Tuesday, March 27, 2007
State Torture
I just finished an interesting but disturbing discussion with a class of college juniors about torture. Like most people, they were appalled by the torture photos coming out of Abu Ghraib. Being good students of social psychology, they could apply their knowledge of the Stanford Prison Experiment to understand how good people might get carried away by a bad situation. Despite the power of the situation, they rightly concluded that the perpetrators, Lynndie England and Charles Graner, should be held accountable for their actions. However, when they learned about the Pentagon Special Access Program in which thousands have been rounded up, held without charge in countless prisons across the world, and "interrogated" in ways even more brutal than those we saw in the Abu Ghraib photos, the students searched for justification. Surely our government must have a good reason for keeping people indefinitely in secret prisons without legal recourse and subjecting them to sleep deprivation, waterboarding, electric shock, stress positions, sensory deprivation, and sensory overload, and in some cases even immersing them in boiling water. Sometimes we need to commit evil for the greater good, they argued. I find it sad but somehow understandable that we're so quick to throw a "few bad apples" to the wolves, but reluctant to question our own government and thus our own complicity. We somehow need to believe that we are the "good guys." Admitting that we're not is psychologically threatening. We loose our moorings, and as Ernst Becker's profound analysis teaches, our moorings (in this case, our American pride) are necessary to keep existential terror at bay.
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4 comments:
This was an interesting post, and I thought your notice of the different and changing reaction toward torture was a very astute observation. Congrats on launching "Better Days Ahead", Mom!
Yeah, the distinction that your students made is interesting. I'm sure it has something to do with our reluctance to question authority. I'm wondering if it also has something to do with the distress that we feel if we begin to suspect that the whole world has gone crazy. One or two bad apples may temporarily upset us, but doesn't rock our foundations. But if it seems that lots and lots of people either commit or condone or sanction bad apple actions, it surely becomes a threat to our equilibrium. So in one way, perhaps resistance to acknowledging that torture is a public policy is a hopeful sign that your students really do see it (torture) as something shameful and abnormal.
I guess I partially agree with what a deacon, btgog, said, but I think the response of Kim's students signifies not that they are struggling to come to terms with torture as a horrible action, but that they are not struggling at all. Torture is such a huge, monumental issue that rather than formulate their own opinions, they simply regurgitate what the state department and the popular media have told the country. After Abu Grahib torture allegations first broke, the government's official line was that it was the work of a few bad apples. After the extent of the torure was revealed, the government basically rederic'd the public into butting out, saying that it was a governmental affair. It seems to me that your students are simply fallowing these official party lines.
Upon reading your students reaction, I was surprised and sad. But upon further reflection, I found myself surprised by my surprise. I think Jonah is right that they are not struggling. They have not been taught to struggle, which is why I think it's important that you discussed this with them. You're teacing them how to struggle over such issues. Unlike such students, I grew up right after watergate and then watched Iran/Contra. I was raised in an environment of distrusting the gov't. These students did not grow up with the same distrust, but hopefully through challenging the horizons their parents cast for them, you are introducing them or expanding their horizons. I speak with a little experience on this. I grew up in a very pro-Israel household. I was taught there were no Palestinian people and that the Jews had found a vacant space. I'm sure when I arrived at college and spoke such propoganda to my professors, they were shocked. But by questioning my horizons, I have become extremely critical of Israel and believe the Jewish got away with something by taking the land through a variety of means - most of which, if not all of which, brought and continues to bring horrific suffering to the Palestinians. My point is that I had professors like you. They planted seeds through discussions of the type you had and I believe like me, some of them will change over time. My experience has shown me that teaching begins when students need to be introduced to what Jonah said, struggle. It's easy to guide those that agree with us. I congratulate you on a successful teaching moment.
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