Friday Philosophy: Torture

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There seems to have been a lot of discussion about torture lately.  How’s that for an understatement.  I’ve taken note but have mostly resisted taking part in any of the discussions.  Well, actually, I don’t suppose going to a lecture by a refugee rights advocate on Tuesday about the US role in torture actually counts as “resisting,” but I’ve mostly stayed away from online discussions.  I’ve expressed my feelings about it in the past and it has not always been accepted in the spirit it was offered.

I was raised a boy, preordained to be a man.  There is no dismissing that.  That gives me a fairly rare perspective, given what has happened in my life in later years.

In the world of my youth, there were boys who took pleasure in torturing animals lower on the food chain.  Like it or not, such boys were accorded status.  Torturing animals was cool…up to a point.  Except to those of us who thought it was gross.  But expressing that disgust was a possible way to become a target oneself.  

Those boys were better boys.  That was the message I received when adults who either observed or were told about the behavior said,

Boys will be boys.

In our neighborhood were two bullies.  I once confronted one of them when I became fed up at his torturing of another neighborhood kid, one I didn’t even particularly like.  I beat up Don Smith when he broke Tom Jones’ glasses (those are their real names, not anonymous pseudonyms).  I am still ashamed of that.

But I was congratulated.  People said he needed it.

I never confronted Butch Watson.  I tried to avoid him as much as possible.  In Butch’s world, you either participated in the torture or you were prey.

In my sophomore year of high school I had just become starting QB on the junior varsity football team when I injured my right shoulder (while being forced to wrestle Bob Jacobsen during PE class), meaning I couldn’t pass the ball more than a few yards.  I took the opportunity to quit football, ensuring the eternal disapproval of my father.  But I walked away from a sport in which harming my opponent seemed to be the point and a team which had a sadist for a coach.

It was later in high school that I first really became aware that there were people who were supposedly designated universal targets for torture because they were in some way different than me…and that I was supposed to accept that as the way life was.  Participating in that torture was the price one had to pay to be part of upper crust, however that was defined.  I’m also ashamed that I remained silent then and for too much more of my life.

In 1967 I divorced my family.  I refused to be taught how to torture by the US government.  Word on the grapevine was that family members who might be contacted were often in danger of being tried as accomplices.  That caused a great breach in my life.  It turned out to be futile.  I was captured and, circumstances being what they were at the time, was indeed taught those torturing skills.  Being who I am, I learned…and I learned well enough to become a Spec 5 as a prison guard in the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth in two years.

I learned that having learned how to torture meant that every moment, I had to choose not to do it.  I managed to accomplish that.  I earned a Presidential Commendation after I became able to use my mind in order to help the prisoners rather than my body to harm them.  But I could have done without the nightmares I had in which I actually used those skills to kill or maim someone.

After the Army, I became a teacher.  Among other things, that gave me some standing to talk about bullying.  So did being a parent.  But it’s not like many people listened.

Boys will be boys.  And some people have to be prey.

Then the school shootings picked up and people began to notice.  People are quite good at beginning to notice when it is already way too late.  It’s been too late as long as I can remember.

In later years I got to play target for quite a few years.  There are still remnants of that.  My ethics require speaking up in favor of eliminating people like me as prey.  That has lead to disappointment…frustration…

There’s probably another word that goes there, but it doesn’t want to divulge itself at present.

We are a society, a culture, a country that tortures.  We have always been one.

Beyond that, everything is a matter of degree.  

Bruise Torture How much information did you get from the fly after you picked off its wings? What intelligence did you gain from the butterfly when you crushed it with water? Did the squirrel divulge secrets concerning a ticking bomb as you dissected it Did you move on to people? Knocking the corners off those with too many sandblasting the surface of those too different forcing into focus the fuzzy people is how some people spend too much time It’s a short step from here to torture Is it forward or back? –Robyn Elaine Serven –April 18, 2008