You made it clear torture is not an efficient way to get information. I wonder, does that apply to people who have been trained to endure it, like soldiers? If I go by my personal example, even the mere threat of mutiliation would make me tell even things they didn't ask for...
OKthe kind of thought experiment you just conducted has been used toargue torture can be effective and is ājustifiedā for centuries.
Itāsnot that your logic is faulty. The process of trying to imagine thesituation and think about what youād do is very natural and human.But this is a perfect example of how people can approach the topic oftorture with good intentions and little knowledge and walk away withconclusions that are a long way from the reality.
Basicallythe state of mind youāre in now (which I am presuming is reasonablycontent and not in immediate terrible pain) is a long way fromtorture. If you havenāt been tortured or in an analogous state ofextreme pain itās extremely difficult to imagine how you wouldactually respond or what it would be like.
Weāreparticularly bad at imagining the effects on our memories, logicalthinking and ability to process information. We imagine that inextreme pain weāll still be capableof remembering things we can remember easily now.
Youāreassuming that youād be able to remember things in that state.Youāre also assuming youād know something relevant in the firstplace. Both are highly unlikely.
Peoplesaying āanythingā is part of the problem.Itās part of whytorture can never work. Because most of the people who are brought indonāt know shitand some of them will alsosay āanythingā to try and make the pain stop.
Torturers(and humans generally) are terrible at telling when people are lying.So they can not tell the difference.
Allof these are points Iāve covered before. Theyāre in this old poston why torture doesnāt work, this one on effective methods ofinvestigation, this one on what torture actually does tointerrogation and this one on the effects torture has on victims. Ohand this one on the effect torture has on memory.
Ifyouāve read my previous Masterposts then Iād suggest moving on toRejali who covers all of this verythoroughly, or OāMara who wrote less of a doorstep and concentratedon the biological reasons why torture canāt work.
Tortureātrainingā does not appear to have any effect on a personāsability to resist torture. Resistance to torture appears to be commonand innate.
Essentiallythe factors that combine to mean torture can not āworkā are to dowith how we process pain and how our brains are wired. No amount oftraining changes that.
Howevertraining thatās supposed to help soldiers resist torture has beenlinked to soldiers torturing people.
Tortureātrainingā does not appear to do anything to make soldiers moreāresistantā because as human beings with human brains they arelikely already incredibly resistant to torture. The structure oftheir brains means that torture and abuse are never going to beeffective ways to get information from those brains.
Buttorture ātrainingā doesshow soldiers how torture is conducted. It gives them a standardisedintroduction in causing other people pain.
Andsome of them go on to use that to harm others.
Ona tangentially related note- whyis the idea of mutilation so terrible? Why is the idea of livingdisabled or disfigured so frightening? The WHO estimates that about athirdof people have some kind of disability or life long medicalcondition.
Tryanother thought experiment with me. Think of that mutilation youāreafraid of, whether itās losing your hands or your legs or yournose. Now look up how people who actually have that condition liveand what they say about their condition. Look up mobility aids andprosthetics and surgical procedures and recovery times.
Lookat what disabled people outside the paralympics have achieved. Itāsa long list.
WhatIām aiming at here is this: becoming disabled is a real possibilityfor everyone.That prospect is a lot less scary if you know what you can doin that eventuality.
IfI ever lose a hand Iām getting the krukenberg procedure and somehooks because I have a lot of respect for heat proof limbs heldtogether by rubber bands. And suddenly the ānightmareā scenario Ithought of as a budding teenage artist, losing my hands, istoothless.
Ifyouāre struggling to get your head around the idea that torture isuseless as well as immoral- Iām not surprised. Thereās a lotof background information in our global culture justifying torture.
But-If youāve read my Masterposts and you donāt get it then theproblem isnāt you, itāsme.The way Iām explaining it isnāt working for you.
Thatāssomething Iām going to have to work on, being clearer and beingaccessible to everyone.
Butit probably means that right now? Iām not going to be able toexplain this in a way that will help.
Whichmeans I think the best thing you can do is go to my sources. Youcan find OāMaraās book here.Youcan find Rejali here.For the love of everything holy do not buy Rejali in hardback, itāshuge enough already.
Youshould also consider reading what survivors have said about theirexperiences. Allegāsmemoir can be found here.Searleāsaccount of his time as a POW is available here.Fela Kutiās Coffinfor a Head of Stateand UnknownSoldierare on youtube and spotify.
Donāttake my word for it. Look at the research. Read what survivors say.
Thatāswhy I have a sources page and why I try to cite as much as Ipractically can.
Donātjust wonder about it. Do the reading. Get informed and get angry.
Anddo not blame yourself if I have failed as a teacher.
