Why We Torture

The DVD,Taxi to the Dark Side, a 2007 documentary film which won the 2007 Academy Award for Documentary Feature. The video provides an in-depth look at the torture practices of the United States in Afghanistan. It is a very thought-provoking look at not what we do, but what we are.

I am supportive of our troops. I have 2 troop members in my family. But I have to question how we got to the point where we accept torture as a valid tool in gaining intelligence. More than that, how is it that our soldiers were so comfortable in engaging in the vile acts I witnessed in this recent DVD as well as the other media demonstrations of torture? They have to have determined that the humanness of an Afghan (or Iraqi or other captive) was so far removed from the troop's own humanness that compassion and empathy was eliminated. In order to engage in torture, it is imperative to objectify the target. The troops would have had to, in their psyche, de-humanize their captives in order to eliminate empathy they might naturally feel for another's suffering. This predetermination of a diminished human status, or prejudice, clearly made torture easier for them.

In looking at the troops interviewed I couldn't help but notice that the troops were either female, African-American, lower to middle-socioeconomic status or fell into other "categories" of people in the U.S. traditionally subjected to bias in this country. So how could they, who have probably experienced biased treatment themselves, step so over the line as to subject captives to the humiliation and degradation that clearly went far beyond the call of duty? Regardless of whether I support or oppose torture in Intel-gathering, their sexually abusive actions, even causing death, were of no benefit to gaining information. So why then?

Suzanne Pharr, in her book Homophobia, dissects the elements of all prejudice. She does a very nice job of demonstrating how each element that is found in peoples prejudices against different sexual orientations to what underlies biases against religions, gender, age, skin color and so on. One of the interesting elements she discusses is that of 'horizontal hostility'. This element is a subjugated group's tendency to subjugate another group in order to 'lift' themselves to a higher social status; a sort of pushing others to the bottom rung on the social status ladder to avoid that rung themselves.

I think that this, and the other elements Pharr describes are easily witnessed in how we treat others, even ourselves. Horizontal hostility is a form of torture itself, albeit leaving little physical evidence to compare with that of the Afghan victims. We can use insensitive language towards other groups of people, tell 'dumb blond' or 'dumb men' jokes or hire only certain genders or races for certain positions in our company. Torture can be subjective and comes in various forms. Sometimes torture is our participation in prejudiced dialogue or actions against other groups. Some times torture is what we do to ourselves by degrading self-talk when we have an opportunity to reach higher than we ever have, but fear the unknown. So we label ourselves 'stupid', 'naive' and decide against taking a chance because most others in 'our group' haven't succeeded. Sometimes we torture our employees for the creative ideas they have that would require our risk-taking, when we just don't have it in us to try something new; so we create a work environment of status and hierarchy so that our employees will feel less-than others and not share their ideas so willingly.

When it comes down to it, we torture because not what 'they' are but because of what we are; or aren't. It is not our differences in lifestyle, gender, nationality or even faith that motivates bias and torture. It is where we view ourselves in relation to others.

Surprisingly, it isn't always that we see the target of our hostility as lesser-than, but more often that we view ourselves as the diminished individual. It isn't what we are, but our perception of what and who we are that allows us to torture another, or not.