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noveldevice at 10:57pm on 27/03/2008 under anti-torture
noveldevice at 10:57pm on 27/03/2008 under anti-tortureFriday is Blog Anti-Torture Day, and I decided that rather than just blogging anti-torture on the day, I would post every day this week about torture.
We are heading into the homestretch, and today I want to pose a question. Why are there still people who support the use of torture as an interrogation technique? This is going to be a short post, because I honestly don’t know.
In part, I think it’s a mixture of fear and misplaced trust in the ethics of the people in charge. I’ve touched on the fear side of things before: one response to fear is to attempt to exert control, and when you can’t control the thing you fear, you control something that symbolizes it. Like sympathetic magic, power over the symbol gives you power over the whole. The trust issue—well, given that I’m about as far left as you can be, and a member of a couple of groups that the current administration wants to stamp out if at all possible, I’m not sure that I’m capable of understanding that kind of unthinking trust in the people currently in power. I think there’s also an element of vengeance in it—as though people who may or may not (probably not) have been involved in the WTC bombings deserve whatever terrible things we do to them. The culture also promotes beliefs that support the use of torture. “We don’t negotiate with terrorists.” “We can’t let them think we’re weak.” There is also the idea that at any second, there could be another attack, and torture gets results, gets information.
It’s hard to fight these kinds of beliefs, because they’re not held rationally—they arise out of fear, are supported by instability and lack of confidence, and can only be changed if you can shake the person out of their trance of fear and anxiety long enough to persuade them to consider facts that make them feel more fearful and anxious.
I’m not sure what causes this attitude, but I am certain that the only way to fight it is to keep the discussion alive and to keep pointing out the facts.
We are heading into the homestretch, and today I want to pose a question. Why are there still people who support the use of torture as an interrogation technique? This is going to be a short post, because I honestly don’t know.
In part, I think it’s a mixture of fear and misplaced trust in the ethics of the people in charge. I’ve touched on the fear side of things before: one response to fear is to attempt to exert control, and when you can’t control the thing you fear, you control something that symbolizes it. Like sympathetic magic, power over the symbol gives you power over the whole. The trust issue—well, given that I’m about as far left as you can be, and a member of a couple of groups that the current administration wants to stamp out if at all possible, I’m not sure that I’m capable of understanding that kind of unthinking trust in the people currently in power. I think there’s also an element of vengeance in it—as though people who may or may not (probably not) have been involved in the WTC bombings deserve whatever terrible things we do to them. The culture also promotes beliefs that support the use of torture. “We don’t negotiate with terrorists.” “We can’t let them think we’re weak.” There is also the idea that at any second, there could be another attack, and torture gets results, gets information.
It’s hard to fight these kinds of beliefs, because they’re not held rationally—they arise out of fear, are supported by instability and lack of confidence, and can only be changed if you can shake the person out of their trance of fear and anxiety long enough to persuade them to consider facts that make them feel more fearful and anxious.
I’m not sure what causes this attitude, but I am certain that the only way to fight it is to keep the discussion alive and to keep pointing out the facts.
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