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View Full Version : Zero Dark Thirty and the Torture "Debate"




Occam's Banana
01-28-2013, 07:56 AM
Slavoj Žižek @ the Guardian: Zero Dark Thirty: Hollywood's Gift to American Power (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/25/zero-dark-thirty-normalises-torture-unjustifiable)

FTA: Debating Torture Is Like Debating Whether Rape is Good (http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/01/debating-torture-is-like-debating-whether-rape-is-good.html)

[...] Zero Dark Thirty is CIA-sponsored government propaganda (http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/01/the-cia-and-other-government-agencies-dominate-hollywood-movies-and-television.html). But the filmmaker – Katheryn Bigelow – claims (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-0116-bigelow-zero-dark-thirty-20130116,0,5937785.story) that it’s a “complicated” issue that can’t be oversimplified. [...]


With torture, one should not “think” [about trade-offs involved in a "complex" issue]. A parallel with rape imposes itself here: what if a film were to show a brutal rape in the same neutral way, claiming that one should avoid cheap moralism and start to think about rape in all its complexity? Our guts tell us that there is something terribly wrong here; I would like to live in a society where rape is simply considered unacceptable, so that anyone who argues for it appears an eccentric idiot, not in a society where one has to argue against it. The same goes for torture: a sign of ethical progress is the fact that torture is “dogmatically” rejected as repulsive, without any need for argument.

Žižek also notes that the pro-torture crowd argues that it’s just real life … so we should discuss it:


So what about the “realist” argument: torture has always existed, so is it not better to at least talk publicly about it? This, exactly, is the problem. If torture was always going on, why are those in power now telling us openly about it? There is only one answer: to normalise it, to lower our ethical standards.

[...]


Imagine a documentary that depicted the Holocaust in a cool, disinterested way as a big industrial-logistic operation, focusing on the technical problems involved (transport, disposal of the bodies, preventing panic among the prisoners to be gassed). Such a film would either embody a deeply immoral fascination with its topic, or it would count on the obscene neutrality of its style to engender dismay and horror in spectators. Where is Bigelow here?

Without a shadow of a doubt, [Bigelow] is on the side of the normalisation of torture.

H/T: LewRockwell.com (http://lewrockwell.com/spl5/debating-torture-debating-rape.html)

otherone
01-28-2013, 08:00 AM
Ok. For the pro-torture crowd....is it acceptable to rape or sexually assault a female prisoner if that will yield compliance? How about sodomize a male or female detainee?

moostraks
01-28-2013, 08:57 AM
Interesting links. On a similar note of moral disintegration involving the rape issue. Local OH story about rape put up on facebook, radio host did not argue about rape being wrong but that when one does perform such acts they beware posting it on facebook. His repetitve argument was that parents talk to their children. No, not about respecting the rights of other people and their bodies, or the sacred nature of sex between willing parties, but that they should not be so hasty to post their videos on the web. Normalization of brutal acts of aggression are prevalent in all forms of media once one's eyes are open to the nature of the media beast. Living on auto pilot one doesn't question what they are being bombarded with and that is what makes the aware dangerous to the agenda of those who pull the strings.

This use of the media is why those who seek a relationship with a higher power tune out the media and pull the plug. It is also why social services is determined to keep people on the media teet. If one is constantly allowing their families to be bombarded by this propaganda then they are more likely to accept slippery values and state authority. Look at they types of people they go after as cult members. It is fine if one cheers for the state and becomes a state cult member but it is dangerous if one puts non-state entities ahead of state authority. To even give the wrong gov't lackey the impression one is not enamored with state authority is to put a bulls eye on your head. I say this with experience...