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Are we learning to love torture?
Simonthepilgrim
Veteran
An article in today's Independent tells me that it is United Nations International day in support of Victims of Torture:
Philip Hensher: Hollywood is helping us learn to love torture
When you read it (if you do), I think it is important to understand that although the media examples cited may originate from the USA, this is far from being yet another stone to throw at a suffering nation. The phenomenon is world-wide and the growing acceptance as torture as legitimate "under special circumstances" is a worrying trend. It runs alongside the progressive erosion of traditional ways of dealing with others which we have characterised as civil liberties.
Philip Hensher: Hollywood is helping us learn to love torture
When you read it (if you do), I think it is important to understand that although the media examples cited may originate from the USA, this is far from being yet another stone to throw at a suffering nation. The phenomenon is world-wide and the growing acceptance as torture as legitimate "under special circumstances" is a worrying trend. It runs alongside the progressive erosion of traditional ways of dealing with others which we have characterised as civil liberties.
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Comments
but we slowly got here, in ways that didnt really disturb our basic sense of well being, and all of sudden we are on a road that leads to destruction.
Any government or military offical found to be torturing prisoners should be forced to stand trial and be sentenced harshly (not including torture though)
Governments are quick to take the easy fast and cheap solution to problems these days. Now the U.S. has added direct torture and torture by proxy to the bag of dirty tricks. Why? Because it is way too easy to abuse power and hide those abuses behind the veil(s) of freedom and/or security. With the Red menace gone, we just had to create some new enemies didn't we?
First, one lone person treats all they encounter with respect, compassion and dignity. From that lonely little seed, perhaps something noble will take root.
And I agree, this admistration has been quite effective in wrapping all its underhanded activities in the Garb of Freedom, Justice & the American Way. So, if you dare to question these activities, you appear to be against these ideals. And then throw in appeals to Fear & Sentimentality and you have effectively distracted the majority of the population. Funny this is coming from a supposedly 'Christian' president who prays everyday. Well... not so funny I guess.
metta
_/\_
P.S.- I'm not trying to single out the US, as this sort of thing runs rampant throughout all society. I just happen to be better informed on the current administration than others.
I don't think Hollywood is to blame for the progressive desensitisation to inhumanity. I think it is a mirror of the society that it targets. There are very few film-makers who are prepared to go against the commercial trend. Our own Ken Loach is just such a one and I am sure he is far from alone.
Unfortunately, films cost money to make and to market. They also can earn a great deal of money back. Like any other product which is perceived in solely market-place terms, the greatest financial return will be the objective of the big, mainstream studios.
I do think that there is a point to consider. Daniel Berrigan and Thich Nhat Hanh touch on this in the book I am reading. As onestumbling along the Noble Eightfold Path, and understanding that when I water the seeds of anger and enjoyment in the pain of others I damage myself, I am worried by the level of violence against the person in so much that I see.
Graphic, if fictitious, violence as a source of entertainment is, for me, only one step away from the bloody gladiatorial contests of ancient Rome. If this is the reflection of our society and its values, wouldn't you agree that it is worrying?
However, there is the whole "pushing the envelope" part of the system. You start with "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." (Anyone remember how "shocking" that slow motion death scene was considered?) But you end up with "Hostel" or "Saw" both of which are exercises in cruelty taken to extremes. Once you have me acclimated to one level of violence, it is fairly easy to move me to the next. The same is true of sexuality. Or drugs. It is hard for people, well, some people, to maintain an EVEN path. So violent and sexual depictions just get more and more graphic. And the last level we were at seems almost quaint in comparison to where we are now.
For people who do not have spiritual or meditative practices, this path is almost imperceptable. The differences between "White Heat" or "Out of the Past" and "Pulp Fiction" are pretty great, but the differences between "Pulp Fiction" and "Kill Bill" are not.
I am not saying this planned by anyone, but it is a discernable cycle.
My question is whether or not our values really have ever been different. There are certain facets of the human being and society that just will never change. Violence will always be glorified by books, movies, and television just as it was glorified by gladiators, mythological heroes, and poems.
I don't think our values have somehow declined recently. If anything, values are improving in our culture. Civil liberties and women's suffrage are second nature and there are less people dying from war.
So no, I do not find it that worrying.
I saw Casino Royale and was perfectly capable of realizing this was a James Bond movie. I watched Hostel and thought how horrible it would be if things like that really happened - and they do. Ed Gaines did his horrible deeds without the direction or influence of Hollywood - or television for that matter.
I can't help but think that sometimes people get on these soap boxes just to spew out some simpleton idea of "oh... we're so stupid that if we see this we will do that." Are we not more intelligent than that?
Did the Inquisition need Hollywood?
Did the Pol Pot need Hollywood for his atrocities? Or Hitler for that matter?
I've seen many of these movies and it still does nothing to soften my inability to handle physical violence or torture against other human beings.
-bf
Something, however, is turning young men and women into a callousness that must worry us. Just look at the interviews in The Nation or listen to the voices of gang members in our streets.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070730/hedges
Palzang
I noted, good buddhafoot, that in the first paragraph above you put the word "reality" in quotes.
I quite agree with all you've said, although I'm not saying I truly enjoy the drama as it unrolls —only the general catharsis and specific moral and esthetic themes being dealt with. I WON'T GO to an action movie without taking an Ativan (1 mg) beforehand. It all seems very real to me. (I chipped a tooth at the Harvard Square Theatre years ago while watching a Godfather and Godfather II double feature. One guy who I admitted this fact to some years later said those movies were boring. He preferred movies with all sorts of blood and gore where people really got what they deserved.)
Go figure.
Simon - I understand where you are coming from. My only point is that we've had murder and torture and disfiguring ever since Man has been on this Earth. And some of it has been written about in some of the most sacred of documents...
From what I remember, the people of Israel would cut the foreskin off of their own people - neither would they suffer a witch to live - and when they conquered a land and it's people, they would slay the men, the women, the children, the babies and even the livestock.
If that is not a horror movie, I don't know what is. Can you imagine trying to watch a movie about putting babies to the sword or spear?
The Christians of the Inquisition did things to people that Hollywood hasn't even touched on yet. I've never seen a Hollywood movie showing people having the skin flayed from their backs with red hot pieces of metal. Or movies of people having red hot pokers shoved up their orifices.
I don't think that movies start these sorts of things.
If the mind is weak - I don't think it will necessarily HELP! - but I don't think it's the root cause.
-bf
P.S. Anyone care for a hot poker up yer butt?
I love it when you talk dirty!
Palzang
I know
You're so BAD - I love it!
-bf