the people around us. And the more extreme the action, the more likely we are to justify it and seek to get others to approve of it, or hide it if we can't get that approval. And once a relationship has been changed to incorporate a new behavior, it's /extremely/ hard to place boundaries on that behavior or bar it again. In addition, as each new occurrance is justified, pushing the behavior to more extreme ends becomes easier and easier.
The prisoner/warden relationship is especially vulnerable to a vicious downwards spiral. For one, it's a huge power imbalance...the prisoner has no real power to resist the warden, and power on that level is intoxicating. For another, the prisoner is operating under a cultural assumption that he is there to be punished...even if, as in many of the cases of our current 'detanees', the prisoner has not be charged with any crime or wrongdoing and there is no evidence that they've done anything but be in the wrong place, at the wrong time. This creates an atmosphere where 'punishment' can easily slip over to 'abuse', especially considering the highly emotional components of the current situation, and the stress that the wardens--who in general are soldiers with no or little training in managing prisons or prisoners, and who often don't speak the same language as their prisoners and have inadequate knowledge of their prisoners' cultures--are under. And once a single incident of abuse takes place, the only way to keep it from spreading and escalating is for there to be strong rules and consequences rigidly enforced by superiors.
Instead, what we have are situations where the rules are inadequate or contradictory, where superiors or those outside the chain of command are covertly encouraging abuse (then leaving their subordinates hanging out to dry when someone finally gets appalled), and an environment of dehumanization is encouraged. And that spreads to the wider society, as the rest of the culture works to justify the acts of 'our' people, coming up with ways to make such actions true and right, and allowing a creeping acceptance of those things as, if not admirable, at least acceptable or unavoidable. Because, like it or not, it's not a large step to becoming an abuser for any of us, as long as we can justify the actions to ourselves. And the more exceptions we allow, the more exceptions will present themselves. Especially when and if the people in authority are encouraging or allowing such acts. Look up the Milgram obedience study and the Zimbardo prison study for some of these principles in practice in a laboratory setting. But it's easy to see just about anywhere in real life. History, or the present...we adapt to what has happened. If a violation of the norm is not immediately and strongly condemned, it becomes a possibility. From a possibility, it becomes a probability.
The question from there becomes: do we wish to become a society where torture is okay? Is /this/ behavior one that we want to be known for, as individuals (for we are always judged by the company we keep and the groups we belong to) and as a society? Justice and torture are not things that can coeexist, in my opinion. We can become known for one, or for the other. Unfortunately, I believe that it is more likely, on the path we're taking, that it will be the latter.
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Pop Quiz: You have just captured a terrorist who has planted a nuclear device in the middle of Washington. It's on a 60-minute timer and the clock is ticking. Do your morals allow you to question the man by legal means only and let Washington D.C. go Boom if he won't talk, or do you break out the thumbscrews and car batteries to make him talk before time runs out?
(I know that's a melodramatic argument, but it makes my point.)
For instance, I believe that killing is wrong, yet sometimes it needs to be done for the "greater good". I also recognize that this can lead to a very slippery slope. The world is painted in shades of grey, and I don't know if there is any rule that should /never/ be broken. Sometimes all your choices are bad ones, and it's a matter of choosing which poison you want to swallow.
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I remember when I was trying to find "OMG D&D IS TEH EVIL" articles for a speech, and the Christianity Today article was distressingly neutral.
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