A review by ayla_derammelaere
The Big Book of Pain: Torture & Punishment Through History by Mark P. Donnelly, Daniel Diehl
adventurous
dark
informative
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
5.0
Spoiler
I have always been intruiged by torture, not as a way to do it myself but to understand how we get to this point. This book answered my questions : it gives an overview of a variation of torture tecnics and places it into time, even mentioning how the people reacted to this. It made me feel quiet and pensive, trying to understand a side of humans that we wish to pretend doesn't exist.
"Wherever weak, fearful people struggle to retain their grip on power, there is an almost unlimited capacity to inflict pain and suffering in the name of the greater good." - Mark Donnelly & Daniel Diehl
"What all those present knew that the prisoner did not, was that there were 5 distinct phases of torture :
1. The prisoner was threatened with torture.
2. He was shown the implements of torture.
3. He was stripped and blindfolded.
4. He was tortured.
5. He was given another chance to confess.
If they still insisted on their innocence, phase 4 and 5 would be repeated i definitly, until he or she either talked or died.
This process was administered without distinction to age, sex or social condition and the methods of torture used were completely random, being limited only by the whim of the Inquisitor, the inspector and the type of equipment available." - Mark Donnelly & Daniel Diehl
The book gives us a historical view of what types of torture was being used, both in time and by a certain people. It shows us how torture evolved together with our knowledge of how the human body works and what it can endure.
"Before physical brutality can qualify as torture, it must be inflicted with very specific goals in mind.. when an assault is not happening under any kind of governmental, military or judicial authority, the assault is not technically torture.. By bringing a legal sanction into the equation, those involved in ordering or administring torture provide themselves with the advantage of removing the taint of personal guilt :"I was only following orders." " - Mark Donnelly & Daniel Diehl
"If we are to be completly honest, without at least the threat of physical violence and/or imprisonement, virtually no perpetrator would confess to their crime(s) and society would break down completly... That mankind has done so, is a fact. That we have known for more than 2000 years that confessions extracted under severe torture are virtually worthless and that torture as punishement does nothing to deter crime, makes this fact all the more tragic and appalling." - Mark Donnelly and Daniel Diehl
-> I think this sums up a lot about what is written in the book : when society has a lot of worries and our rulers are scared or anxious about the future, we bend our rules, we look for a scapegoat and, depending on how bad our own living circumstances have become, we are willing to harm another human being for the sake of our own well-being.
"In its earliest form, however, torture - in some greater or lesser form, as befits the crime - was usually practiced as a means of punishing actual wrongdoers.. But as time went on, and as the motive behind torture evolved from simple punishment to the need to extract information, the approach to the process of torture evolved." - Mark Donnelly & Daniel Diehl
-> torture started it out as a means to punish wrong-doers, with the punishment getting more severe with every following miss-step they've made. When the Cathlic Church became a huge influence in the world, a person could only be found guilty when they confessed (you can not punish an innocent) and the only way to be sure someone has done/was bad, was when they confessed. This shows us how a logical way of thinking that sounds resonable and sounds like it is in place to protect people, is used to explain away the use of torture : believing that God would keep an innocent safe, they assumed only the guilty would be convinced to confess when being tortured.
Not all torture was used against someone else : "Suffering - as an act of redemption (ex. flagellation) - became a religious act... Consequently, accepting a good flogging from the local priest, or inflicting self-flagellation, became nearly as common as means of expiating one's sins as going on pelgrimage or fasting." - Mark Donnelly & Daniel Diehl
-> the problem with these types of actions, is that certain forms of torture lost their aversion and became 'normal'
One of the things that we need to realize, is that the people wanted to see this happen, they wanted to be sure that, while living their own hard lives, wrong-doers would be punished.
"The same principle of sadism in ever-increasing doses applies equally to the mob as it does to torture masters and Inquisitors General... Satisfying the desire of the masses to see social misfits strung-up or dismembered was the motivating factor in making executions public in the first place." - Mark Donnelly & Daniel Diehl
We need to be careful and don't allow ourselves to think torture is a thing of the past : in some (third world) countries this is still reality for prisonners but we even don't need to look that far away : during war, our levels of humanity lower since we see our enemies as less than human ; we are in need to safeguard our ways of life so we are 'aloud' to torture those who threathen it. This happens in prison cells (Abu Graib Correctional Facility) but experiments in psychology have taught us that (almost) everyone is capable of torturing another (human) being in the 'right' circumstances.
We need to keep thinking about our actions and warn ourselves not to justify actions because 'others do it aswell' or 'I was told to do it'.