See, for me, the shocking thing about the torture of people at Guantanamo was linked to the fact that, as you point out, torture isn't at all as prevalent as it used to be.
Do you really think that this is true, though? That there's less torture in reality, or that it's just not publicized? I'm very much a cynic on this count. I think what happened at Guantanamo was awful, but I think those soldiers a're being censured for being stupid, for taking pictures and getting caught, rather than for mistreating the prisoners in the first place. I can't imagine that there aren't other prisoners being mistreated currently, but probably watched over by smarter jailers - and no cameras allowed on base.
I was a small child at the end of the Vietnam War and remember watching the soldiers actually engaged in battle on the news. As everyone knows, the unpopularity of that "conflict" was in large part due to the fact that non-military personnel were seeing for the first time what war was really about. That kind of access seems unimaginable now, and incredibly naive on the part of the military. [/old person bitterly reminiscing] Um, point...? Point: Seeing carnage on TV did not make people think shooting and being shot by inscrutable foreigners was okay; rather the opposite.
So far as fictional characters torturing one another, I suppose most semi-intelligent, reasonably-sane people can tolerate televised depictions of fictional torture much more readily and calmly than scenes of actual torture. There are a few photographs of actual terrible things that once seen I could never un-see, and some of those still continue to give me nightmares. However, I can't think of any fictional atrocity that has its hooks that deep into my head. There are people who can't tell fact from fiction, of course, but there's something wrong with them. I'm sure it's really difficult for a parent when a child turns out to be a sociopath, but it's still not TV's fault.
I need an icon for talking about torture. All of these are too shiny and colorful.
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Do you really think that this is true, though? That there's less torture in reality, or that it's just not publicized? I'm very much a cynic on this count. I think what happened at Guantanamo was awful, but I think those soldiers a're being censured for being stupid, for taking pictures and getting caught, rather than for mistreating the prisoners in the first place. I can't imagine that there aren't other prisoners being mistreated currently, but probably watched over by smarter jailers - and no cameras allowed on base.
I was a small child at the end of the Vietnam War and remember watching the soldiers actually engaged in battle on the news. As everyone knows, the unpopularity of that "conflict" was in large part due to the fact that non-military personnel were seeing for the first time what war was really about. That kind of access seems unimaginable now, and incredibly naive on the part of the military. [/old person bitterly reminiscing] Um, point...? Point: Seeing carnage on TV did not make people think shooting and being shot by inscrutable foreigners was okay; rather the opposite.
So far as fictional characters torturing one another, I suppose most semi-intelligent, reasonably-sane people can tolerate televised depictions of fictional torture much more readily and calmly than scenes of actual torture. There are a few photographs of actual terrible things that once seen I could never un-see, and some of those still continue to give me nightmares. However, I can't think of any fictional atrocity that has its hooks that deep into my head. There are people who can't tell fact from fiction, of course, but there's something wrong with them. I'm sure it's really difficult for a parent when a child turns out to be a sociopath, but it's still not TV's fault.
I need an icon for talking about torture. All of these are too shiny and colorful.