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Friday, March 02, 2007

Torture: I'm Against It

Well, that does seem obvious, I suppose. But this winter, ABC News was doing their Basic Instincts series, and they broadcast a piece on The Science of Evil. They replicated the Milgram experiment:
"The Milgram experiment was a series of famous scientific studies of social psychology, intended to measure the willingness of a participant to obey an authority who instructs the participant to do something that may conflict with the participant's personal conscience."

Then I discovered Ella Mazel. She is a...vintage woman who, in 1998, had put together a "treasury of quotes on the past, present, and future of the color line in America" called And don't call me a racist!, which a colleague of mine had received at a conference, and had given me a copy. Ms. Mazel doesn't sell the book, although she appreciates money for the postage.

Subsequently, she's compiled Not in MY name!, a collection of quotes on the past, present, and future of the practice of torture. Even without photos, or specific descriptions of torture, I found it to be a disturbing read. This latter book is available only online.

Finally, I found a compelling read which matched my opinion as to Why I Stopped Watching "24".

1 comment:

Greg said...

The biggest problem I have with anything being blamed on a fictional show (or movie, or song, or comic book, or any other entertainment venue) is that it speaks far more to the fuckedupness (if you'll pardon the language) of the people viewing or listening to it than the actual content. I watch it and recognize that it's complete trash, and I don't like the torture one bit. But I'm not going to assume that this is the way to handle things in the "real world." Duh. As for "hurting America's international image," perhaps the ACTUAL "torture" carried out by the Administration has something to do with that?