So, Just What *Is* Torture?
POSTED BY: perfessergee
UPDATED: Monday, August 29, 2005 10:55
VIEWED: 11212
PAGE 10 of 10
Quote:What is it that makes you so tired?
Just because I don't follow the "Bush is always wrong" dogma doesn't mean I believe Bush is always right. I just get tired of the constant bashing.
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"This part is confusing to me. It sure looks like you're trying to say that if there's a ticking nuke somewhere the soldier who tortures another soldier is akin to your "sportsman torturer" rather than a "criminal torturer?" Please tell me my inference is wrong and you aren't trying to say that torture for the right reason isn't really torture."
That's just my point, Cavalier. Torture is Torture. Discomfort applied to a subject to glean a desired result. It's quite broad, but properly so. You see, the soldier who tortures another soldier is a torturer, regardless of the circumstances.
And, brother, if a man goes up to you, grabs you, twists your arm until you're in agony, and demands your money... he's a bloody criminal. I don't care where it happens.
I have, in fact, wrestled. When I wrestled, it was an elective in college, and it was a Japanese form. Two people grappled until one of them surrendered. Merely incapacitating the opponent wasn't usually enough to illicit surrender. Discomfort was the key factor that caused someone to 'tap out.' The application of inescapable discomfort is rather the point of wrestling. (At least when I did it.)
However, torture itself doesn't need to be classed as 'good' or 'evil' or 'right' or 'wrong.' Most people would class killing as an evil act, but I can think of lots of good uses for it. Killing isn't killing only when you do it for the wrong reasons.
Right and wrong are terms best left to circumstances of an act, not the act itself.
That having been said, I can think of only fanciful and unlikely scenarios where the torturing of a captured enemy for information is anything but a heinous crime.
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
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Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
When I wrestled, it was an elective in college, and it was a Japanese form. Two people grappled until one of them surrendered. Merely incapacitating the opponent wasn't usually enough to illicit surrender. Discomfort was the key factor that caused someone to 'tap out.'
I believe the operative words there are 'tap out'.
I.e. choose to end it...
You think that anyone is ever given a choice to tap out during a torture session?
Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Right and wrong are terms best left to circumstances of an act, not the act itself.
That having been said, I can think of only fanciful and unlikely scenarios where the torturing of a captured enemy for information is anything but a heinous crime.
Or maybe toture is always wrong, just in your scenarios its the lesser of too evils?
Q: What do you have when you are holding two little green balls in your hand.
A: Kermit's undivided attention.
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"Or maybe toture is always wrong, just in your scenarios its the lesser of too evils?"
It sounds as though you and Cavalier are advocating an element to be added to the definition of torture. For instance:
Discomfort applied to an unwilling subject.
Unwilling is a better word than innocent, because it's less subjective.
Still, I maintain that there are instances of consensual torture, which would make the 'unwilling' portion moot. I also maintain that there are non criminal applications of torture in everyday society.
I don't think that torture is always wrong, but it is often the lesser of two evils.
Restraining a person often causes a significant amount of discomfort or pain, but it is frequently the 'lesser of two evils.' Of course, I'm not sure that it's evil at all in many cases, nor wrong at all.
Torturing an enemy for information. This continues to be our focus. And it continues to be a bad idea. It continues to be wrong, except in fanciful television drama scenarios.
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
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Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
It sounds as though you and Cavalier are advocating an element to be added to the definition of torture. For instance:
Discomfort applied to an unwilling subject.
It not only sounds like it, it reads like it:
Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
The crucially missing element [of your definition] is the power differential and the absolute lack of consent by the victim.
I kinda get the feeling that you didn't read my whole post (you know, there's nothing wrong with that--I can't get through some of the posts I read on here either--but if you're going to refute a guy's argument you oughta finish reading it first). I stated my simple definition thus: taking a helpless victim and hurting them.
Let me clarify my definition: though a lack of consent is often present, it needn't be. Consent is moot in the face of the power differential inherent to torture. Furthermore, If consent is all that's needed to escape the definition of torture, then all you have to do is torture a person until they consent. You read 1984, right? Would you say that once Winston Smith accepts his torturer's actions as right and good and thanks Big Brother for torturing him for the good of the Party, it really isn't torture anymore? Torture does some very effed up things to your psyche. When you are wholly in another's power, you eventually become very concerned about that person's needs and feelings and eventually you come to care about them as if your life depended on it (because, of course, they've convinced you that it does--through torture btw); you revert to the state of an abused child for whom loving is the only means of survival. The subjective experience of the victim is not, as you and Geezer would like to think, a defining aspect of torture.
Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Unwilling is a better word than innocent, because it's less subjective.
Innocence has nothing to do with it. It's a total macguffin used by torture apologists to accuse folks like me of colusion with the victim. "You care more about the terrorist than the lives of 1,800 American soldiers and civilians!" I don't care if you're torturing Adolf Hitler, torture is torture. It is never justified by the former actions of the victim. Once a person is wholly in your power and at your mercy the only moral course of action is to be merciful. Torture is a tool of coercion merely, never a just punishment for one's crimes.
Quote:
Still, I maintain that there are instances of consensual torture, which would make the 'unwilling' portion moot. I also maintain that there are non criminal applications of torture in everyday society.
Why, AnthonyT, do you maintain these things? What does it serve? Torture is a big issue these days. The question of whether or not what went on at Abu Graib etc. was torture is a major concern of people around the world. All your argument does is deny the validity of the question entirely: "Is it torture? Sure it is, but so's wrestling and (as Geezer would say) so's S&M sex play and getting a flu shot or just being alive. Next!" What does it serve to think as you do?
Quote:
I don't think that torture is always wrong, but it is often the lesser of two evils.
By your empty definition, how could it ever be wrong? To your mind, this "torture" is never the problem but the intent and severity of it might in extreme cases be an issue.
The weird thing in all this, AnthonyT, is that you seem to think the real torture that we're all talking about here is wrong anyway, so I don't see why you're insisting on this outragiously watered down definition of torture that only serves its apologists.
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Restraining a person often causes a significant amount of discomfort or pain, but it is frequently the 'lesser of two evils.' Of course, I'm not sure that it's evil at all in many cases, nor wrong at all.
People are restrained against their will in order to stop them hurting themselves or others. Hows that the same as torture?
Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Torturing an enemy for information. This continues to be our focus. And it continues to be a bad idea. It continues to be wrong, except in fanciful television drama scenarios.
Let me reiterate what I said. Torture is always morally wrong. I conceed the fact that it may, in your aforementioned fanciful TV scenarios, be the lesser of two evils. However, circumstances do not make a morally wrong act right... at best they can make them necessary.
Q: What do you have when you are holding two little green balls in your hand.
A: Kermit's undivided attention.
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"People are restrained against their will in order to stop them hurting themselves or others. Hows that the same as torture?"
This is why I insist on a basic, simple definition of torture.
Because when you make a statement like this, you're saying that if you hurt someone in order to stop them from hurting themselves or others, it's not torture.
Which means, of course, you can torture someone to keep them from hurting others, and it's not torture.
Which therefore means that you can torture people for information that will keep them from harming others, and it's not torture.
Which means torturing people for information that will foil plots to harm American citizens is all right.
A subjective definition for torture is what makes torture not torture some of the time.
If you don't like my definition of torture, come up with a new one. One that is always true, and non-subjective.
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
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"Originally posted by HKCavalier:
The crucially missing element [of your definition] is the power differential and the absolute lack of consent by the victim."
"The subjective experience of the victim is not, as you and Geezer would like to think, a defining aspect of torture."
Cavalier, it sounds like you're joining my camp. Or are you just not reading my posts, either?
My definition of torture does not rely on subjective experiences of the victim. Consensual or non-consensual, I still mark it as torture.
What I will not do for you, is mark torture, as an independant act outside of context, as good or evil, right or wrong.
The context must always be considered for ethical purposes, but the context never makes torture not torture.
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
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Let me sum up.
If we use my definition of torture, it is broad. It is simple. It is encompassing of a great many things.
But here's what my definition of torture does.
1) There is no way to torture someone and call it something other than torture.
2) If the US government asks its agents in the military to torture our enemies, they can't call it a hazing. They have to say, "Yes, we told them to torture these people, but it is not wrong and it is justified."
3) Now the government has to explain why torture is okay in scenario X and situation Y. When you call a duck a duck, you are forced to talk about the damn duck. That's something that's not happening right now.
There's a method to this logic, if you'll see it.
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
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A tidbit of news:
From today's (Mon, Aug 29) New York Times
"Senator John W. Warner, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee . . . has also said he will schedule a hearing in the next several weeks on whether the Pentagon has failed to hold senior officials and military officers responsible for the prisoner abuses that took place at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, and at other detention centers in Iraq, Cuba and Afghanistan."
To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks. --Robt. Heinlein
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