The Shadow Knows: Or, We The Consenters
May. 8th, 2004 11:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakAriel Dorfman wrote a play called Death and the Maiden which brings together a woman tortured under the Pinochet regime, the man who may or may not have been her torture (it's important in the play that the audience doesn't get told for sure from the start), and her husband. It was filmed a couple of years ago, with Sigourney Weaver as Paulina and Ben Kingsley as Roberto. During the course of play and film, Paulina doesn't just tie Roberto up; she uses every bit of psychological torture she can think of, including sexual humiliation (stuffing her pants in the mouth of the man). She wants a confession; wants to hear him say he was the one who had tortured her. The husband is an emotional stand-in for the audience; he knows she was tortured, he wants to believe her that this was the man, but he can't be sure, not just because Paulina never saw her torturer (she was blindfolded the entire time), but because Roberto is not like the monster he imagined at all - he comes across as a nice fellow, if immensely scared. And even if this is the brutal torturer in question, is turning the tables on him the way Paulina does justified?
In today's Guardian, Mr. Dorfman uses the recent revelations for penetrating questions, which aim at the conditio humana, at all of us, not just at one particular nation. He brings up The Brothers Karamazov and the question posed there by Ivan K.: Let us suppose that in order to bring men eternal happiness, it was essential and inevitable to torture to death one tiny creature, only one small child. Would you consent? After examining that one, Dorfman correctly points out that the even tougher question would be this: What if the person endlessly tortured for our wellbeing is guilty?
What if we could erect a future of love and harmony on the everlasting pain of someone who had himself committed mass murder, who had tortured those children? (...) And more urgently: what if the person whose genitals are crushed and skin is being burnt knows the whereabouts of a bomb that is about to explode and kill millions? Would we answer: yes, I do consent? That under certain very limited circumstances, torture is acceptable?
And I don't think there is an easy reply for this. Obviously, we're all, independent of nationality, horrified and shocked when being confronted with the photos that have been making the news. But I think many of us, including myself, have given their consent in a couple of fictional situations. Yes, there is a difference between fiction and reality, but I'm still wondering. Some months ago,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
altariel1 posted a DS9 WIP in which Garak, with Sisko's consent, torturers someone for crucial information. Which is absolutely plausible in canon at the point where it is set (season 6). The canonical fact that Garak used to torture for a living pre-show is not something that stops me, and many other fans, of loving the character and seeing it as part of his fascinating moral ambiguity. Most of us probably think he has a point when he's making his final statement to Sisko in In the Pale Moonlight, and in a story like Una's, one might shiver but still think Garak (and Sisko) are justified in those particular circumstances.
Moving on to other fandoms: when Angel, in late season 3, sets up Linwood for torture in his quest to find out whether there is a way he can get his son back, the audience (including myself) isn't appalled. We might be if it had been Lilah, but Linwood is a not even that interesting W&H functionary, and hey, Angel venting his dark side is always interesting. Also, saving your son from a hellish dimension certainly counts as a ends-justifies-the-means goal.
Or let's take L.A. Confidential, the film. Very stylish, very well acted, full of complexities, but when Exley and White unite to intimidate, bully and beat the crap out the cowardly whatever-his-name was near the climax of the movie, the audience isn't meant to think "okay, now they've given in to the system" but "Go, boys!"
It's a rare drama that presents a victim of torture who isn't innocent, or particularily likeable, and a pressing need to find out information but still manages to get the audience to root for the hero NOT to have a go at this person.
Going back from fiction to reality: it's a cliché that bears repeating that no one is ever the villain inside of his, or her, own head. It is the cause, my soul, it is the cause. Today's Washington Post carries a a story about one of the MPs involved in the current scandal, one Sabrina D. Harman. She clearly doesn't see what happened as some bizarre thing she and others did in their spare time. It was part of the job, of the mission. "The job of the MP was to keep them awake, make it hell so they would talk." She also, according to the article, collected the photos "as evidence of the improper conditions"; her sworn statement is in the Taguba Report. Quoth the article: In his investigation, Taguba used a portion of Harman's sworn statement to conclude that prisoners had been abused. Harman "stated . . . regarding the incident where a detainee was placed on box with wires attached to his fingers, toes, and penis, 'that her job was to keep detainees awake.' "
So, Ms. Harman, with "this . . . attitude that she is going to save the world", according to her mother, for a while believed this would be accomplished by following orders of the sort detailed above. Then she began to doubt. If this were a film, she would undoubtedly either be one of the villains, dumb and sadistic, or the heroine who for while got entangled in the mess but not really, not emotionally. Now if this were a movie a la A Few Good Men, what she did while posing for the photo showing a pile of bodies would be presented as unquestioningly wrong in either case. But if it were an action movie, we might well find the prisoners in question presented as some hissworthy bastards with information on which the lives of a dozen cherubic children depended. In which case the audience while disagreeing rationally would emotionally consent, more likely than not.
We delude ourselves when we give permission to commit evil acts to what we tell ourselves is a limited group of specialists, Theresa Nielsen Hayden writes in a thoughtful examination of this issue, and I appreciate the "we", because this is true for humans in general, not just members of one nation. She ends her entry with this:
And now, a list: The Nine Ways of Being an Accessory to Another’s Sin.
1. By counsel.
2. By command.
3. By consent.
4. By provocation.
5. By praise or flattery.
6. By concealment.
7. By partaking.
8. By silence.
9. By defense of the ill done.
And I wonder. How many of us can claim to be exempt from all of this?
In today's Guardian, Mr. Dorfman uses the recent revelations for penetrating questions, which aim at the conditio humana, at all of us, not just at one particular nation. He brings up The Brothers Karamazov and the question posed there by Ivan K.: Let us suppose that in order to bring men eternal happiness, it was essential and inevitable to torture to death one tiny creature, only one small child. Would you consent? After examining that one, Dorfman correctly points out that the even tougher question would be this: What if the person endlessly tortured for our wellbeing is guilty?
What if we could erect a future of love and harmony on the everlasting pain of someone who had himself committed mass murder, who had tortured those children? (...) And more urgently: what if the person whose genitals are crushed and skin is being burnt knows the whereabouts of a bomb that is about to explode and kill millions? Would we answer: yes, I do consent? That under certain very limited circumstances, torture is acceptable?
And I don't think there is an easy reply for this. Obviously, we're all, independent of nationality, horrified and shocked when being confronted with the photos that have been making the news. But I think many of us, including myself, have given their consent in a couple of fictional situations. Yes, there is a difference between fiction and reality, but I'm still wondering. Some months ago,
altariel1 posted a DS9 WIP in which Garak, with Sisko's consent, torturers someone for crucial information. Which is absolutely plausible in canon at the point where it is set (season 6). The canonical fact that Garak used to torture for a living pre-show is not something that stops me, and many other fans, of loving the character and seeing it as part of his fascinating moral ambiguity. Most of us probably think he has a point when he's making his final statement to Sisko in In the Pale Moonlight, and in a story like Una's, one might shiver but still think Garak (and Sisko) are justified in those particular circumstances. Moving on to other fandoms: when Angel, in late season 3, sets up Linwood for torture in his quest to find out whether there is a way he can get his son back, the audience (including myself) isn't appalled. We might be if it had been Lilah, but Linwood is a not even that interesting W&H functionary, and hey, Angel venting his dark side is always interesting. Also, saving your son from a hellish dimension certainly counts as a ends-justifies-the-means goal.
Or let's take L.A. Confidential, the film. Very stylish, very well acted, full of complexities, but when Exley and White unite to intimidate, bully and beat the crap out the cowardly whatever-his-name was near the climax of the movie, the audience isn't meant to think "okay, now they've given in to the system" but "Go, boys!"
It's a rare drama that presents a victim of torture who isn't innocent, or particularily likeable, and a pressing need to find out information but still manages to get the audience to root for the hero NOT to have a go at this person.
Going back from fiction to reality: it's a cliché that bears repeating that no one is ever the villain inside of his, or her, own head. It is the cause, my soul, it is the cause. Today's Washington Post carries a a story about one of the MPs involved in the current scandal, one Sabrina D. Harman. She clearly doesn't see what happened as some bizarre thing she and others did in their spare time. It was part of the job, of the mission. "The job of the MP was to keep them awake, make it hell so they would talk." She also, according to the article, collected the photos "as evidence of the improper conditions"; her sworn statement is in the Taguba Report. Quoth the article: In his investigation, Taguba used a portion of Harman's sworn statement to conclude that prisoners had been abused. Harman "stated . . . regarding the incident where a detainee was placed on box with wires attached to his fingers, toes, and penis, 'that her job was to keep detainees awake.' "
So, Ms. Harman, with "this . . . attitude that she is going to save the world", according to her mother, for a while believed this would be accomplished by following orders of the sort detailed above. Then she began to doubt. If this were a film, she would undoubtedly either be one of the villains, dumb and sadistic, or the heroine who for while got entangled in the mess but not really, not emotionally. Now if this were a movie a la A Few Good Men, what she did while posing for the photo showing a pile of bodies would be presented as unquestioningly wrong in either case. But if it were an action movie, we might well find the prisoners in question presented as some hissworthy bastards with information on which the lives of a dozen cherubic children depended. In which case the audience while disagreeing rationally would emotionally consent, more likely than not.
We delude ourselves when we give permission to commit evil acts to what we tell ourselves is a limited group of specialists, Theresa Nielsen Hayden writes in a thoughtful examination of this issue, and I appreciate the "we", because this is true for humans in general, not just members of one nation. She ends her entry with this:
And now, a list: The Nine Ways of Being an Accessory to Another’s Sin.
1. By counsel.
2. By command.
3. By consent.
4. By provocation.
5. By praise or flattery.
6. By concealment.
7. By partaking.
8. By silence.
9. By defense of the ill done.
And I wonder. How many of us can claim to be exempt from all of this?
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no subject
Date: 2004-05-08 12:29 pm (UTC)I think this is a terrible thing to say. You might as well go up to someone in the street and shoot them, and then say 'who knows, he might have been a rapist or murderer.' You can't just hurt people and say 'oh they might have been bad'.
And even if they were evil serial killers (which hasn't been suggested by anyone, even the torturers), you can't just torture people. Do you think Americans who are murderers should be tortured?
You think about why these men are being tortured? Well, keep thinking about that, because it's a very important question. If someone has told you there is a good reason then I think you should think very hard about the moral standards of such a person.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-08 07:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-09 03:43 am (UTC)What they might have done? But you have no reason to think that they have done anything bad at all.
Asked about claims by many prisoners after their release that they were picked up by mistake Colonel Foster Payne, head of military intelligence at Abu Ghraib, admitted that "some people were in the wrong place at the wrong time", but added: "Clearly everyone [here] is not a farmer."
OK, the guy in charge of the torture says 'they aren't all farmers'. But do you realise what that means? Most of them are just famers who were 'in the wrong place at the wrong time'. They're just regular people like your family, but Moslem and with brown skin. Do you feel any more sorry for them now?
Read this article about Abu Ghraib prison and the type of people who have been arrested. Seriously, it will take you about a minute to read it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1210545,00.html