“THE STRUCTURE OF TORTURE” TORY HARTMANN ELAINE SCARRY’S COMMENTS

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“The Structure of Torture” Tory Hartmann


Elaine Scarry’s comments on the words that we use to describe torture provide the basis for great insight into the institution as a whole. She contends that torture is, undeniably, both a physical and a verbal act. She points out that the verbal act is often divided into the “question” component, provided by the torturer, and the “answer” component, provided by the tortured. She then argues that these words do not adequately describe the institution, that, in fact, they distort it. The idea of a “question,” she claims gives people the impression that there is a legitimate motive behind torture; that is, to find out an answer, to have the tortured bear witness to the fact of his “betrayal.” She says that these verbal cues begin to “credit… the torturers.” (35)

I found this argument rather fascinating because it made me think of Bruce Lincoln’s hypothesis about how people legitimate violence. This idea also reappears in Scarry’s piece toward the end when she writes about the methods that Nazi guards used to dehumanize their victims. I remember once reading a quotation from Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality, which essentially said, “The wealthy or powerful make the rules that nobody questions.” If we extend that quotation to include language under “the rules” made by the wealthy, I think that this quotation is applicable to Scarry’s argument. In fact, this idea is central to what Scarry means when she says, “almost anyone looking at the physical act of torture would be immediately appalled…by the torturers,” yet when we discuss torture in terms like “question” and “answer,” we legitimate the idea that torture is an acceptable means to realizing the goal of finding the “truth.” (35) In other words, not only do the torturers use tame and blasé words to describe the horrors that they are inflicting, but we, the bystanders, are using mundane words to describe one of the most integral processes as well.

The importance of words is fascinating because they provide such significant means to identification. I am interested to learn by what names or modes of identification torturers address their victims—Scarry does not discuss this question in her chapter, but it seems to me that in a series of interrogations (complete with immense physical violence), a torturer must really repress his human instinct to get to know his victim. I would imagine that if the torturer would like to maintain his distance from his victim, he would have to refer to him by something other than a human name. Scarry does, however, list examples of names that torturers around the world have used for the places and instruments that they use to complete their violent acts. She talks about “the ‘tea party’ and ‘Motorola’” in Greece, arguing that by making this quotidian words euphemisms for torture allows the torturer to discard his or her natural sentiment to pity the tortured. (44) In other words, these euphemisms make the pain felt by the tortured “inaudible.” (44)

Rousseau’s idea that the powerful make the rules is central not only to the language that we use to describe torture, but to the act itself. As Scarry and other authors have noted, torture is used not only as a means of punishment or of finding an “answer” to a “question,” but also as a public spectacle that will show other people the power of the torturer. Power dynamics are, as in most acts of violence, central to the practice of torture. Like other forms of violence, there is the classic dehumanization of the victim process in which the victim and the victimizer become not only two distinct entities, but two unrelated ones. I was really interested to read Scarry’s comments on the objectification of the victim in contrast with the “de-objectification” of objects. That is, the way in which torturers all over the world commonly use everyday objects like refrigerators as weapons. This idea is particularly compelling because of its vast psychological implications.

It seems to me that if one were to experience the terror of torture and extreme suffering caused by something as mundane as having to stand for a given period of time straight, then even once the physical effects subside, the psychological compulsions will not. It seems to me that the torturers are not just torturing for the present—by turning the entire world, the entire existence, of their victim upside down, they are destroying their future. This destruction will not only manifest in ways like PTSD, but also in that they will not be able to look at any of these banal objects in such a way ever again. Torture is an extremely devastating form of violence because it shatters the entire conception of the world that was once held by the victim.

Another point at which I was reminded of Bruce Lincoln was when Scarry described the interrogation as “a vehicle of self-betrayal” on the part of the tortured. (47) Torture is an extremely complex subject because in order to argue that it would a self-betrayal to confess to something, one must assert that it is not self-betrayal to continue to allow oneself to be tortured. Does this mean that if a person is tortured for information and refuses to grant it that he is responsible for his own pain and suffering? This paradox is realized because clearly people who are in immense physical pain and live in constant fear of its resurgence must question their values and that extends the responsibility from the torturer to the tortured. The reason why I thought of Lincoln is because he discussed the religious context of people who legitimate violence done on them by thinking that it was caused by something they themselves did—something which caused them to fall out of the favor of the gods. Thus, when Scarry argues that interrogation provides a “vehicle of self-betrayal” to the victim, she asserts that the interrogation enhances the physical pain because it makes it seems as though it is self-controlled by the victim.

This chapter expands the typical understanding of torture by focusing on language and the role of the interrogation in torture. Although she does not make particularly controversial statements, her chapter provides a great deal of insight into the worldwide use of torture and raises many questions about whether its use is tacitly legitimized vis-à-vis the language we use to describe it.


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