Good Germans

[sabotabby]

By now, it probably isn't news to anyone that the U.S. tortures people. (Arguably, every state, democratic and despotic alike, tortures people, but for the moment, let's stick to the glaring, obvious examples.) It probably isn't news to anyone that the U.S. tortures its own citizens, even when said citizens have not been convicted of any crime.

If you haven't read the New York Times article about Jose Padilla, go read it now. I'll wait.

Read it? Good. At the risk of sounding a bit like Bush, if you're not against what has been done to this man—with every fibre of your being— you're against humans. Anyone who believes that there can be "compromise" about torture ought to be exiled from human society. Period.

But that isn't enough, because presumably, we're all against torture. We are also mostly complicit in it, and it's that complicity that I keep thinking about, in my usual haphazard sort of way.

There are different levels of complicity, from participating directly to paying taxes that fund torture to remaining silent even when one is strongly opposed to violations of human rights. The last is the trickiest, because what defines silence? It's all very well to go to demos or rant on LJ, but as an activist in Canada, I risk absolutely nothing and contribute about the same. (That wasn't self-deprecation, by the way. I have good intentions.)

I recently saw Das Experiment, which got me thinking about the Stanford Prison Experiment. Here is an interview with Philip Zimbardo, wherein he blows the "bad apple" theory of Abu Ghraib out of the water. He talks about why ordinary people can participate in evil acts, and also how these acts are enabled by the inaction of others. It'd be cliché ("evil triumphs when good men do nothing") except that Abu Ghraib is such a recent, glaring example of the phenomenon that the Stanford Prison Experiment examined.

In Das Experiment, one naturally identifies with the prisoners, and perhaps with the one "good guard" who tries to stop the abuse. But in the actual experiment, as in the film, the "guards" are chosen at random. Zimbardo says:

We like to think we're good, and down deep we'd all like to say, "I would be the heroic one. I would be the one who would blow the whistle." The limit of the situationist approach comes when we see these heroes, because it appears that somehow they have something in them that the majority doesn't. We don't know what that special quality is. Certainly it's something we want to study. We want to be able to identify it so we can nurture it and teach it to our children and to others in our society.

Similarly, as good leftists, we can identify with the villagers slaughtered in the My Lai massacre. Perhaps we like to imagine ourselves as Hugh Thompson Jr. But in a position where we are forced to choose between our own careers, freedom, and possibly our lives, we ought to ask ourselves whether we'd make the choice that he did.

On a personal note, I have been fortunate to witness very few acts of group cruelty. When I've been invited to participate in them, I've mostly resisted or abstained. The extent to which I've resisted is proportionate to what I have to lose; when wrong acts or beliefs are perpetrated by people I don't care about very much (say, schoolmates or the estranged part of my family), I've tended to oppose them. When it has to do with, say, the activist community, I've tended to stand aside, since the ramifications of resisting are worse. It's quite easy to mouth off to my father's family when they're being racist; it's much harder when a community of friends turns on one individual and asks you to take sides.

A bunch of you have linked to the story of Jerry Klein, whose radio hoax recently showed just how many good Americans were willing to inflict on Muslims the type of atrocities that make baby Godwin cry: tattoos, armbands, concentration camps. Some of you are shocked. Most of you aren't. One shouldn't underestimate tribal, casual brutality, after all.

A few years ago, I took the short bus ride from Weimar, Germany, to the Buchenwald concentration camp. I emphasize that it was a short bus ride. People in Weimar claimed that they didn't know what was going on 15 minutes away; they apparently didn't wonder where all the ash was coming from. For this, we call them "Good Germans," and we like to think that we'd do better than that.

We also like to think that we'd do better than the good Americans who want to put Muslims behind razor wire. But we know about the camps. We know about the torture. We know about what U.S. tax dollars (and the silent complicity of other governments and nations) did to Jose Padilla. We know that a great many ordinary people would support further abuses. We are, by and large, not doing anything about it.

I'm not sure if this post is a wail of despair or a call for revolution. Sometimes the two are indistinguishable.

Comments

[violachic.livejournal.com]

As usual, fantastic post- beautifully articulated. Thanks.

[sabotabby]

Nah, thank you. You've actually Done Stuff.

[misfratz.livejournal.com]

Fuck, that is horrible. You hope never to even hear of an animal having their spirit destroyed so deliberately, let alone a person. I'm wondering what can be done for him, now, after this, even if he gets out. Would he be able to recover? I'm not sure he would.

One thing that maybe needs to happen is some kind of cultural propogation of the Nuremberg principles to all sections of society. Although the trouble would be that nutters would argue 'complicity' applies to their personal issues like abortion and suchlike, on the larger scale, the notion that failure to act against torture is also to be partly responsible is a good one. We've tried using the principles over here to argue in court about things like the Iraq war (civilian attacks) and Trident, but no success so far.

Actually, I've no idea what to do. I nearly threw up at the picture of his feet going through the little flap to be chained up- like some kind of machine. He needs to be broken out somehow. I'm too much of a coward to do it. Aaargh. Fuck. Sorry.

[sabotabby]

When I first read that article, I immediately wondered whether it would be possible to break him out of there and hide him in my closet or something. Then I realized that I don't have a closet and I don't know the first thing about breaking people out of maximum-security prisons. *le sigh*

The thing is, while it's a comparatively small segment of society that is actually torturing and killing people, they're only able to do it while most of us either do nothing or wallow in apathy. Complicity is the norm, which makes it impossible to apply the Nuremberg principles—who's doing the judging? The arguing? I don't know what the solution is, really.

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

Your last sentence sums it up. Those among us who feel we can do better than be "good Germans" (though certainly the Germans have no monopoly on the behaviour, no more than Americans) are forever disappointed in their surmise, yet remain resolved that we should do better.

[sabotabby]

Pretty much.

[arianadii.livejournal.com]

That is truly horrifying and what the U.S. has come to represent is horrifying. They can keep him there forever without a trial and he basically has no rights at all.

These things keep me up at nght and I do not understand anyone who condones or excuses it let alone thinks it's a good idea. Apathy and narcissism are destroying the collective human spirit.

I had read the radio hoax story. That could be me. Those callers
want to do that to me and my family. I can't even describe the sinking feeling. I wonder if I should trust my neighbors. Do they see me as human or think I should be tattooed and put in a cage?

[sabotabby]

Sixty years ago, it would have been me. Now it could be a hell of a lot of my friends. (And even if it were complete strangers, it would still be someone.)

I'm pretty sure that I know people who, given the protection of anonymity and distance, would think it's okay to tattoo people and put them in cages. I sort of want to know who those people are, so that I can avoid them, and I kinda don't want to know because it's too disturbing.

[purveyorofchaos.livejournal.com]

I find it interesting that you brought up Das Experiment, as I've been having quite a few discussions about it and the Stanford Prison Trials with people. The oddest part is that we have been having the same discussion about it once every six months to a year for the past 3 years or so and they don't seem to remember what was discussed each time.

Maybe someone should do a study on memory loss in intellectuals. Or in the way human brains ignore the nasty bits in order to think everything is going fine.

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

Chomsky talks about this "memory loss" in liberal intellectuals quite regularly.

[wlach.livejournal.com]

Hmm.

I basically agree with what you say here, but I think referencing The Stanford Prison Experiment and especially Das Experimente weakens your case. The actual experiment had some serious methodological problems (the researcher participating as a guard, for starters). Das Experimente is basically an extreme dramatization of something that's already kind of flawed.

[sabotabby]

I don't think the experiment itself proves anything so much as it posits something. It creates a power imbalance (one that's quite common), and suggests that given time, a few people in positions of power will act sadistically, more will follow that lead, many will observe and not do anything, and a few people will resist. The Stanford Prison Experiment couldn't prove that (even if the methodology wasn't problematic—and I agree that it is—one couldn't legally set up an experiment like that and allow it to reach its logical conclusion), but enough real life examples, like Abu Ghraib and My Lai, strongly point to the same conclusion.

[aaronfreed.livejournal.com]

fantastic post.

[sabotabby]

Thanks.

Incidentally (reading your post on the Klein thing and Beck), I find it interesting that Beck references The Siege, which is possibly one of my most hated movies ever. It sets up the whole Good Arab/Bad Arab dynamic that Beck is utterly obsessed with (the Good Arab isn't Muslim, but I doubt most viewers cared or noticed), and straddled the line about the morality of concentration camps. I bet he's seen it a hundred times. Ugh.

[sadie-sabot.livejournal.com]

can I link to this post?

[sabotabby]

But of course.

[goodlookinout.livejournal.com]

As always, this post was really great... you compile ideas and say things much better than I ever could. Thanks.

[sabotabby]

Heh. I babble and sometimes it comes out okay.

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

An excellent post. Gah. Scary and depressing.

Wish I knew what the answer was.

Those of us who want to do something - I expect there are rather a lot - even those who do do something (on this and/or other things), even if it is only signing a petition or going on a demo - it is so easy to feel helpless. You go on a demo, maybe you write a letter - then what? Another demo? Another letter? So I get depressed and end up not even doing that.

Ah, many thoughts, not sure how to order them all.

But even an LJ post is something. Making people aware and making people think is good.

[sabotabby]

Well, you've been in the line of fire, which is a lot more than an LJ post. It isn't the only answer, but it's a good one.

I think demos do have their place. I just get frustrated as hell. At the last demo I went to (a Gaza solidarity thing), I agreed with most of the speakers and then thought, "Well, so what? There are 50 or so people gathered here in the freezing cold, a lot of whom have some very similar ideas and passions—might it not be a good time to do suggest something concrete to do?"

[ironed_orchid]

Fantastic, articulate post.

if you're not against what has been done to this man—with every fibre of your being— you're against humans.

This is why I'm not afraid to be a moral absolutist - because as far as I'm concerned it's never ok to treat human beings in such a manner.

[sabotabby]

It's odd, because I'm not a moral absolutist about killing. Killing is sometimes necessary; rape and torture are always gratuitous.

...

[andreazenith.livejournal.com]

I replied in my LJ- I feel like my response is a little too personal to share with a lot of other peeps. *wry grins* Here's the link: http://andreazenith.livejournal.com/56479.html (http://andreazenith.livejournal.com/56479.html).

[ghostwes.livejournal.com]

I don't know what to tell you... I've been thinking about these things for years now. Before 9/11 even.

I suppose it may be some consolation that many of the descendants of said "Good Germans" are now rightly pissed about what has happened to Khaled El-Masri, who was kidnapped by the CIA from their very soil and treated not much better than Padilla. So, perhaps there is progress, albeit too slow to detect sometimes.

However, the fact that Americans have not learned from the mistakes of the "Good Germans" before them, etc ad infinitum does not leave me with much hope for the species. Collectively, we are fucking retarded.

[ghostwes.livejournal.com]

Apologies, El-Masri was taken from Macedonia rather than Germany. He is a German citizen, however.

[derrick-reeves.livejournal.com]

I don't really agree with the assumptions you're using in this piece, but going through all of our differences would be lengthy and probably misplaced. I'll limit myself to just one point.

There's a big difference between a wail of despair and a call for revolution. Wailing is simply expressing one's feelings about the outcomes in society. To call for revolution is to analyse these outcomes, identify their causes, and develop a programme for eliminating those causes.
Not being able to tell one from the other indicates a dangerous lack of perspective. It's dangerous because acting on the basis of wailing will only consume energy without creating real changes. It's dangerous because thinking that real calls for revolution are mere wailing leads to isolation and defeat in detail.

Your piece, I'm afraid, is just wailing. As such, it serves only to muddy the waters.

[sabotabby]

Your comment, I'm afraid, confuses revolutionary programmes with rhetorical flourish.

Clearly, if I had a workable revolutionary programme, I'd be out overthrowing the government rather than ranting on LJ. (And if I had the means to conduct a revolution, I certainly wouldn't mention it in a forum that can be so easily traced to my real name.)

I've been told before that my typing is dangerous because it is helping the Taliban win in Afghanistan, but never that my typing is standing in the way of international proletariat revolution. Perhaps I've underestimated the power of my typing, and should commit more time and energy to it. This said, I think there's a difference between calling for revolution (given the unlikelihood of the circumstances I have described changing via the goodwill of our leaders) and coming up with a Five Year Plan.

What Wailing Does

[zingerella.livejournal.com]

There's a vast gulf between saying "This should not happen" and making a world in which such things do not happen.

You've identified this, with your wailing:call to action dichotomy.

However, I believe there's value to articulating that something is WRONG and saying it loudly and frequently.

One voice in a crowd is a lonely thing. Fifty voices in a big city can make a nice little party with some valuable conversations. A million voices saying and writing and shouting the same thing makes a mighty roar.

And when you're prepared to back your voiced outrage up with action: with a letter to your representative in government, with a vote, with a teach-in, with a home for a refugee or a donation to a cause or writing or journalism, with risking what you have for the sake of what you believe (on the personal level or in the Grand Political theatre) you're doing something.

When you teach a friend or a student or a child how to voice their outrage, when you present an example of living by your principles even when it costs you something dear to you, when you tell the world what's going on, you're doing something.

It will never feel like enough, alas. People are really good at doing And it may not be enough (though I'd volunteer my closet, if you needed it, and build you another). But it is something.

If nobody ever says "This is wrong." out loud, then how will we find each other?

Re: What Wailing Does

[sabotabby]

I suppose I tend to get lost somewhere between outrage and action. I blame, in part, the culture of action or activism as it stands in the West. One meme, "be the change you want to see in the world," and its variations, reduces social problems to an individual level, which is ultimately ineffective. It leads to people doing absolutely nothing but claiming that by "being good people," they are somehow subtly making the world a nicer place. Yay.

The opposing argument, that change can only be accomplished through mass movements, also renders people impotent because these mass movements don't exist as such, and amount to several thousand people in the streets shouting that war is bad. Also, yay.

It's because of this that smaller, winnable battles are so appealing.

[esizzle.livejournal.com]

I liked reading this cause you put together some great points, some stuff that I have been thinking about before, and some stuff that never occured to me.

It's tough to be a cosmopolitan or a "global citizen" (if there is such a thing). There will always be as many wrongdoings in the world as there are people. So we will always be complicit to silence somehow. The only thing left that we can do, I think, is only our fair share. I dont believe any person has a moral obligation to dedicate our whole life to fighting crime, not directly anyway. I think that people who take the time to think about issues as you do, but hold regular day jobs are the people who bring dialogue and awareness of these problems into other people's day-to-day lives. To me that is the most basic and most needed step, and the only step within our individual powers. The rest is just a timely but inevitable process.

[sabotabby]

I don't let myself off that easy. ;)