Shocked, shocked! (persuasion and torture)

I am not shocked by any of this, because it's the same old crap. However, I can be disgusted. I used to watch, for the camp factor, mind you, Star Trek Enterprise. When they started torturing enemies on that show I was pretty mad at Dubya for contaminating even the relatively distant future. (Timewise, that might almost be like the return of the Alien and Sedition Act would be for us. Hmmm..... Maybe NOT so strange.)

An acquaintance of mine who had been in WW2 used to have as one of his prized posessions a Luftwaffe (or some German aviation organization) model aviation trophy. A small, but elegant object. He had befriended a German POW who wanted someone who appreciated it to have it, since the prisoner was sure it would eventually be stolen. This acquaintance told me that prisoners were often beaten, implying that it was for emotional reasons and not for information. Whether that was common, I have no idea. Donald Murray, not long ago, recounted a torture incident against a German prisoner from that war in his column in the Boston Globe. Many of us, I'm sure, if we are honest, can remember from childhood incidents of this sort of thing perpetrated upon or by ourselves, just for the hell of it. I know I can. Same old crap.

I think in our culture, and many others, there is a psychological continuity between many accepted practices and torture. It's widely accepted to violate someone's integrity by putting them in very unpleasant situations, particularly for children. These days, the coercion usually isn't very physical, but that doesn't make it easier to take. When one refuses to recognize or vigorously denies the legitimacy and worth of another person, I think that's verging into torture, whether done with physical means or not. And it happens all the time, even with those we love most in the world. Inherent, almost in our nature, as social beings who develop dominance heirarchies. No surprise at these other more overtly shocking events. I believe that much of the horror felt upon hearing the Vietnam POW stories, which I used to dread particularly, came from a mostly unconscious recognition. However, I think we may be just smart and self aware enough to minimize these tendencies if we really want to. Seems to me that many of us as UU's show signs of being on the right track on these issure. But not all of us, and not all the time.

How to convince people, such as kids, under one's own responsibility and care, to behave appropriately without tormenting them, I leave as an exercise for the reader. I have't seen it done often, but I'm convinced it's possible.

We also have a tendency to pretend that we don't recognize or understand the activities of perpetrators, as if we are not even the same species. This is a false comfort. If we are good, and I'm not sure that's a meaningful evaluation, it is not because we never want to do these things, but because we give more influence to and cultivate our desires not to do this things and our desires to help others..

I know I'm out on a limb here, and it's possible it's all baloney. I had no intention of going this far when I started writing, but I'm supposed to be doing something else, and that drives me. Remember that I don't oppose vigorously disputing someone else's ideas without denigrating their inherent worth as a person. (But I am not mature enough to make this distinction in all cases, I'm afraid. Just deleted a particularly poignant example which I decided serves no legitimate purpose. ) Also,never having had kids, I probably don't know enough of what I'm talking about. And I'm a weak man, without enough strength to come close to the ideals expressed above. I don't even intend to! My "smart" mouth is my strongest part. (metaphorically, ok?)

Is there any possibility you find out in the next episode that they beat a false confession out of the wrong guy? As I understand it, this happens all the time.

Len

author concealed wrote:

We were shocked at last night's episode of Blind Justice. The good guy blind cop beat a confession snip

On Apr 20, 2005, at 8:04 PM, anonymous wrote:

While the star does find a way to get the information, the emotions evoked are very strong and very negative toward those who would protect terrorist suspects from torture. snip

sonnets and meds

Thanks for posting this. It's hard (at least for me) to write semi inspirational stuff like this without getting sappy, but I think Leonard Nathan does it very well. To tell the truth, I hadn't heard of him before, which probably says more about my ignorance than anything else. I immediately thought of the Shakespearean sonnet shown below, as I think I was meant to.

However, I have to say I'm hoping Nathan is being a little tongue in cheek here. I think a lot of extra people are miserable because they believe, as they've been told, in pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps. It's fine if one is equipped with bootstraps, but many of us don't have them, or have very slippery, short ones. Perhaps the poem was written when Valium was among the best options for boostrap substitutes (I'm not sure this is the right function for bensodiazepines anyway), but things have changed. I don't think sadness is just some kind of spiritual experience that garners us good karma and wisdom, at least not if it's a constant condition that prevents us from fully exercising our talents or experiencing life fully. In fact, rather than granting wisdom, it may turn one into an isolated fount of dyspepsia*. This new ability to sometimes lighten our burden in a relatively easy and quick way certainly brings some difficulties with it, though. What are we to think of disposition, moral strength, character and so on when we can no longer easily separate them from biology? However, if this problem is the shadow cast by the new ability, I don't think the answer is to blow out the lamp!


*Was just reading things I wrote in the house book when I was going to college 25 years ago. I think all of us in the house would have voted for dosing me with Prozac at the time, had it been available and had we known its capabilities. It's remarkable that I was not defenestrated. Not a wise risk to run in a house with 5 stories. And not for nothing was I known as N.O.T. (nasty old troll).

len
someone should tap me for maple sap, if their kitchen doesn't have wallpaper on the ceiling

Sonnet 29

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least:
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee,--and then my state
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings'.

Shakespeare

xxxxx wrote:

Poem: "Ragged Sonnet: When in a Deep Depression" by Leonard Nathan. Used with permission of the poet.

Ragged Sonnet: When in a Deep Depression

When in a deep depression of the self,
I see on every side, on every hill,
like the lit mansions of the rich, success
of others, hear the echoes loudly praise
my rivals, feel my plodding soles sink deeper
in the cold ashes of hope, and feel
the tepid drizzle of self-pity stain
my cheeks, I think of you, dear friend, who scorned
the Valium prescribed because you thought
sadness was our wise companion, shadow
of later years and not good to deny;
and then, my heart, all but reconciled
to gravity, like a wing evolved for such
short flights, beats up again. But not too high.

ancient history

Was supposed to meet someone for a blind date and didn't catch the cancellation on email. Wandered over to the house where I used to live 25 years ago and looked thru the old house books, where my posts were notably dysthymic, and sometimes mean, but usually funny. Or I tend to think so. Almost another guy back there who was so unhappy, tho we both believe many of the same things and have many of the same biases.

circa 1984:
"When you go to school, you're miserable and so you don't vote. When you work, you become grouchy, and, if you're undisciplined, you vote for nasty people like Reagan."

"We're better than the Russians so we have to degenerate until we're almost as bad and then nuke them."

unspecified year:
"If we get a cat, can we get a meat grinder?" (I actually like cats a lot, but not ones with no particular owners in a house of 20 people with a history of fleas, use of beanbag chairs as litterboxes, etc.

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handwriting didn't seem quite like mine, but someone wrote this Tom Swifty:
"I love homosexual necrophilia", Tom said in dead earnest.
(No, I'm not homophobic. Fell in love with a gay guy once, but I didn't seem to have enough of the orientation to survive my own freakout factor. Too bad, because he was probably nicest person I've ever dated, among other positive qualities.However, necrophilia would scare me.)
------------------------
moi as part of a long flame:
" Remember, respect, consideration, a stiff upper lip, constipation and happiness are all supposed to go together."
and (not same flame, I think):
"The stuff that I want is of course the only correct way to do things. It's just that I am an imperfect being pushing a perfect program."

"Hating kids is like hating Canadians or locksmiths. They're all too different from each other to know if you hate them or not." ( I should have the courage to let the first sentence stand on its own.)

UU's from Snootytown

Got this in the UU email list today:
----------------
name deleted wrote:
Don't know if this is for real or not, but it sure is funny!

THIS COMES FROM A CATHOLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEST. KIDS WERE ASKED
QUESTIONS ABOUT THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS. THE FOLLOWING STATEMENTS ABOUT
THE BIBLE WERE WRITTEN BY CHILDREN. THEY HAVE NOT BEEN RETOUCHED NOR
CORRECTED. INCORRECT SPELLING HAS BEEN LEFT IN.

1. IN THE FIRST BOOK OF THE BIBLE, GUINESSIS. GOD GOT TIRED OF

CREATING THE WORLD SO HE TOOK THE SABBATH OFF.

snip

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I responded:
Hey, some of us were raised as ADDish Unitarians, so we've got little bits of ancient Egyptian monotheism, Zoroastrianism, and obscene Indian statuary inextricably mixed in from those odd Sunday School classes. Not to mention the ancient Mayan jai lai matches. You'd better clear it up and tell us what the "accepted" story is. God drank Guiness because Adams, Bud, and Miller weren't available yet, right? Just can't see him drinking one of those soapy furrin brewskis if an Amurican one was available. And I'm glad to see he got rid of that freakin' heavy metal! That was a bad mistake. Don't know when the can pops anymore. Just like a deef cat that don't hear the opener.

-Len