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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Well it's good to know that the government was keeping safe from all these evil pornographers while Wall Street execs ran wild.
Well it's good to know that the government was keeping us safe from all these evil pornographers while Wall Street execs ran wild.
Glenn thank for bringing our attention to this outrageous hypocrisy. Let's keep our fingers crossed that the International community (since our Reps have not )will attempt to hold these individuals who allowed and encouraged this treatment of prisoners at Gitmo, Abu Gharib and who knows how many other place to be held ACCOUNTABLE
ondelette (October 7, 2008 07:24 A):
ondelette: The reasons I am separating the people at the top of the food chain from those beneath should not be so obscure that you cannot see them, unless you are determined to make everyone who inhabits that chain fundamentally different than yourself, which they are not.
That's quite a howler, ondelette. I have no desire whatsoever to delude myself that I am fundamentally different, biologically, psychologically, or spiritually from George W. Bush or William Graner. However, judging from their behavior vis a vis Abu Ghraib, it's evident to me that different tendencies certainly predominate, in our respective psyches. Specifically, if Miller's hypothesis is correct, as I think it is, Bush and Graner were quite probably brutalized more systematically and/or egregiously as children than was I.
Moreover, are you oblivious of the fact that the burden of proof is on you to legitimize your "separation" of the psychologies of Bush, Graner, and me? What fundamental differences do you perceive in the psyches of those who order torture and of those who "only" carry out those orders?
ondelette: They are not all sworn soldiers in the authoritarian brigade, determined to implement a regime of suffering and control mankind. Besides, one should always separate the decision makers from the workers, the former are accountable for what happens, the latter only responsible for what they have done. That's basic organizational understanding.
What conceivable distinction are you attempting to draw between accountability "for what happens" as opposed to being "only responsible for what they have done"? Are you attempting to rehabilitate the Eichmann defense, that Graner was only following orders and is, therefore, nicht schuldig?
And how do you account for the behavior of Abu Ghraib MP Thomas Hardy, who was exposed to all the contemporaneous pressures to which Graner was, yet was so repulsed by what he saw that he blew the whistle on it?
As Philip Zimbardo has written:
"Most psychologists who have actually read my newest book, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil (2007) will readily identify my research orientation as that of a 'social interactionist.' Social psychologists, like myself, follow the Lewinian tradition of studying individual and group behavior in situational-social contexts (See Ross & Nisbett, 1991). We do so because as I say up front, 'People and situations are usually in a state of dynamic interaction.' (Lucifer, p. 8) I go on to define these concepts as follows: 'The Person is an actor on the stage of life whose behavioral freedom is informed by his or her makeup--genetic, biological, physical, and psychological. The Situation is the behavioral context that has the power, through its reward and normative functions, to give meaning and identity to the actor’s roles and status.' (Lucifer, p. 445)"
Is it fair to say that your interpretation of Rejali is reflective of your being a die-hard situationist who has little or no use for dispositional factors in accounting for human behavior, including the torturing of others?
If not, how can you possibly reject out of hand, as you do, Miller's "child psychology" hypothesis of childhood trauma as determinative in adult manifestations of sado-masochistic behavior, up to and including torture?
In my last post, I meant to write the name of the Abu Ghraib whistleblower as Joseph Darby, not Thomas Hardy, the poet and novelist.
What I'm seeing is a mix of things: (1)a desire to differentiate yourselves fundamentally from those who end up being jailers at places like Bagram, (2)a desire to promote arguments that make you eligible to make choices for other adults, (3)a desire to link torture to authoritarianism, and a (4)desire to understand torture in terms of other forms of abuse.
1. I haven't done any such thing, nor do I even desire to. It is you who are taking the position that you can discern other people's motives for engaging in argument with you.
2. The argument that childhood trauma affects adult behavior? That is hardly a controversial argument. In fact, I doubt that Shapiro would disagree with it. Should we be able to make choices for some adults? Surely. If we do not, some adults will certainly prey upon others. To say we shouldn't make choices for some adults would mean to open all the prisons and let out a multitude of people guilty of nothing more than using drugs and also a multitude of people who are going to commit armed robbery, murder, and sexual assault. You favor the bad guys not being held at all responsible?
3. If you mean solely to authoritarian regimes, then no. If you mean do I think Dick Cheney is an authoritarian who has been responsible for much of U.S. policy that has resulted in torture, then yes.
4. Yes. Why not? What you fail to realize is that you resolutely refuse to look at other forms of abuse and consider how they might affect inclinations to torture. You also refuse to look at whistleblowers and rebels who do not go along with the agenda. The mere existence of these people refutes the idea that the situation alone determines choice.
In my opinion, I see a whole elephant in the room and am looking it over. You have ahold of the tail and are yelling with all your might that that means that you understand the elephant and that, by inserting a thermometer in his rectum, you can discern from his temperature his temperament.
Also, in my opinion, you have resorted to the sort of personal attack on AI and me that indicates that you are losing the argument. I will leave you to AI. Perhaps he has more patience than I. Today, I do not have time to reread Chapter 16.
Perhaps I will engage you again someday if I discern that you ever have any inclination to look at the other person's arguments in good faith.
You strike me as a sort of True Believer. Yes, that's psychologizing.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
