"TORTURE" -- A CONVERSATION & COMMENT!

"TORTURE" – A CONVERSATION & COMMENT!

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© May 22, 2009

“Ethics is a matter of good taste.”

Fernando Savater, Spanish philosopher, author of “Amador” (1994)

* * *

REFERENCE:

Manfred, my German friend, with whom I worked with in the late 1980s for Honeywell Europe, Ltd., told me to hold his email, as he will be traveling in the States for a month. He lives near Frankfurt, Germany.

We had often discussed such sensitive subjects, when we worked together, and I wanted him to have access to my take on “Torture.”

Manfred was recruited as a fledgling soldier in the closing days of WWII to fight for Germany against the Russians on the Eastern front, while I of a similar age quietly attended St. Patrick Grammar School in Clinton, Iowa.

Somehow he survived that traumatic experience, and had a successful executive career, completing that career as a Vice President of Human Resources, Honeywell International.

His three children were educated in Germany and the United States with his daughter acquiring a Ph.D. in pharmacology from a major university in the United States, and his two sons, MBAs from Ivy League Business Schools. Manfred and Gerda’s children have all chosen to live and work in the United States, but have a worldview that they might otherwise lack.

What follows is our clipped conversation and a comment.

MY MESSAGE:

(This is what I wrote in sending Manfred the “Torture” missive)

Manfred,

I'm afraid I'm going to get some hate mail from this. Considering that possibility, I almost didn't post it, but I have, and so it is too late to express remorse. I wanted you to have it because if anyone understands the convoluted psychodrama regarding torture, it is you.

Be always well and have a wonderful visit with your children and grandchildren.

Jim

PS Love to Gerda from both BB and me.

* * *

MANFRED’S RESPONSE:

Jim,

I'm also afraid that an unreasonable reaction may follow, but I trust you to accept it as a confirmation of your message.

In Germany we say, “A dog will presumably bark at you when you catch him with a chicken he has killed in your yard.” It confirms his mistake by becoming the aggressor to you, the accuser.

It may be part of our ancient heritage to be inclined to torture our enemies or people we fear. After what has happened on both sides in WWII, however, we should know better and avoid such inhumane action.

Otherwise, we have to recognize it will create hatred and backlash. It would appear as a consequence of Guantanamo that terrorism has increased significantly, and has enhanced support for its jihad with more volunteers. Was that intended?

Yesterday, I flew from Frankfurt to Minneapolis and had to experience how the terrorists have silently paralyzed us. All the security imposed on us costs enormous amounts of time and money and makes traveling a disagreeable event. Do we really take this as a good expression of patriotism?

Be always well and stay strong with your opinions,

Manfred

* * *

MY FINAL COMMENTS ON "TORTURE":

We live in a time of “urban legends,” when devious if not diabolical people can fan the flames of hatred by tormenting us in the most vulnerable sanctuaries of our private thoughts. They offer a convenient if bizarre palliative to guilt and shame.

Rather than have us wrestle with guilt and shame for the excesses of the spirit performed in our behalf at such places as Guantanamo, we say, “Aren’t there worse forms of torture than were practiced at Abu Graib?” Without a doubt, there are! But should we take our standards from what other people do?

We live in an increasingly desensitized world of electronic wonders in which we text message scores perhaps hundreds of times a day to people connected to us if remotely. Intimacy has faded to infantile sex comedies, or an occasional PBS special of the works of Jane Austen on television.

We are so self-estranged that we think sex is funny, not fun, not uplifting, not a jubilation of the human spirit in the miracle of creating life, not an expression of intimacy, but funny. Being "funny" has become an expression of self-consciousness and the antithesis of intimacy. Funny, as it has been ratcheted down, is banal to the point of nonsense. Nonsensical sells!

If anything, there is not enough guilt and shame left in the world.

Guilt is the internal sense that we have done something wrong even though no one might ever discover it.

Shame records our consciousness before our peers whose values we honor, and whose esteem we desire. Guilt goes deep, but shame leaves its mark once it is made public. Fernando Savater is right, “Ethics is a matter of good taste.”

I don’t find television comedies in good taste, but banal, treating as they do people as sex objects in the most degrading manner, but, alas, such programs get the ratings, and remain on television. Good taste is apparently neither fashionable nor profitable.

What has this to do with my discussion of “Torture”? Susan Neiman puts it best:

“Shame and guilt often stand and fall together, but they are quite distinct. The absence of shame is critical, for shameless is not just a term of abuse. We have lost a sense of moral clarity.”

After a century of war in which nearly a quarter billion people perished as direct participants or collateral damage in those many wars, evil has become benign and good has taken a holiday.

We run on moral energy and our tank is low if not close to empty. So, in a sense, our retreat from reality into cyberspace and virtual reality as therapy for an anxious age is not inconceivable, but is it healthy? Do we still have the resilience to face the future? That is my wonder.

A decade and a half ago, I claimed in “The Taboo Against Being Your Own Best Friend” (1996) “we are not happy campers. We have lost our moral compass and our way.” I see little evidence that we have found it or our way.

* * *