How does it make you feel?
Thomas Jones
'I have spoken as recently as 24 hours ago with people at the highest level of intelligence,' the president of the United States said on ABC News last night, 'and I asked them the question: "Does it work? Does torture work?" And the answer was: "Yes, absolutely." … Do I feel it works? Absolutely I feel it works.'
In Why Torture Doesn't Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation, Shane O'Mara, a professor of experimental brain research at Trinity College Dublin, argues that 'torture is as ineffective as it is abhorrent.' It's a counter-productive way of getting information out of people because 'the imposition of severe and sustained stressors greatly impairs the capacity of the brain to appropriately regulate the expression of thoughts, emotions and behaviours.' Torture has 'disastrous effects on the brains of its victims'.
If you want someone to tell you something useful, don't wreck their memory. But given his disregard for facts, that may not be what Trump meant when he said he 'feels it works'. O'Mara writes:
The usual purpose of torture by state actors has not been the extraction of intentionally withheld information in the long-term memory systems of the noncompliant and unwilling. Instead, its purposes have been manifold: the extraction of confessions under duress, the subsequent validation of a suborned legal process by the predeterminedly guilty ('they confessed!'), the spreading of terror, the acquisition and maintenance of power, the denial of epistemic beliefs.
For those purposes, which we have every reason to fear are Trump's purposes, it works just fine. Victims of torture will tell you something, and probably something you want to hear, but there is no reason to think the information will be reliable, or what used to be called true.
Comments
-
26 January 2017
at
11:28am
Oliver Miles
says:
Discussion of this topic ought to take the legal situation into account. The USA like most of the rest of the world has repeatedly committed itself to the proposition that torture is wrong. One example is the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (no wonder these agreements are forgotten when they have titles like that) which was ratified by the USA in 1994. According to article 2 " No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture." Moreover "An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture."
-
26 January 2017
at
2:18pm
IPFreely
says:
It's the sheer arrogance of the man that is so breathtaking. Everybody else has got it wrong, but his sidekicks tell him torture works and he believes that it works so it works and he plans to use it... on whom? He also plans to open those 'black retention centres' in which the US held hundreds of suspects without trial before spiriting them off to Guantanamo. "The world is in a mess" was his considered judgement in an interview yesterday, so he's going to make it a better place to live in by torturing IS captives?
-
26 January 2017
at
4:55pm
whisperit
says:
@
IPFreely
Yes, well, Trump's pathological narcissism is reflected in his pronouncements and only too transparently expresses, not of any external truth, but only his damaged self. And so when he declares:
-
26 January 2017
at
5:19pm
streetsj
says:
I am not advocating it but surely torture works sometimes. And not even torture but the threat of it. I feel certain it would work on me. It may not work on trained soldiers (loosely defined) or fanatics but I'm sure it would be efficacious on most ordinary people. One particular nightmare I have is being tortured when I don't have the answer to give.
-
26 January 2017
at
7:09pm
David Gordon
says:
@
streetsj
Dear Streetsj, no, absolutely no, it does not work. What part of the original post did you fail to read? No, it does not work. Your belief that it might work on you is (a) wrong and (b) irrelevant.
-
31 January 2017
at
6:41pm
ikallicrates
says:
@
streetsj
Torture works only if the victim knows some secret that it would useful for his or her torturers to know. This is seldom if ever the case.
-
1 February 2017
at
8:58pm
James Harrison
says:
@
David Gordon
How can you be so sure? Have you ever been tortured? Most people would give in. Must people would say anything to stop the pain. Streetsj has a point and I feel you're wrong to dismiss there point of view like this.
-
26 January 2017
at
5:53pm
Graucho
says:
The first quote that always comes to mind with Mr.T. is "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel". Now we have a second one "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."
-
27 January 2017
at
3:01am
suetonius
says:
@
Graucho
To give him his due, that one is Isaac Asimov, from the Foundation Trilogy. I assume everyone knows who is responsible for the first quote :-)
-
27 January 2017
at
6:35am
FoolCount
says:
This whole argument - whether torture works or not - is utterly ridiculous and completely beside the point. It does not matter if it works or not - it is still illegal. And it is illegal not because of any doubts about its effectiveness, it is illegal because of conviction that it is abhorrent and inhumane. And it will remain abhorrent and inhumane, and should remain illegal, even when all the research and scientists will tell us that it is 100% effective. Those who argue against torture on the basis of its "not working" are only slightly less immoral than the torturers themselves.
-
27 January 2017
at
9:48am
streetsj
says:
@
FoolCount
I completely agree. Part of my point arguing that it can be effective is to point out that arguing otherwise is to undermine the reason for proscribing it. Its efficacy is irrelevant.
-
29 January 2017
at
7:32am
Joe Morison
says:
@
FoolCount
I disagree. It would be abhorrent no matter what, but it is only immoral because it doesn’t work - but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work sometimes. It is easy to construct a thought experiment in which torture is the right thing to do (unless you believe in a higher power/karmic order which will ensure everything is for the best as long as we just follow the rules), and it is no good Thomas Jones saying he knows of no real examples, nor do I, but there must have been innumerable when the wrong done in abusing someone was vastly outweighed by the good caused if you were to isolate the abuse and the resultant good from the bigger picture.
-
29 January 2017
at
2:34pm
Because the thought experiments that make torture obviously right (assuming no higher power), are just extreme examples of the sort of things that actually happen. For example, it beggars belief that there have not on many occasions been innocent victims who will die unless their location is revealed by someone who has been caught, a person who has nothing to lose but out of malice or wanting to hurt their captors will only talk under duress. I’m sure the French Resistance saved innocent lives with knowledge acquired through torture - German conscripts were a lot less prone to drawing things out with false stories than jihadis.
-
29 January 2017
at
3:18pm
How about the case of Galileo? Confronted with the threat of torture - he was, as they used to say, 'shown the instruments' as a preliminary to their application - he promptly disavowed his scientific discoveries. (See the Brecht play among other sources.) Does that count as 'working'?
-
29 January 2017
at
3:27pm
Joe Morison
says:
@
Gardiner Linda
Its effectiveness for ignoble ends seems to me indisputable. Look at Julius Caesar’s strategy in the Gallic Wars, untold terror and torture. Though in the long term that may have been part of the rottenness at the heart of the Empire that led to its decline and fall, in the short term it gave him exactly what he wanted - undisputed control of France
-
29 January 2017
at
5:32pm
Shane O'Mara seems to be the only academic source for "evidence" that torture doesn't work. It is clearly a very difficult area to study.
-
29 January 2017
at
9:14pm
David Gordon
says:
@
streetsj
Things may persist for millennia despite any evidence for their efficaciousness - religious belief, for example. And, exactly as with religion, the reason for persistence of torture may be the delight in power of the torturer (or the priest) rather than any evidence of utility, leaving aside the immorality.
-
30 January 2017
at
8:46am
Thomas, with all due respect (and I do not mean that ironically), I think that is just ridiculous. Are you really suggesting, to take one amongst endless examples, that when the Nazis conquered France their terror tactics and torture were not a key part their success? Some people might have held out under torture, some might have given false information, but so what? The Nazis didn’t care if false information led to innocents being shot, they probably thought that a good thing because it ramped up the terror. But I don’t see how you can think it didn’t often work and thereby greatly help them achieve their aims - in the very long run such inhumanity is a cancer that will destroy the regime that employs it, but in the short term it works. Do you think the USSR could have successfully controlled Hungary after the 56 uprising without all the terror and torture?
-
30 January 2017
at
10:39am
We agree that torture is effective in the short term if power is the only concern, and that it is a deeply counter-productive tactic in the West’s fight against fanatical terrorism. But why do you insist that in every case it is ineffective in the pursuit of noble ends? When the West captures a prisoner, it has got the time and resources to do the kind of interrogation that works - which seems to involve nothing more than a lot of talking, shared cigarettes, and an interrogator with a razor sharp mind. But, to take the example again, the French Resistance did not have those resources and were unlikely to have prisoners fanatical enough to resist - do you really think they never learnt vital information through torture? And, yes, the West’s recent use of torture against suspected terrorists has made the problem worse; but are you saying that it never produced useful information that saved lives?
-
30 January 2017
at
1:20pm
And I don't buy the neuroscientific argument that it can't work. It sounds right when talking about trying to extract deeply buried information through extensive periods torture; but, to go back to the Resistance, I'd imagine that it was mostly giving a captured soldiers a choice between a bullet in the head now, or something unpleasant and then a bullet. I assume a fair number chose the former and thereby, if not necessarily bad people, people doing bad things were made to give up information that saved lives.
-
31 January 2017
at
1:53pm
Mat Snow
says:
@
Joe Morison
Rome ruled Gaul in its entirety from the end of Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars in 51BC to its final fall to the Franks 500 years later. That's an awful lot of long term.
-
31 January 2017
at
5:27pm
decleva
says:
@
FoolCount
This is the only sane answer. All the rest is wrong. If you accept the discussion, you have already accepted that this issue can be discussed (a honest discussion means that you agree you may be conviced by your opponent's argumets). We don't care a damn if it works or not.If you accept torture, you cease to be a human being. It's a categorical moral imperative
-
1 February 2017
at
5:40am
jcarveth
says:
It doesn't matter if something is illegal. Psychopaths do whatever they want. The Obama administration's drone bombs murdered children in the Middle East without pause for eight years. Trump harms whenever he wants to as well. So do most parents to their children, and almost everyone because people, for the most part, value behaviors over discussions. When talking stops, death starts. As an aside, I would never need to be tortured. I'd tell all anytime to avoid harm. I'd tell stories, spill secrets, whatever they want to hear, ill say.
-
7 February 2017
at
2:12pm
xorg
says:
Torture may or may not work in terms of securing for the perpetrator what he or she wants, whether that be information, a recantation, or a regime of terror 'pour encourager les autres'. But, unless the perpetrator is a psychopath, he or she is affected as much by it as the victim is, just as the honest law enforcement officer is inevitably affected by having to shoot and kill a criminal. Soldiers do not come back from wars unaffected by having had to commit terrible acts of violence. Some are better able to to rationalise and internalise the trauma better than others.
Read moreSome people seem to believe that Trump will calm down and be just like any other President. Well, the time to wake up and work out how to stop is now.
"The world is a mess"
"The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer"
"We will make America wealthy again. We will make America proud again. We will make America safe again"
the infantilism of his desires is only too plain.
In this context, "facts" about the efficacy of torture, climate change, abortion etc etc are irrelevant. All that counts is the enormity of his emotional loss, and the corresponding strength of his desire to revenge it.
Also, doubly no, it is illegal, as well as being immoral and a waste of time. You have heard of the Geneva Conventions, and of International Humanitarian Law? If not, why not? (There is an interesting side issue on which nations have failed to sign up to all of the Geneva Conventions and additional protocols….)
So – tell Trump; don’t do something that is illegal, don’t encourage something that is immoral, and don’t waste anyone’s time.
When a member of a dissident group is captured by authorities, the first thing the remaining members of the group do is change all their plans so that the captured member won't be able to reveal anything useful to the authorities. This is standard practice for dissidents. The authorities know this is standard practice. The authorities don't torture captured dissidents in the hope of extracting useful information from them. They torture them as a warning to anyone who sympathises with the dissidents, and is tempted to join them.
Because even if it works sometimes, overall it is profoundly counter-productive; that is what makes it wrong. But, and this is the crucial point, it is not some kind of happy coincidence that it is both abhorrent and ineffective: what makes it abhorrent is precisely what makes it ineffective, they are two sides of the same coin - to permit something that is so hateful must make the world a worse place, even if in the short term it can make bits of it better (that, I think, is what we instinctively feel with such force when we are repulsed by people not feeling it).
People who thought torture might have worked but argue against it because it doesn’t work are not immoral, they are stupid in the way of someone who seriously contemplated smashing their knee with a hammer to distract themself from the pain of their headache; people who argue for torture on the ground that it works sometimes are stupid in the way someone is who argues that playing Russian Roulette for money is a good career move just because it is sometimes very profitable.
I think that denying the truth that it sometimes works empowers pro-torturers. Pointing to one falsehood, they feel more justified walking away from the whole argument.
It seems unlikely to me that the use of torture would persist over centuries if it was never efficacious. Clearly it won't always work and it is unreliable but to claim it never works is stretching it. The point O'Mara seems to be making is once you've tortured somebody then it's not going to work. When torture might seem to work is at the "show him the instruments" stage.
Anyway here's a link to an article quoting various sources accepting that it can work
https://www.ft.com/content/8eb061a4-e6de-11df-8894-00144feab49a
In the case of the FT article you quote, I dismiss it because of the author. John Lloyd once wrote an article supporting Gordon Brown over the Laura Spence affair, and one hopelessly wrong article by a hack makes all his or her other articles pretty well worthless.
(And as for Galileo, the threat of torture worked. They didn't want the truth, they wanted a recantation, and they got it.)
Torture is immoral, abhorrent, and counter-productive; but none of that means it doesn’t work sometimes.
Torture might gain the perpetrator a short-term tactical advantage, but humanity suffers long term damage.