In Defense of Torture
I am sure many people are already rolling their eyes at such an indulgent title. You may want to say that torture is wrong. Period. End of story. Any inquiry into its purposes and meaning only opens the door to making it permissible. Torture, you may want to say, is indefensible all the time, no matter what. Even if you do not want to think such things, the Catholic Church seems to say that much or more. So why, then, would we even entertain defending it? Shouldn’t we quarantine it from our thoughts and actions?
The answer I have is theological. You see, we adore a tortured Christ. This is not to say that the torture of Jesus somehow justifies torture—not even close. What I am saying is that breaking of the Body and the flowing of the Blood of Christ are deeply attached to the sacred mystery of our faith. God being put to a death under the clear-cut conditions of torture is real and we should not turn away from the idea of it in daily life. To close the door completely, so to speak, on torture would require forgetting the raw, bleeding flesh of His sacred, bloody death.
So, beginning with the need to never, ever, forget the torture of Christ we must enter into a serious discussion of what it means to torture each other today as we continue to wrestle with the overwhelming excess of the Incarnation.
We are often quick—too quick—to say how deprived torture-talk is, but it is deeply attractive to me. The problem, as I see it, is that dialogue has lost its edge, it has become rather Puritanical and even worse: More and more, we are just talking to ourselves and “saving the day” as we clash with the enemy.
In other words, my main dispute with many of the views (on both sides, since, after all, there are only two sides to everything) on torture is that they are too heroic. Those who oppose torture seem to be relishing in the cut-and-dry state of the issue (while they argue that abortion is not so cut-and-dry). Those who defend it seem to have convinced themselves that their cut-and-dry approach to life issues need not apply in this case for all kinds of tail-chasing reasons. Each side fights their fight with vigor and heroic immunity to the beliefs of the other side, because, after all: they are right and God is on their side.
That is too melodramatic, but it makes my point. Namely, that neither side cares much about asking—or entering into the mystery—of the actual events of torture and what they mean. What does it mean to do that to a person, to kill someone; even to eat someone?
Such ideas seem heinous and nasty to our sanitized intuitions, especially considering the bloodless lives we lead, but without a full appreciation of the meaning and mystery of human suffering and, most of all, the suffering of God, we may live in peace and harmony (though I highly doubt it), but that life will be sterile—flesh with no blood. We need the mystery of violence to understand the meaning of life.
We need torture. By this I mean we should talk, write, pray, and think about it in ways that plumb as deeply as we can, not that we should do it to people for whatever reason. Consequential arguments for and catechism quotes against are distractions to the sacred flesh of the matter: We need the Crucifix. We need the Eucharist.
Of course we (I) should never torture, but that is all beside the point. The real point is that we should never let it rest in the laurels of taboo. We should restlessly try to understand it whenever it comes up, none more frequently than the holy sacrifice of the Mass.
Interesting, Sam. I think your post gets at a subtle question beyond all the torture debates, which is – “Why do we even exist in the first place? What’s the point of life? Why are we doing what we’re doing, saying what we’re saying? Why, really?”
Thanks Nate. I am especially interested in how my view on the vitality of the Cross might contrast (if it does at all) with your noble, pacifist stance against violence and warfare.
As I see it, I am developing the idea that, perhaps, the pacifist movement is too much of the Quaker variety (quietist) and not Catholic (or Jewish) enough for my gory tastes.
Either way, thanks for your response, I thought it would generate more questions and criticism here, but, I guess polemics is more fun…
Not sure what to make of this post, to be honest. The cross is not there to fulfill anyone’s “gory tastes.” If that’s what one is after, any number of horror movies or heavy metal records will do the trick.
Liberal pacifists might be able to get away with omission of the cross, but the most robustly Catholic pacifists know the importance (or in your words, vitality) of the cross. On the cross the myth of redemptive violence was exposed once and for all, and the God of the oppressed was present as silent witness in solidarity with the victim, God’s Son. It is because, perhaps, of my own spirituality, which has always been quite focused on the cross, even as a child, that I ended up embracing pacifism.
Pacifists need a theology rooted in the cross, lest it be mere liberal passivism.
Michael, of course. The “gory taste” was a light way trying to say that, for me, the cross forces me into communion with a world as real and tragic as it is. Forgive the sloppy prose.
And sorry about finding my post odd, this seems to be a theme I have created here…
As for your point on pacifism, I too think of myself as something of a pacifist (whatever that means). I wonder, however, if such a stance (depending, of course, on the meaning of that “stance”) is too removing from the flux of human existence and, more importantly, the cross.
I am very moved by the hermeneutic you offered, it is something I have pondered quite a bit. However, it seems a bit too complete, too finished. It divides too neatly for my intuitions to feel like its real.
Does that make sense? I am ambivalent about this hard swing to purify ourselves of torture, because the Mass brings me face to face with it, over and over again. I need, we need, it desperately.
By the way, I never watch scary (or gory) movies or listen to that kind of music either…
I am ambivalent about this hard swing to purify ourselves of torture, because the Mass brings me face to face with it, over and over again.
This is the kind of statement that I’m not sure about. Actually, I’m just not sure what you mean by it. Are you saying that if we oppose torture, the inevitable result is that we will forget the cross? I’m not sure how that follows. It’s precisely the dangerous memory of Jesus’ torture and death that confronts us at each Mass (as well as the dangerous memory of his Resurrection by the Father) that draws us into solidarity with the Victim and the victims and into a stance of opposition.
Are you saying that we should not be so strong in our opposition to torture, lest we forget the cross? I sincerely just don’t really get what you’re saying. If you’re simply reminding us of the stark reality of the tortured and executed Christ and that we can’t purge our faith of the centrality of these events, then I get you. But I think you’re saying more than that. Just not sure what.
By the way, I never watch scary (or gory) movies or listen to that kind of music either…
I dig the music sometimes. I also dig Bacon’s series of crucifixion paintings. I think you’re right to point to what has been called “Catholic morbidity.” :)
Now were cooking with oil! Good. I see your point. I will address in a full post very soon, but let me hint at the cards I’m playing.
I don’t see torture as a moral issue. In fact, I don’t see moral issues at all.
For me, all the moral sphere boils down to are aesthetics judgments. As such, torture is not a matter of what is permissible to do or even right of wrong—torture is about the ugly and its mystery. More coming very soon.
Thanks so much for engaging with me to jog my head understanding what I am trying to say…
For me, all the moral sphere boils down to are aesthetics judgments. As such, torture is not a matter of what is permissible to do or even right of wrong—torture is about the ugly and its mystery.
Hmm. I’ll look forward to your post but I am really suspicious of this category of “aesthetics,” especially when it intrudes upon Christian ethics.
Fair enough, although I should note that it need not be construed “that” way. By “that” I mean as destructive to the moral and ethical tradition of the Church.