I am not the shockable type but this preamble to an article singing the praises of the tv hit, 24, had a pretty bracing effect on yours truly:
Fox’s hit drama normalizes torture, magnifies terror, and leaves conservatives asking why George W. Bush can’t be more like 24’s hero.
To use the word “normalise” next to the word “torture” is extraordinary. Maybe 24 does raise the issue of using torture as a desperate but necessary act, but I hardly imagine that the viewer is left thinking that there is anything “normal” about it, like brewing a cup of tea in the morning for breakfast or taking out the garbage. From what I recall, torture is seen as shocking, and rightfully so. Think also of the scene in Dirty Harry when Clint shoots and then beats up the psycho. You “know”, unlike in real life, that the baddie is a baddie and hence do not feel bad when he gets the Eastwood treatment. Real life is different, which is why we have pesky laws like no jail without trial, etc.
For what it is worth I enjoy 24. I have no idea what the programme-makers would think of their programme being thus described by the American Conservative.
For a brilliant demolition of those who use the “ticking bomb” scenario in movies and books to rationalise torture, this by Jim Henley is a must-read.
(Update: I should in fairness point out that the American Conservative article makes it pretty clear that it loathes the show, although the way in which the introductory paragraph is written sucks the reader into thinking that conservatives support the practice. I guess I fired off my angry post a bit too quick. That said, it does appear that some of the “appeal” of the show is in how it unashamedly portrays the use of torture. Remind me not to ever watch this show again).
I despise 24 for that reason. I’d go further: it is sadistic totalitarian pornography, lynch-mob by proxy. The viewer is supposed to be thrilled by its violence and to project himself directly into the action. The point of view it embodies is that We, being by definition good, may do anything to Them and it exalts Our virtue because it is defending the good; whereas the same things when They do them are confirmation of Their evil nature.
That opinion is not based on extensive viewing, since I don’t go out of my way to be sickened, and a few episodes were enough. For all I know, I might have missed many scenes featuring doubt, moral ambiguity, forbearance, humanity, or placability by characters on either side.
I realise that 24 is just based on action, and no character reflects much on what they do in the series, but we viewers can, and i wouldn’t want to live in that sort of world. I also wouldn’t want to live in the world of James Bond, but those are ‘only’ movies, we tell ourselves. And Bond is not repeated weekly, and they don’t need to have him come up with more sadism disguised as interrogation.
I wonder- how many of our heroes, except for Dr. Who, are always portrayed as never breaking any ethical considerations?
As escapism, 24 is riveting; as a parable for our time, it is revolting.
That is the final sentence in the linked article. It says all that needs to be said about this show – it seems to have achieved almost a ‘text book’ status for some of the decision-makers in the US and I wonder whether the makers, despite their undoubted joy at the huge revenues it must rake in for them, are happy with what they have done when they look at themselves in their mirrors.
Yes, in the first few seasons, Jack used torture as a last resort in desperate situations, and it was outside what was acceptable at CTU.
But in season 5, torture is portrayed as standard operating procedure. CTU are all set up for what they call ‘chemical interrogations’ and no one blinks when they are performed. That IS normalizing torture.
To be fair, the article blasts 24 (and the 24 mentality) pretty mercilessly.
The American Conservative is basically the only right-wing magazine to take a strong, consistent, anti-torture stance. They’re self-described paleo-conservatives and are probably the only self-described conservatives in the States to be right about our awful war from the very outset.
This crowd actually has a great deal in common with libertarian thought in general, except that they’re violently anti-immigration, almost to the point of racism.
It’s a very interesting question. I’ve got a couple for you guys.
You’re a long way from any medical facilities, you have no anaesthetics or painkillers, all you have is a fairly blunt hacksaw, and your buddy has gangrene in his foot. Do you saw it off to save his life? Is inflicting agonising pain to save a life ever justified?
You’ve just fought a gun battle with a bunch of terrorists and have caught one of them alive, but they captured two of yours. You are pretty sure, based on past experience with this group, that they will be tortured over a period of days and then killed – the snuff video to be uploaded to the internet for the entertainment of the like-minded. Unless you can find all their hideouts in time. Your colleagues are about to immediately start torturing their captive to find where these are before the enemy can get there; do you stop them?
Given that torture will happen whichever option you choose, does it matter to you who does the torturing and who gets tortured?
One final scenario. You are an instructor on the SERE survival course, given to all US soldiers who run a risk of being caught behind enemy lines. Part of this training requires you to torture innocent soldiers on your own side, not to get information or to save lives, but just to give them the experience of it you hope they’ll never need. Do you do it?
And if you were a soldier, and knew you had to get through the course to do the job you wanted to do, would you volunteer for it?
Incidentally, theres a video somewhere on the internet of a TV reporter getting himself waterboarded, so that he could report what was involved and what it was like. A brave man to do that just for the sake of a TV news story.
Sounds a lot to me like the “he started it” defense. Relativism. Is there ever anything the other guy does that we must not stoop to?
Where do we get our moral code from? A mirror image, duplicate actions except our left is his right?
If we are to retain our independent choice and autonomy, then we must never allow the other guy’s morals to decide what ours are. We play rough and hard, and we play for keeps, but we set our own moral code.
My personal opinion is that police actions, that is actions directed against individuals must always follow strict respect of legal safeguards. On the other hand, military actions are directed against groups and only cease when the objective is believed to have been achieved. My reasoning for this is that as individualists, we must respect individuals. As anti-collectivists, our actions must be directed against collectives.
Instead of violating our ethics on selected possible individual collectivists, we should (and will achieve far greater long term success) by counter attacking the collective whole that they represent. It appeared to be working quite well in Afghanistan until some of our domestic totalitarians took their war on drugs over there.
Hi Mid,
No, this one wasn’t supposed to be about relativism or who started it. It’s about identifying the root criteria for our own absolute morals. The first one is about whether our opposition to torture is an absolute injunction against inflicting pain and suffering, or whether the circumstances or the purpose for which it is done can outweigh that. I did think about asking whether one opposed euthanasia if to do so condemned people to endless misery, but decided it was too politically charged. There are lots of extreme medical practices that are extremely painful or unpleasant but which save lives; are they ethical?
The second is intended to determine whether the basis is the harm principle (there will be less torture, and less severe, if we do it than if they do it) or whether it is about something else, like having a clear conscience. There is also a known bias in which taking a positive action is seen as taking more responsibility for the consequences than refraining from a preventative action. That’s why I worded it the way I did. I have biased things slightly one way, but only to get you to think seriously about the question by pushing it closer to the borderline where people aren’t sure.
I’m not trying to make a case for or against, or saying that the terrorists beliefs excuse their behaviour while ours do not. I’m just doing philosophy – what precisely is the problem with pain?
Having been through some of them, I can state unequivocally “yes, by consent”.
I think some of your’s and perhaps other’s confusion on the matter comes from not being clear about why it is wrong. Life, liberty and property are our principles. These tactics violate two, sometimes all three of those. It is not that we may not violate these rights, it is that we have legal protections for determining when it is justified. And torture has been from our very start determined to be a violation of these principles. There is no way to ethically approve torture for selective use against individuals. The evidence needed to prove to legal satisfaction that torture was ‘justified’, is such that there would be no more ‘need’ for it except the pleasure of the practicioners and for punishment and revenge. Which I strongly suspect is what is really at the heart of it’s proponents souls.
On the other hand, we reject the collectivist prinicple. Therefore, attacking collectivist institutions, governments, their assets and havens is something we can do with a clear conscience. Prisoners we hold should be given either POW protections or due process of law. But I think we can we can without ethical breach, attack a collective to whatever degree achieves our ends.
It sounds heartless, but captives in the hands and territories of our enemies are SOL. That includes their own populations. We will and we do make our best efforts to not harm them more than we can help, but as long as our target is the collective we must act to our best effect for our own defense. Our attacks in Libya and Afghanistan are clear examples of this principle in practice. And it works.
This is why I was actually quite okay with Israel’s response to the recent attack on them by troups based in Lebanon.
Are the commenters above referring to events in “24” as warfare or criminal activity ?
In my case I am referring to the rational ethical standing of such acts, regardless of the external labels given by those who support or oppose them.
Legality ≠morality, although I did point out that it is expressly prohibited against anyone to whom the negative rights of the constitution apply. I believe the negative rights of the constitution apply to anyone within the control of our authorities, ie in secure and unthreatened custody, not necessarily a battlefield prisoner.
The constitution and due process of law is something that everyone who can place themselves within its jurisdiction must have appeal to. Without this, it follows that the executive authority decides who is and who isn’t a citizen or otherwise protected. Clearly that is not what was intended by the authors of the constitution.
Furthermore, by any unimaginative reading, the 5th 6th and 8th amendments clearly state “No person” and “the accused” as the qualifications and in they 8th, they don’t even name a person at all. It is a blanket prohibition on particular government actions without any regard for who they are taken against.
That is a completely unqualified statement. It is by any reading purely a statement of something the government may never do. To anyone ever.
Mid,
Your “consent” principle is the sort of answer I was looking for. What is wrong about torture is not that it is painful or “inhuman” or illegal, but that it is done to somebody without their permission. And if that is truly the principle on which we act, the same applies to all other things done to a person without their permission.
I’m not quite sure how you attack a collective without attacking the individuals in it. Many terrorists are individuals attacking “The West”, “post-enlightenment values”, and other such collectives. But somehow all the people who get hurt are individuals.
JGC,
I don’t know about the other commenters, what I’m talking about is the basis on which we should decide what is war and what is criminal. (Assuming there’s no overlap.)
If you want to talk about the law, torture is clearly illegal, but exactly what constitutes torture is less clear. There’s no doubt about knives and electric shocks and stuff (although I’ve seen games sold to children that give electric shocks, so there is still a line to be drawn) but when it comes to inflicting embarassment, shouting at people, playing music they don’t like loudly, or making them uncomfortable – well, there’s all sorts of people who do that quite routinely to others and nobody complains. Do stag parties constitute torture? How about Musak in elevators? I don’t recall giving anyone informed consent to play that at me. Or the kids next door and their late-night party – should they be hauled up before international tribunals for torture? And my old school PE teacher – cross-country runs through the mud and rain in November, being shouted at and humiliated for “not trying” – can I go back and have him prosecuted for torture? Because if I had been asked at the time if I had consented to that…
People are forced all the time to go through varying degrees of unpleasantness, with varying degrees of justification and safeguard, and there is no clear dividing line there except the ones we draw ourselves. That’s inevitable, and I don’t mind that we have different ideas about where they should be drawn. What I do object to is someone having several different lines drawn in different places for different people and circumstances. That’s relativism. Torture is widely practiced around the world, and I condemn it all, but I condemn it in proportion to its severity, frequency, and injustice.
The problem I have with programmes like 24 is not that it depicts routine torture, but that it selectively depicts it being used by those who in reality use it least.
Such is war. If the attacking collective is domestic, then police and the law. But if the attacking collective is external, then is the time for war. Some points to clarify.
To maintain consistency with individualist priniciples, the following must be stipulated.
Everybody exists. Whether they belong to a collective or not cannot be known with certainty, therefore, everybody is entitled to a legal framework. If they are domestic, then it is our laws and courts. If they are external, it is the treaties we are party to with outside agencies (governments etc).
If they are not associated with an external group that we can act against as a single entity, then we must treat them as individuals and prosecute them as criminals. This idea that somebody can be an enemy combatant but not entitled to be treated as such, or a criminal, but not entitled to that legal determination either, is preposterous. Worthy of Alice in Wonderland.
I think I made my position on innocent victims of war clear. It is the unavoidable consequence of finding yourself in a war. Not to mention a strong incentive to make a personal effort to discourage the outbreak of one.
Regarding your reply to JJC, all of those cases are ostensibly consentual. If the neighbors are loud, it is either because it is permitted in the zoning district where you choose to live or they are breaking the law. The musak in the elevator (I once heard romantic strings playing Satisfaction. Took me a while to recognize it.) Is clearly consentual if it is private property, if it is government property, then it defaults to the question of why are you there against your consent?
As for the PE teacher, presumably your parents gave the consent for you. If they did not and it was a mandatory government school, then why not sue the government for torture? It would be very in keeping with the sorts of things they are doing now. A small stone thrown against the government indoctrination franchise.
To maintain context, you must differentiate between discomfort that is caused by the nature of being a free human being, and discomfort that is placed on you against your consent by another human being. I don’t think you’ve raised any difficult questions but if I’ve ignored something or been inconsistant, ask.
I have seen bits of “24” over time, and it does not seem to make sense.
For example, the main character (in one bit I watched) was sent back by the Chinese (after years as a prisoner) and was quickly back in a position of trust – this is silly. He might return to service (after a long period of rest and examination), but not soon.
As for “we have to hand him over to Mr Nasty or Mr Nasty will set off an atomic bomb”.
Any person nasty enough to set off an atomic bomb is also nasty enough to break his word – so handing over the gentleman would be pointless (as anyone who has ever been even vaguely connected with the game of intelligence would know).
Later (I think it was the next series) I watched scenes of talks with an Islamic leader – after an atomic bomb had gone off in an American city.
There would be no point in such talks, once they have crossed this line there is no going back.
And there was no mention of what the talks were supposed to be about. The Islamic leader had some issues, but never said what they were – which is most unlike them (they tend to be rather talkative).
But the most absurd thing I watched was a terrorist effort to capture someone from “CTU” itself – in order to force them to work on atomic bombs.
The terrorists would have had their own people, or they would have abducted someone who was from a less sensitive organization – rather than laying themselves open to possible capture. After all if “CTU” really existed, and it was a time of tension, all senior staff would be under heavy guard.
Almost needless to say after the staff member had been captured, broken by torture, and had done the job on the atomic bombs – he is soon back at work at CTU (even though everyone knows what he has done). It is presented as a problem – but, of course, the whole thing (from start to finish) is absurd.
Oh, I almost forgot, even though it is supposedly a “right wing” show, in every bit I have seen there has been talk or action of-by some nasty big business types.
No different from conventional Hollywood stuff.
On torture.
In every major war (official war or unofficial intelligence war) there has been torture, there have also been cases of enemy prisoners being shot.
This does not make it right, but it is what happens.
Overall “24” seems to be an absurd show, but the torture is perhaps the only realistic element in it.
“If they are not associated with an external group that we can act against as a single entity, then we must treat them as individuals and prosecute them as criminals. This idea that somebody can be an enemy combatant but not entitled to be treated as such, or a criminal, but not entitled to that legal determination either, is preposterous. Worthy of Alice in Wonderland.”
Indeed, although the law is the other way around.
On the first part of the above, it seems to me that this implies that nobody can be killed in war without a trial first, because we cannot tell whether they are shooting you as a member of the enemy collective, or as a private individual who, say, wants to rob you. I don’t want to be accused of putting up strawmen again so I’ll just say that I eagerly await your correction and clarification.
You also say “somebody can be an enemy combatant but not entitled to be treated as such”. I presume you are referring to the language in the Geneva conventions, which grants rights to enemy combatants of collectives, on the basis of strictly reciprocal agreements. In other words, if two signatory nations have signed the agreement, then their soldiers must abide by the agreement in respect of one another. It protects fighters for collectives, on the grounds that the individual is not personally responsible for the actions of the collective, and so should not be punished for it. Groups that are not parts of collectives, or do not reciprocally abide by the rules, are excluded from such protection, and one may make war against them as individuals. In fact, it is a war crime to make war without declaring yourself to be part of a collective by means of a uniform. The reasoning is that if protection was not reciprocal, none of those inclined to break it in the first place would have any incentive to sign it or abide by it.
It is entirely reasonable to disagree with the approach taken by the Geneva convention – I do so myself – but I am not sure what you mean by “entitled” in the context of “enemy combatants” without it. Perhaps you could clarify?
On your other ones, I’m speaking rhetorically here, but I don’t think zoning regulations or being on private property should have any say in it – I didn’t consent. That some bureaucrat in town hall should say “everybody living in this district here consents to being woken at 3am” or that some building manager can say “if visitors don’t like it they can always take the stairs 15 floors, or go somewhere else, therefore they consent to whatever I do to them” – I still don’t care, I don’t consent. But I put up with it like everyone else because the pain is too trivial to take a stand on.
From the comments above, it appears that the Geneva Conventions are irrelevant WRT the terrorist combatant vs. the target in the second half of the 20th century, and in the future.
Whoa! Way confusion. In war even friendlies are sometimes (less often now than formerly) casualties. If it was accidental and not deliberate or determined to be negligent, then no crime and combat continues.
In war you target the people carrying out the actions, not the persons as persons. You aim at the pilot of the airplane, not at John Smith of 123 4th Street. If while shooting at the plane, you cause collateral damage, that is war and it comes under the laws of war, not crime.
As I think you mean it, that is an internally contradictory statement. Groups = collectives in the way I think you are using the term.
I have my own doubts about the Geneva convention and in particular the idea of rules. It seems to me that they will never be obeyed by the two extremes that need them the most; those about to lose it all, and those who are so strong they can not lose, and also by those who are most inclined to crime. But it exists and should be followed as long as, and under the terms by which, we are signatories to it.
If somebody claims to be part of a collective while we have them in our control, then we can negotiate with that collective regarding our custody of them. If they renounce that collective, then they become an individual and we are compelled to treat them as such in order to maintain our own consistency. If individuals who do not declare themselves to be part of a collective are basing themselves in one to attack us, then clearly the sheltering collective does not have full sovereignty and if it suits us to declare war on those who are attacking, then the sheltering collective becomes an unfortunate too-close spectator to that war.
You are reaching with your last paragraph. If you don’t like the way a private property owners selects elevator music, then unless he is in breach of a contract that you are a party to, tough.
And as for zoning, zoning in its rational individualist form is a recognition of other’s property rights. It is a way of restricting infringment on your property by others or of other’s property by you. Any zoning ordinance that does more than that is exceeding its theoretical justification but if you consented to it by purchasing the effected property, then that is your problem. I believe they call it buying a pig in a poke. When I hear people whining about the restrictions in their homeowners covenants, I think to myself “read the contract, moron.” While zoning is certainly the most abused of local government powers imaginable that is a reflection on the government, not the concept.
Used correctly, zoning is a way of negotiating with other nearby owners to mutually infringe on each others property in specified ways. Like noise.
JJC, it depends on if the terrorist combatant claims a collective. If it does, then we are bound by our terms with that collective (which I hope in this case are none whatsever). If on the other hand, if he renounces all allegiances, then he becomes an individual and we are compelled to treat him as one. An interesting by product of this interpretation is that until he renounces his allegience to his collective, he could be considered to be consenting to torture. To be practiced, there would need to be a third party representative continually present to stop things as soon as he renounced his collective. At that point, he becomes a suspect in a criminal prosecution. It seems highly unlikely to me, but so does a lot of what these people do. [Legally, I think even this would violate the 8th amendment.]
To cut to the chase, I will not concede a moral authority to our executive branch to label a person as non-existent. They either exist as a foreign subject/agent or they are an individual protected by due process.
[Note re all of my comments: I am concurrently talking about two separate things that sometimes over lap. One is what is legal and one is what is ethical.]
JJC,
From a strictly technical point of view, Geneva doesn’t apply. However, we’ve got to come up with something that does, because the current state of affairs is an ethical and legal muddle.
There need to be standards relating the needs that justify different means – they need to give protection to the innocent, give an incentive to criminals to fear the consequences of breaking the rules themselves, and balance the costs and probabilities of making both false positive and false negative errors.
International law on war was mostly developed when the only wars people were concerned about were those between states, and non-state actors are a loophole that certain international participants are very unwilling to close. It is a handy way to interfere in other nations’ affairs without getting called to account, and has been a prominent tactic of both sides in the cold war.
Winning that war was important, and it isn’t entirely over yet, but it’s about time we came up with a new and less unpleasant tactic.
Mid,
Yeah, sorry. I spoke imprecisely. When I said “Groups that are not parts of collectives” I meant those not part of a centralised hierarchical command: like armies, militias, self-defence forces – that sort of thing.
I’ll quote the relevant bit from Article 13 of the 1st 1949 Convention:
Reading the actual conventions is a worthwhile exercise. See how many warcrimes you can spot that the terrorists and bad guys routinely commit. Or would, if they were subject to the convention.
Incidentally, even if the terrorists claim to belong to a collective that has ratified the convention, that collective might not want to acknowledge it, since that would make them responsible for the crimes of those they are supposed to control. The entire point of running terrorist operations is so that that doesn’t happen.
When captured combatants claim a collective that rejects them, I think we need to make sure that they do or did in fact have the support of that collective to undertake their mission. But if we reasonably make that determination, then it simply makes it a matter of whether that collective wants to be treated as an international criminal or an aggressor nation.
Since we will make our response regardless, I think that is a legal distinction that may have meaning at some level but is unlikely to ethically interfere with our chosen course of action.
I really do question the usefulness of the Geneva Convention, but it is my underlying moral view that everyone is either part of a collective or they are an individual. No none-of-the-above category. We must treat individuals with due process, we must treat collectivists as units of a collective (and subject to whatever Geneva style rules may apply, if any). Who ever we are acting on (nation/collective/individual) should have the authority to deny the collective bond. (But see comment above for treatment of collectives harboring our attackers.)
“24” is neither right-wing or left-wing. Or maybe it is rather both, as it is nothing but populist. It shamelessly massages every notion considered wide-held enough by the series makers. Most people hate big corporations. I think that most people also support the use of torture under most circumstances depicted in the show.
Other than that, I agree with Paul: almost every episode
I watched required of me at least some suspension of disbelief or even common sense, in order to enjoy the considerable distraction it otherwise offers.
Mid, I absolutely agree with you – in principle, but I am with Pa in reality. I remember that in an earlier thread you said that you think Pa is unprincipled, so I’ll presume that you would consider me unprincipled as well, at least on this issue. Well, I probably am, as I choose not to declare allegiance to principles, which I know I will not be willing to uphold in reality under certain circumstances. (I will not elaborate under what kind of circumstances, as there is a law similar to Godwin’s, only it does not involve Nazis – can you guess?). I do admire your principles, and as I have no reason to doubt your determination to uphold them under any circumstances, I truly hope that this determination is never (has been?) tested.
Alisa,
Can you elaborate on that a little bit? In the discussion I have been having with P A, I haven’t seen a clearly defined position from him so much as a questioning of mine. One of his early statements was “I’m not trying to make a case for or against, or saying that the terrorists beliefs excuse their behaviour while ours do not. I’m just doing philosophy …” I’m not sure I know what his position is. That would hardly be surprising if his response would be a pragmatic, short term one.
My belief is that in the long run, principles hold up and perform much better than pragmatism. Especially when those principles are precisely what is being attacked by one’s foes. This does not mean I believe in ‘my’ principles 100%. But it does mean that I believe there are 100% principles for me to find. This is why I find P A’s questioning useful inspite of our fundamentally different metacontexts*.
*In light of the conversation on another thread, I thought I would include this point. P A believes that perfection is finding the best balance between opposed views, I believe it is found in the internal consistency of one’s own views. At least I think that is an accurate characterisation of P A’s beliefs, if they are different or more complicated than that, I would like to know.
Mid, I certainly cannot speak for Pa. I imagine that his position is similar to mine, so I’ll best speak for myself.
I am not sure I understand what this means in reality (although I certainly do in principle). What if you hold two principles that find themselves opposed in reality? For (an extreme) example: are you willing to die for your principles, and if so, what about “life”, as in “life, liberty, property”?
I am not sure I understand this, either. The way I see it, if a principle is not 100%, then it is not a principle.
Again, with apologies to Pa, to project from myself: I don’t think that he believes that the best balance etc. is perfection, but that it is often the best one can hope for in reality.
BTW, this is something I strongly disagree with:
It is never the principles that are attacked, although they are often used as an excuse for the plain old competition for turf/resources, often with a measure of good old envy.
I certainly find your conversations very useful.
On torture the following story may show that it sometimes not just used to get information.
Part of the story I know to be true, the rest relies on information from “former” enemies so may be doubted -I will point out where character of the story changes.
After World War Two British intelligence lost every man sent into the Baltic states (Lativia, Lithuania and Estonia), all were killed or captured – but this was not known at the time. The Soviets (via their control of phony resistance groups – there were also real ones, and mixed ones) kept sending back information from “our” agents (using codes – call signs that were gained via torture), so it was thought that some were free and active. The man in charge of the British operations was not a traitor, but he was not the brightest genius (he had previously lost a lot of agents to a similar sting conducted by the Germans in occupied Holland during World War II).
Then the Soviets made a mistake. One of the “resistance groups” sent back a sample of water (supposedly taken from a river) the idea was to show that the water was mildly radioactive (thus showing that was atomic activity near by), however the Soviets wildly overdid the amount of a radioactivity in the sample – so it was calculated that if there really was a whole river like this the man taking the sample would have died of radiation sickness.
NOW I AM USING AN ENEMY SOURCE.
Supposedly British intelligence then made great efforts to convince one of the “resistance” (really a Soviet intelligence officer of course) to come to London. And then tortured him till he went totally insane – and sent him back.
This would be done not so much for information, as to both show the Soviets that they could not torture and kill our people without there being a cost, and to improve morale among our own intelligence service.
It may seem odd (sadistic, nasty, whatever) to think in terms of torturing someone, to the extent that they will most likely never be a functioning human being again, being a morale boost – but people who have humilated in their lives will understand it.
There is something noble in”laying down one’s life for the cause”, but there is nothing noble in being sent back a gibbering wreak – and it is a major morale blow against the other side.
I would hold zoning (what in Britain are called planning regulations) and covenants to be quite different.
Covenants in a property title are part of civil society. If one has bought a property and the covenant says “no more than two people may be in this house at any one time” or “this house must be painted pink” that is what one has agreed to.
But with zoning it is up to the local government (in Britain it is really up to the national government as local government can be overruled when it comes to such matters), it is a matter of the power of politicians and officials.
“But without zoning everywhere would be like Houston”, this city would be no better with zoning (there would be still be the government built “free” roads, and hence the spreading effect) it would just have a lot of expensive administration by officials and politicians on top of its problems (as L.A. does).
A meta-context that P A and I share is a belief in the material existence that is governed by immutable laws. Therefore, I believe in a scientific rather than faith based primary principle. It is this overlying shared belief that makes our conversations possible. For my part, it doesn’t mean that I don’t believe in things unproven, only that I reject things proven wrong. Needless to say, finding the “best balance” with someone who’s principles include faith based beliefs that are in defiance of scientific observations is one of the reasons I find that approach flawed.
What I mean is that while I believe in 100% principles, I don’t 100% believe I’ve got them right. I am open to having my principles challanged by those who find them to be internally inconsistent.
I disagree vigorously. If I believe my principles are good and others are less than good (degrees of evil), then compromise with evil is in itself evil. If I don’t believe that my principles are good, but only different, then that is relativism. There is a generally accepted assumption that because bad principles exist, all principles are bad. There is no other way I can think of to explain the idea that compromise with those bad principles is an ideal.
Turf wars can only occur if at least one side is collectivist. Whenever a collective attacks an individualist culture, it is solely the principles that are being attack. Have you never wondered why the left is so accepting of both the fascism of religious totalitarianism and of communism? It is because they agree on over arching principle (collective) and are only fighting over implementation. Frankly, I don’t care why collectivists fight with each other, only with why they fight with me. And since I disagree with the idea the somebody should own me, our only battle possible is one of principle.
Thank you. I hope it will be understood as I mean it when I say that I do to. We all have a great many presumptions we make. These discussions that help me identify and validate (or invalidate) mine. They help me find my own internal contradictions.
Mid,
I hadn’t meant to question your beliefs specifically – my queries were addressed to any and all interested in thinking about them and answering.
It’s not so much that I believe perfection is to be found in the synthesis of thesis and antithesis, but that in practice we all have conflicting beliefs and drives that need to be reconciled, and as a matter of principle I believe that ought to be done openly, logically and consistently, not on the basis of inviolable slogans or what people think they ought to think. I bring these arguments up to try to examine the underlying reasons for why we believe what we believe, so that we can analyse the principles on which we act, and so strengthen them against the counter-arguments one would inevitably face if one tried to trot them out in a less friendly forum for them than this. Unexamined assumptions are dangerous, and I enjoy challenging those things people find “obvious”.
My goal in doing this is also internal consistency, although one should not confuse consistency with simplicity. If you have one set of scenarios in which one rule seems to apply, but then find some other scenarios where another seems to over-rule it, then the answer is not to reject one or the other, or to take one in theory but accept that you’ll sometimes do the other in practice, but instead try to find the higher level unifying principle that gives each simpler rule as a special case of it. That can certainly annoy those who are wedded to their favourite maxims (and nothing wrong with that), but I believe freedom of speech has to include the freedom to offend if it is to mean anything at all, and I do try not to really upset anyone.
On this particular question, I’m not entirely sure what I do think, or where I draw the line. That’s why I said the question was “interesting”. I do know that it is more complicated than the knee-jerk “of course we’re against all forms of torture” response, and I tried to articulate why.
The consent response is a very good one – although in my view it acts as an over-ride of other moral principles rather than the principle in itself. You have moral rules, but anyone can give permission for you to break them with regard to themselves. That does neatly address the first and third particular cases I raised (and implicitly the second), but it doesn’t answer the underlying question of where we draw the line. Suppose, for some reason, you can’t ask informed consent? Would you still act to save someone’s life by painful means if you couldn’t ask or explain? (I could make up a story to try and impose that, but I’m sure you don’t need it.) I think I probably would for the sake of a worthwhile future life for someone – on a do-as-you-would-be-done-by basis – but its a hard call.
So if I’m prepared to inflict agony without consent for the sake of saving lives in that situation, what does consistency require of me in the “ticking bomb” scenario? It is easy enough to quibble with the incidentals of the story – to say the moral dilemma could never happen in that form – but that’s just a way of avoiding answering the question. Is there any cause sufficient that could lead you to do to an enemy what in other circumstances you’d be willing to do to a friend?
I also have to consider my position on justified war. War will inevitably result in casualties – some of which will be as bad as anything done in a torture chamber. And yet, I think I would still support a war if I felt the alternative was worse. That means imposing such pain on some people in order to save the lives and freedoms of other people. Similarly, I might use torture if it prevented a greater amount and severity of torture being inflicted on someone else. Unlike many people, I take some responsibility for the consequences of inaction as well as positive actions, although that responsibility is more likely to be shared.
Is there any torture anywhere I could be said to approve of? No. But real life doesn’t always give us the choice. While I disagree with torture, always, I disagree with some other things more. In that sense, I am taking a balance between contending extremes, but my fixed principle is in the way I take that balance. If you always have to pick one as an absolute inviolable, your treatment of the other becomes inconsistent – getting over-ruled or not with no guiding principles to say when or why. I aim for consistency, but not necessarily simplicity.
Mid, I’m fairly sure you’ll disagree with that. I’m talking here not to persuade but to explain. Hope you’ll take it in the spirit intended.
Paul, the fact that governments have usurped the authority behind zoning should hardly be a surprise. It also does not mean that anything the government can steal shouldn’t have existed in the first place.
I’ll try to make as clear a case as I can.
Property owners have rights that may not be infringed on.
Some property uses would require an extremely expensive remediation to avoid infringing the neighboring property owners.
Property owners get together and agree on mutually acceptible infringements.
This is how you can have industrial districts making loud noise twenty four hours a day without having to spend fortunes on either land buffers or sound proofing.
P A, our conversations tend to get going on too many fronts. This particular one has been very simply solved in my first responder training. The rules are, as long as someone is able to decline your help, DO NOT HELP THEM. Once the become unconscious, do your best that you can. The reason for this response is that everyone may think that they know what is best for them. If they guess wrong and go unconscious, this doesn’t mean they are intending to die, drown sufficate heart stop or whatever, it may mean they guessed wrong. The purpose for intervening after they pass unconscious is so they can hopefully have the opportunity to make a clear choice.
As somebody who attempted (many years ago) to refuse medical emergency care and then had it forced on me, I tell everybody reading IF SOMEBODY IS REFUSING CARE, DON’T HELP THEM UNTIL THEY ARE UNCONSCIOUS! I believe I sustained permanent life altering injuries as a direct result of receiving care that I was attempting to refuse. I did know more than they did. Had I passed out, then was the time for them to intervene.
The flip side is, my very elderly mother has, with the guidance of medical and legal professionals, chosen to have a DNR policy on her care. (Do Not Resuscitate) This is a clear instruction and should be followed if the situation ever reaches that decision. The doctors knew this prior to her recent surgury in case she went into cardiac arrest during the procedure.
I’ll let this comment stand alone and address the other points separately. I would like to keep our conversations narrow, but only because of the medium. I actually like far ranging discussions.
One reason that the ticking bomb scenario is flawed is because the greatest torture for someone who has successfully placed a bomb of significant consequence, is to have that success taken from them.
I believe physically painless interogations with ‘truth serums’ be they sodium pentothal, alcohol or whatever, can be court ordered with the understanding that any evidence gained cannot be used in court or for any investigations not on the warrant. To permit the executive to decide who qualifies for these treatments would quickly result in trolling; selection of likely candidates, declaring them to be a threat, and then looking for anything from gambling to drug dealing to political opposition.
We must deal with collectives as collectives. The reason that westerners have such a hard time getting their heads around suicide bombers is that they don’t understand, really understand, what a collective is. ‘One for all and all for one’. may be a slogan, but it is also a principle.
There is no margin to be had in trying to influence the individual components of a collective. Each component is sacrificial. It is only by threatening or retaliating against the heart of the collective that any long term change can be achieved.
Painful means, like tourniquets, intravenous fluids with big catheters, artificial airways? Been there, done that.
There’s (in my mind) a difference between this and torture, though. We operate under the presumption that all people want to live, unless they are capable of telling us otherwise and do in fact tell us otherwise. That’s where US “implied consent” laws came from: to protect good-faith aid attempts from being criminalized. Note that these laws, I believe without exception, specify that a competent and aware adult is perfectly free to refuse aid even in the face of an immediate threat like an arterial bleed.
In the case of torture for interrogation, the injury is not being inflicted on a consenting party. And if he’s not capable of expressing or expressly withholding consent, then there is no pretense that he would have consented to being wired for sound, were he capable.
This is a question I’ve wrestled with. I started (back when I was 22 and knew everything) with “I’ll never torture anyone under any circumstances.” I’d like to think that I’m still there. However, what do you do when you’re convinced that some guy knows where a bomb is, that will explode and spread deadly aerosolized Ebolathrax through the entire greater Baltimore metro area?
It’s easy to say that I’d try to reason with them. However, IMHO people who commit mass murder are not reasonable animals, and one doesn’t attempt to use logic on a rabid dog in a schoolyard. I’ve got plenty of friends whose response is “Red is positive, black is negative.” I think that’s largely bluster.
I know precisely one person who I think is capable of torturing someone for information. See my comments above about mad dogs.
Mid,
My sympathies on the medical problems. I could pursue that one further, but think I’ll instead let it stand.
To have success taken away is the greatest torture? I’m not convinced. Certainly they would be strongly motivated to keep quiet, but I expect there’s worse. Give up the bomb, do your time, get out on parole and try again. I suspect it depends on the person, as well.
I’m not keen on the idea of Sodium Pentothal in court even with the safeguards you mention. It can do permanent damage. In my view, if torture has any justification it is in preventing worse, like saving lives by catching head-hackers and suicide bombers before they go off. Letting the guilty walk free is a minor cost, unless the problem is that you think they’ll try again. However, even in that case I would consider imprisonment without trial a lesser evil than confessions extracted with the aid of mind-altering substances. I’m sure there are people who would assign different priorities, though, or take the need for a trial as an absolute. This is just my view.
That said, there are other methods besides truth drugs that I would count as reasonably harmless and painless, and that I could see a case for a court being able to use in extreme situations. The above paragraph is just picking at the details rather than addressing the underlying moral dilemma.
I can’t speak for all Westerners, but I suspect most could understand in a sort of distant abstract way the idea of being willing to die for a cause. What I think they have difficulty with understanding is the real cause itself, which to a Westerner’s eye isn’t even moral, let alone worth dying for. They imagine that the suicide bombers must have been grievously wronged, horribly persecuted, driven to this extreme by the intolerable injustice. Nothing else could explain it, because nothing else could drive a Westerner to such an extreme.
They have no particular loyalty to most of their co-religionists – the jihadists are even more riven with sects and schisms than the mainstream – what they have loyalty to is an idea, a dream, and to their personal significance in the world. I’m not sure if having a common belief is enough on its own to make them a collective. I imagine the only way you could fight such a group is to fight the idea.
In the US, we have similarly-decentralized problem groups, the Animal Liberation Front and Earth First.
(Yes, I know that EF claims that their philosophy bars violence against humans. Yes, I know that ALF has yet to successfully kill anyone in this country. Go with me, here, anyway.)
There is no official hierarchy to either. There’s no real communication between one local cell and the next. What an EF group will do is go and trash a bulldozer or something and then disappear. Then someone will write an op-ed in the paper saying “I think this is why they did it, but I don’t know.”
If there are any unifying factors at all, it’s that they all seem to have (or at least have read) a book called “Ecodefense” and another called “The Monkey Wrench Gang.” The latter, BTW, I thought to be hilarious.
What we ended up doing was simply treating EF like a criminal organization. Sure, the FBI started talking a lot of nonsense about ‘terrorism'[1] but the actual police techniques used were consistent with serial vandalism, investigated by a ham-handed crew of incompetent accountants with an effectively-unlimited budget. And the resulting prosecutions broke EF’s back. A few were imprisoned for knocking down a power line, and nobody else stepped forward to spike any trees or anything. (Or, if they have, it hasn’t been widely reported.)
The Animal Liberation Front is similar but different. Similar model of decentralization, but more willing to use explosives or other means that could kill people.
When they may not even communicate using encrypted email or letters to the editor in the local paper, are they still a group?
As far as fighting an idea…fighting eco-anarchism was easy. It didn’t have many adherents and so it could be shut down by jailing a few and ignoring the rest. There are probably too many Salafist Jihaddi (a better term than the nonsensical “Islamofascist”) for that to work.
Beating communism was relatively easy. They claimed that they could produce a better world in the listener’s lifetimes. All it took to show them to be liars was to hold their enlightened, just society up for comparison against the decadent, oppressed west, and enough of their victims decided that they’d had enough. When you deal with a religion where the rewards and punishments are in the afterlife, such a comparison is harder to make.
Yes, I know, reason only works on the reasonable. Alas, “shooting the bad guys in the face” is effective for treating symptoms, but not the underlying cause. I wish I had a better idea.
[1] When whatever voices a relatively-quiet movement has, disclaim violence against human beings entirely, I have a hard time with the label of “terrorism.” Unless there are acts that kill people or at least would make a reasonably-knowledgable person fearful, I don’t see the terror. Hence, ALF is terrorist, but I don’t think EF is. Where that leaves the new Earth Liberation Front, I have no idea. Other than torching luxury houses under construction in the mountains or SUVs in a new-car lot in the dead of night, I don’t even know what they’ve done.
P A, your frame of reference is so lacking, your comments are meaningless. You clearly have no understanding of religion. Christianity was founded by someone who endured floggings, combined ridicule and torture (crown of thorns), and even endured being suspended by nails through his flesh until dead. Not even to give up a secret, but only because he refused to make a statement that was demanded of him. Perhaps with your presumably atheist upbringing you’ve never heard of Stephen, or John the Baptist, or any number of people who endured far more torture than any American should ever be able to administer or even permit without being confined to an institution for the criminally insane. And that is the only kind of person you will find to do this.
You can quit speculating about what committed people will do when you are the product of a culture that has carried lack of commitment to an high art form.
I am making an assumption that appears to be the same as yours, namely that once chemical interrogations are approved no more chance of criminal conviction exists. If somebody is unwilling to give up a prosecution in order to ‘find the bomb’ then obviously the whole charade is a farce.
As for your concerns about sodium pentothal, I’ve personally had it administered to me more times (literally) than I can count. Well over a dozen. It is a common surgical pre-op in the US. At least it was, I assume it still is. Administered properly by professionals it is safe or there would be acres of lawsuits and the FDA would have started holding hearings long ago. But your point is taken, namely that it is possible to conduct chemical interrogations, I believe it is necessary for the judicial branch to authorize them, and then basically the interrogated person is no longer prosecutable. And these interrogations are not a minor step and should only be undertaken (if at all) under very rigidly defined and monitored conditions. I may be reading extra that you disagree with into your statements, but I think I am close.
But I can only say again, your whole culture (and a good part of ours) is so jaded and cynical and utterly without a core belief system of any kind that most of your compatriots will never be able to fathom it. Probably most Americans also, but we have a much higher incidence of people who do hold highly principled beliefs.
I disagree. We have the power and have taken the course in the past of acting against the symbols and power groups with in a collective. The idea that we can fight their ideas is a non-starter bordering on humorous. Clearly they hold theirs much more strongly than we hold ours. If the fight is on that level then we are sure to lose. I think we had better avoid any tests of faith with these guys. 🙂
You euro-weenies or other assorted nitwits, who are “shocked a dumb TV show would have weekly bouts of torture for the bad guys, might stop to think that maybe the show is written by leftist Hollywood twats. As such, any secret agent types chasing terrorists must be using all sorts of horrible torture on the poor terrorists, who only want to nuke women and children to highlight there legitimate grievences.
As for the Americam Conservative, doesn’t this sorry crowd include people like Patrick Buchannan and Arianna Huffington, now that she has dropped her knickers for George Soros?
I can only assume that young masters Herbert, Gray, Scotland, et. al. were writing with tongue planted firmly in cheek.
There are indeed common law principles involved in property ownership. Such as not cutting off the light and air to other people by (for example) building a property next to them that cuts these things off.
And yes people who create a town (or other development) have often considered that common law principles are not enough and have added in things into title deeds – which buyers know of in advance and agree to by buying the property.
For example, people may agree to never sell the property to people with a low income (what “low income” means being defined in the title) or to people of the wrong skin colour (although the government has ruled that such agreements must not be enforced).
But this is not “zoning” nor is it “the power that lays behind it”.
It is true that when zoning came in New York City (just before World War One) it was partly justified as a better way of protecting property owners from next door property owners cutting off their light (by building very tall buildings without any regard for the people next door), but it was about more than this (in the minds of the planners) and the power was based not on property rights but (like all regulations) on the power of government.
Keeping Walmart out of New York is not (for example) really about protecting private property. Nor is there even a consistant “anti big business” line (not that this would be acceptable anyway).
After all the new New York Times company H.Q. is on land taken with the help of government threats. And even the World Trade Centre twin towers were put up in 1973 without the consideration for other people’s light that was supposed to be protected by zoning way back in 1916 (if I have got the date right).
Of course a group of property owners could agree to never having Walmart in their area – and put it in the property titles so that people who bought the titles could not bring Walmart either. But that is not what zoning is based on (it is not about voluntary agreement or property rights, nor is it based on them).
The above should not be interpreted to indicate that I support government road improvements for Walmart stores or any other form of direct or indirect aid. I do not support such things.
Mid, I still don’t entirely agree with various points, but I now better understand your position. Either way, quite a bit of food for thought. Thanks.
Thanks, Alisa.
Paul, I think we are in pretty much full agreement on everything except one question. Has socialized government so corrupted the use of the concept of ‘zones’ that property rights advocates may no longer use the term?
The reason I have chosen to continue using it but in a strongly specified way, is that in my conversations with people of ‘average’ opinions, they believe that if you don’t have ‘zoning laws’, you will soon have a dead animal rendering plant in the empty lot across from their house and an asphalt plant next to the playground.
However, when I start discussing what is and is not the legitimate purvue of zoning ordinance and concession to it, I usually find them to be in virtually full agreement with me. For this reason, I continue to use the word as a tactical choice and aim my challanges at (as always) the collectivised property control that governments have assumed over us.
When you explain the just origin and necessity of consent by the property owners, all but the deliberate collectivists understand quite well and generally agree.
Anybody who seriously believes that torture will cause someone to sell out a successfully placed ‘ticking time bomb’ jihad attack needs to look at lists like this one of people who weren’t even being asked to betray an act, only to renounce a statement. Then they can check it for overlap with lists like this one, and this one. And the people on these lists came from a much smaller pool than is the faithful of today.
People who don’t understand faith shouldn’t speculate about how easy it is to force someone to betray it.
If you accept no other argument against torture, you should accept that it has miniscule potential to work against jihadists, and inevitable potential to destroy us for practicing it.
Sunfish,
Agreed, except that it isn’t only the Salafists who believe that – they’re simply the most open and obvious about it.
Mid,
I understand the religious mindset quite well, and am aware of the history of the martyrs. I was talking mostly about the generic “Westerner”. But the problem is not that people can’t believe someone would be willing to die for a cause – the Christian martyrs are well known, the heroes of war stories who laid down their lives willingly are still respected, and we do know about suicide bombers. We understand all that – intellectually at least. But in the Western view those are all things worth dying for: to save mankind from original sin, to be free to worship as you choose, to defend your family and your nation and their way of life. What they have difficulty getting is that anyone would do it simply to attack – to destroy other people’s freedom – because they find it hard to understand that a religion could advocate that.
When I talked about fighting the idea, I wasn’t thinking of any sort of test of faith. How was Christianity reformed in the West? Because atheists had more faith? Or because literalist Christianity was no longer tenable with what people now knew?
And yes, there are some martyr-types who won’t sell out, even with torture. But does that apply to all of them? If you can show me a list of all those Christians who recanted rather than face torture, who hid their light under bushels, who converted to Islam rather than continue to live as dhimma or worse, and the heretics who repented (or at least claimed to), so we can compare the length of that list against yours of the martyrs – maybe that would make a case that torture doesn’t work.
Mid, I think that there is a big difference between demanding someone to renounce their deeply held believes, and demanding a specific piece of information they possess,
Regardless, I don’t know about the rest of the proponents, but I don’t have jihadis specifically in mind. Besides, realistically not everyone involved in a potential ticking bomb plot has to necessarily be involved in it on a purely religious basis. People often do things for money. All I am saying is that torture should not be ruled out when there are no other options, and there is a reasonable chance that it might work. If a serious and politically unbiased research can show that what you are saying is correct (I have no opinion on this, as I am not a religious person, and I have not seen any serious research on the subject) then fine. If it can be further shown that torture never works (which I doubt, because I think that there is enough anecdotal evidence to the contrary), then it’s fine too. What I cannot accept is the notion that this is something we cannot even discuss. Of course, if someone opposes torture in principle, as you seem to do, then this whole utilitarian angle should be moot from your point of view.
Pa: good point. Consider this as an example.
P A, let me get this straight, you believe the sort of person to become a jihadist and undertake a suicide mission may equate with “Christians who recanted rather than face torture”? Just a little reality check for you. If they are that sort of person, they don’t get on the plane; they don’t strap on the bomb; the don’t arm the nuclear device. You still don’t get it and your denials make me concerned that you still don’t take faith based terrorism seriously in spite of your apparent willingness to commit torture to oppose it. These are not people on the defense. These are people on the offense.
This is why I grant consideration to chemical interrogations. They are the only kind that even may work with this level of dedication.
Alisa,
All I can say is you still don’t get it. This statement is without understanding on so many levels.
You guys seem to think I don’t take the threat seriously enough because I won’t sink to their level of moral depravity. I say that you don’t take it seriously enough or you wouldn’t be recommending it.
Quite possibly.
Well, the misunderstanding seems to be mutual, unless it is simply a straw man? This is not at all what I think, Mid. In fact I take you and your views very seriously, although we have never met. I also take both the issue of torture and the threats our culture is facing very seriously.
I need to go to bed now. Maybe I’ll “see” you tomorrow.
Mid,
“you believe the sort of person to become a jihadist and undertake a suicide mission may equate with ‘Christians who recanted rather than face torture’?”
Yes, some of them. Suicide by bomb is fast and painless. (Well, as far as anyone knows.)
Jihadists intent on bombing have been caught and some of them have talked, even without torture. Just as Christians have openly declared their heresy to the world and the church, and then recanted shivering in the dungeons of the Inquisition. Just as people have stood on their principles enough to become dhimma, only to crack under atrocities like the devshirme. (And you think your taxes are bad…) It’s very easy to take a stand on principle, until you have to face such consequences that a fast death would be preferable. It is not death people fear but dying.
And, of course, not all of those with information are suicide bombers. Some are bomb-makers, financiers, smugglers, snipers, organisers, artillerymen, kidnappers, IED-planters, spies, executioners and torturers.
By the way, I’m not saying you’re not taking the problem seriously enough. We just have different views on where and why to draw the lines.
Alisa,
I think either you underestimate the amount of torture it would take or you overestimate the amount a people can commit without destroying their own souls. The former seemed a more generous (and accurate) assumption. I can think of no culture that has institutionalized or even legalized torture that did not ultimately destroy itself and others in the process.
Mid, these are in fact excellent points. The first one still can be subject to debate, the second one less so.