…No, that’s only the second reason…Simply stated, the first is that the practitioner of torture, the well known sadistic personality enjoys, indeed relishes the infliction of pain and demonstration of dominion over the helpless…Enter the State sponsored “Intelligence” market. Where the hell else can the inadequate psychopath gratify his or her sado-sexual depravity with impunity, and in some cases be well paid for it with your money?…Egypt?…Go figure? To my mind the pathological institution of torture makes common murder seem benevolent…The whole fuckin’ topic is not only disgusting in the most extreme sense of the word, but makes me sick at heart.
If only this would be true Mace Price, but the truth is much more disturbing. Torture is inflicted by very normal people. Normal people adapt to normality in almost any given environment and normality in a sick system is sickness. There is no need for psychopathology, sadism or any other other sort of depravity to enter into the equation for an explanation of why people torture other people. Normal people even may or may not enjoy that. The most disturbing part is to realize that abnormality in this respect is very rare. Seems to me Bovard is very accurate and to the point.
…Of course there are exceptions to every rule…But Sadists, Psychopaths, Sex fiends and the like are born, not made…They always demonstrate a tendency toward such behavior and an absence of conscience early on…usually by torturing animals…The “Banality of Evil’ rationale is an invention of Hollywood and French propagandists of the Existential school…a classic Left wing argument, right out of Jung vs. Freud…I suppose there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be a Jedi Knight, but if you ask me Oebi Wan Kanobe? Ya can’t make a Racehorse out of a Jackass…I’ve seen the paradigm in action far too many times…There is an element of Sadism to every Policeman’s personality
Well I would not be surprised you would find a correlation between certain flaws in character and occupation, but you see the argument comes down to this: torturers need to be employed (necessarily by a lawmaking entity) to torture legally.
I agree with you that some people are born sick, I believe in behaviorism like in Jedi knights. And I agree with you too there are policemen aplenty that have just the type of character that makes them totally unsuitable for the job. I will take your word for it that you might be a more experienced observer. And while at it, I don’t think I will ever figure out why some people really do seem to love to wear uniforms and all that, but the margins in the abuse of power given to the wrong type of people, who still are restrained by law – even if this isn’t always taken too seriously – is wholly different from torturing people who are stripped of every right, even the right to live.
The banality of evil, to my mind a term first used by Hannah Arendt at the Eichmann trial, is in no way to be interpreted as an excuse for behavior and personal guilt. I am not saying that either. What it is, is nothing more than the brutally honest attempt to understand, to diagnose, the why, to go directly to the root, the causal factors and not let yourself be fooled by the statisfaction of the atomical, easy and I’m afraid often primarily emotionally driven argument.
The tragedy is, in your words, that all jackasses think of themselves as a racehorse too and off track, maybe anyone can keep up appearances.
…I’ll argue that nurture can be the gun, but that it is nature who pulls the trigger virtualy every time…Look at J. Edgar Hoover, Richard Nixon, Phillip II in Spain, and the principles in the Abu Gharib torture case. One fuckin’ look at Grainor told me the shitty end of that business
…Take you pick…uh…Obi Wan Kanobe… Nature or Nurture? I realized years ago it is a highly complex mixture of both; with relativity thrown in and all conscience entities being borne toward oblivion on the river of time…That what the Japanese Shintoists once defined as a “Dream within a dream.” But back to the reality we’re living in. Again, take your pick: Jung? or Freud?
You would be wasting your time if to explain the difference between countries where torture is institutionalized and countries where it is not, you would be looking for statistical proof of a disproportionate number of depraved or mentally unstable people.
You would not be wasting your time if you would be looking for a correlation between the centralisation of power and the routine practice of torture.
…Your contention is to argue that the malefactions of The State must proceed the indigenous pathologies from which they stem…Thus turning this into a conundrum worthy of asking which came first, the Chicken or the Egg with aspects of Augustine’s City on a Hill, i.e. “A place where people will come to love God, or themselves.” But either way there will be and are Sadists among both crowds and once an order is established their “talents” will be utilized…In any case, Bovard—For whom I have a tremendous respect—Is correct in his Political statement, as are you for supporting it…See there? Now I’ve qualified myself guilty of Political correctness…Go figure?
…Better yet, ask the well known Harvard legal authority and outspoken advocate for the institutionalization of torture in The US, Alan Dershowitz, if a Centralized Authoritarian State sponsor would be a pre-requisite for such fuckin’ barbarism to flourish? He might will disabuse you of your well meaning, but puerile Star Wars, Jedi Knight delusions
No. I take it you are not trying to tell me you really think Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo (and all the other sites) are the products of a bunch of severely disturbed sadist morons who just saw an oppertunity to translate their grotesque Dahmerian fantasies into real life practice. There’s no chicken-egg mystery here.
The use for the practice of torture is two-fold, both are PR-related. The first use is terror, to scare your antagonists into submission, get them too afraid of being caught to undertake action in the first place. You will see if you look back at the beginnings of Auschwitz for example, then meant to be a camp primarily for Russian prisoners of war, the camp commander Rudolf H
…No, it’s more like 16 weeks…And that’s primarily to indoctrinate him through resocialization to lose his private identity through forced assimilation into collective response, i.e. follow orders without question-thought and shoot back. However to obtain an intelligence expert skilled in the use of psychological and physical torture to obtain useful information through the application of pain and fear; you have to have something in terms of a character disorder to work with beforehand…The applicants are thoroughly screened and evaluated before the training process is actuated…Not every personality type will do it. Many of those who will? Are driven mad through the experience…One primary diagnostic method of determining this is based on an applicant being able to successfully and consistently lie during a polygraph exam, the student then graduates to more sophisticated level of training…Consider that for the time being. As for you Obi Wan Kanobe never did such excellent argument assume so frivolous a pseudonym…Anyway, depend on my rejoining you in this business later, for now? My old man’s on his death bed and this computer’s fucked up.
…No, that’s only the second reason…Simply stated, the first is that the practitioner of torture, the well known sadistic personality enjoys, indeed relishes the infliction of pain and demonstration of dominion over the helpless…Enter the State sponsored “Intelligence” market. Where the hell else can the inadequate psychopath gratify his or her sado-sexual depravity with impunity, and in some cases be well paid for it with your money?…Egypt?…Go figure? To my mind the pathological institution of torture makes common murder seem benevolent…The whole fuckin’ topic is not only disgusting in the most extreme sense of the word, but makes me sick at heart.
If only this would be true Mace Price, but the truth is much more disturbing. Torture is inflicted by very normal people. Normal people adapt to normality in almost any given environment and normality in a sick system is sickness. There is no need for psychopathology, sadism or any other other sort of depravity to enter into the equation for an explanation of why people torture other people. Normal people even may or may not enjoy that. The most disturbing part is to realize that abnormality in this respect is very rare. Seems to me Bovard is very accurate and to the point.
…Of course there are exceptions to every rule…But Sadists, Psychopaths, Sex fiends and the like are born, not made…They always demonstrate a tendency toward such behavior and an absence of conscience early on…usually by torturing animals…The “Banality of Evil’ rationale is an invention of Hollywood and French propagandists of the Existential school…a classic Left wing argument, right out of Jung vs. Freud…I suppose there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be a Jedi Knight, but if you ask me Oebi Wan Kanobe? Ya can’t make a Racehorse out of a Jackass…I’ve seen the paradigm in action far too many times…There is an element of Sadism to every Policeman’s personality
Well I would not be surprised you would find a correlation between certain flaws in character and occupation, but you see the argument comes down to this: torturers need to be employed (necessarily by a lawmaking entity) to torture legally.
I agree with you that some people are born sick, I believe in behaviorism like in Jedi knights. And I agree with you too there are policemen aplenty that have just the type of character that makes them totally unsuitable for the job. I will take your word for it that you might be a more experienced observer. And while at it, I don’t think I will ever figure out why some people really do seem to love to wear uniforms and all that, but the margins in the abuse of power given to the wrong type of people, who still are restrained by law – even if this isn’t always taken too seriously – is wholly different from torturing people who are stripped of every right, even the right to live.
The banality of evil, to my mind a term first used by Hannah Arendt at the Eichmann trial, is in no way to be interpreted as an excuse for behavior and personal guilt. I am not saying that either. What it is, is nothing more than the brutally honest attempt to understand, to diagnose, the why, to go directly to the root, the causal factors and not let yourself be fooled by the statisfaction of the atomical, easy and I’m afraid often primarily emotionally driven argument.
The tragedy is, in your words, that all jackasses think of themselves as a racehorse too and off track, maybe anyone can keep up appearances.
…I’ll argue that nurture can be the gun, but that it is nature who pulls the trigger virtualy every time…Look at J. Edgar Hoover, Richard Nixon, Phillip II in Spain, and the principles in the Abu Gharib torture case. One fuckin’ look at Grainor told me the shitty end of that business
I think we have arrived at the same point already. I agree.
That means that I do not think triggers are all that life-threatening when not attached to (loaded) guns.
…Take you pick…uh…Obi Wan Kanobe… Nature or Nurture? I realized years ago it is a highly complex mixture of both; with relativity thrown in and all conscience entities being borne toward oblivion on the river of time…That what the Japanese Shintoists once defined as a “Dream within a dream.” But back to the reality we’re living in. Again, take your pick: Jung? or Freud?
…That should read conscious entities
You would be wasting your time if to explain the difference between countries where torture is institutionalized and countries where it is not, you would be looking for statistical proof of a disproportionate number of depraved or mentally unstable people.
You would not be wasting your time if you would be looking for a correlation between the centralisation of power and the routine practice of torture.
…Your contention is to argue that the malefactions of The State must proceed the indigenous pathologies from which they stem…Thus turning this into a conundrum worthy of asking which came first, the Chicken or the Egg with aspects of Augustine’s City on a Hill, i.e. “A place where people will come to love God, or themselves.” But either way there will be and are Sadists among both crowds and once an order is established their “talents” will be utilized…In any case, Bovard—For whom I have a tremendous respect—Is correct in his Political statement, as are you for supporting it…See there? Now I’ve qualified myself guilty of Political correctness…Go figure?
…Better yet, ask the well known Harvard legal authority and outspoken advocate for the institutionalization of torture in The US, Alan Dershowitz, if a Centralized Authoritarian State sponsor would be a pre-requisite for such fuckin’ barbarism to flourish? He might will disabuse you of your well meaning, but puerile Star Wars, Jedi Knight delusions
No. I take it you are not trying to tell me you really think Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo (and all the other sites) are the products of a bunch of severely disturbed sadist morons who just saw an oppertunity to translate their grotesque Dahmerian fantasies into real life practice. There’s no chicken-egg mystery here.
The use for the practice of torture is two-fold, both are PR-related. The first use is terror, to scare your antagonists into submission, get them too afraid of being caught to undertake action in the first place. You will see if you look back at the beginnings of Auschwitz for example, then meant to be a camp primarily for Russian prisoners of war, the camp commander Rudolf H
…No, it’s more like 16 weeks…And that’s primarily to indoctrinate him through resocialization to lose his private identity through forced assimilation into collective response, i.e. follow orders without question-thought and shoot back. However to obtain an intelligence expert skilled in the use of psychological and physical torture to obtain useful information through the application of pain and fear; you have to have something in terms of a character disorder to work with beforehand…The applicants are thoroughly screened and evaluated before the training process is actuated…Not every personality type will do it. Many of those who will? Are driven mad through the experience…One primary diagnostic method of determining this is based on an applicant being able to successfully and consistently lie during a polygraph exam, the student then graduates to more sophisticated level of training…Consider that for the time being. As for you Obi Wan Kanobe never did such excellent argument assume so frivolous a pseudonym…Anyway, depend on my rejoining you in this business later, for now? My old man’s on his death bed and this computer’s fucked up.
Thanks, I take it into consideration. Sorry to hear about your dad and wish you and your family strength.